Since being an entrepreneur, I realized a very important thing about myself. If I can’t SEE what I need to do on a regular basis, it’s impossible for me to achieve it. When I worked a full time job, one of the complaints I constantly had from my managers was that although I was good at making sales, I was horrible at completing all aspects of the tasks, completing things in a timely manner because I didn’t make daily to do lists.
Personally, I thought they were absolutely stupid for the A-Type personalities that weren’t creative or strong multi-taskers such as myself. (I sure was humble wasn’t I?) LOL I kept saying but I am beating them in all of my numbers, why not just hire someone to assist me with the admin stuff so that I could focus on sales. Although that was ideal, that NEVER happened. I was forced to learn how to not only manage my time but make sure that I was organized.
Those same habits followed me into entrepreneurship. For the first couple of month working full-time I slacked, didn’t get all of the tasks that I needed to complete done and my customers were super upset with me because we weren’t crossing all of our T’s and dotting our I’s. I KNEW I was the problem and not my team, so I decided to make some changes.
I recognized that I needed to plot out my days, weeks and months because I wasn’t going to do all of this everyday. So I purchased 2 dry erase boards, used 1 for my monthly goals and the other for the marketing strategy I needed to follow that month to accomplish my goals.
This caused me to have to strategically think about what I could accomplish doing the basics and then what could happen if I pushed myself. I wrote out all of my podcast and livestream topics for the month, products we would sell, and the marketing strategy for selling. Then everyday, I make a list of things that need to be accomplished for the day. This works WONDERS because some days I finish my to do list with like 6 hours to spare and I can either start on my list for the next day, OR take time out for me. Now, if its early in the week then I work on tasks, but as Friday approaches, I choose to take the time for me especially when its super nice outside.
What I am basically desiring for you to understand is that as an entrepreneur, personal accountability is VITAL and sometimes all you need is dry erase boards showing you what you need to do to keep yourself on track.
It definitely works wonders for me.