The first full week of March is National Procrastination Week. In honor of that, I am publishing a daily blog with tips about how to deal with procrastination for each day this week. Here’s the fourth blog in the series…
Sometimes, procrastination is caused because your business isn’t organized. You put off starting a task because you can’t find the materials you need or you aren’t sure when that appointment was scheduled or when your next invoice is due to be sent.
As a solopreneur and small business owner, you may struggle to be organized. You spend the day spent bouncing from task to task with no billable hours completed. But it doesn’t have to be that way. You can get organized with your projects so you spend more time growing your business and serving your community. Here are four quick tips to help cull the chaos and create systems that help you manage procrastination:
Store Your Ideas
You had an idea for your next Kindle book or discovered a topic you were fired up to share with your community. The only problem is you lost your notes because you couldn’t remember what you called the file or where you put it.
I have been using a wonderful “finding” system since 1996, which enables me to find anything I file or store in 5 seconds or less. Click here to learn more. Check out my free webinar, Find Anything in 5 Seconds or Less, to see how it works.
Make It Easy to Book Appointments
If you offer services for clients, then you need a simple way to book appointments. Otherwise, you’ll spend a lot of time going back and forth over email or chat, trying to find a time that works for both your client and you.
Instead, create a calendar with free time periods on it through a service like TimeTrade. Clients can look at your schedule and see what appointment times that they’d like to book. You’ll get an email sent to you when anyone books time with you, so you don’t have to worry about missing important client meetings.
Don’t Miss Follow Up Opportunities
Not following up with a client or prospect can cause you to lose out on valuable opportunities. Don’t leave this to chance by hoping you’ll remember. Instead, simply put their name on your calendar so you remember to reach out to them again. If possible, have a digital reminder sent to your email so you know when it’s time to follow up.
I love FollowUpThen, which enables me to forward an email to myself and tell the system when I next want to see it, or to email myself with reminders that arrive exactly when I want them to. I can even set up daily or weekly reminders that will never end, until I instruct the system to stop sending them.
Pay attention to the tasks that you tend to procrastinate on. Then look for apps and websites that can complete the task for you quickly and easily.
Learn how to defeat procrastination and get things done when you download your free Dealing with Procrastination workbook here.
Did you like this article, Developing Systems to Help You Manage Procrastination? What systems have you thought of that could help keep you on track? Please comment below.
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