My friend Brian sent me an email the other day. Here’s how it went…
BRIAN:
Heather, Happy New year.
Hey I’ve got a question for you. I did some serious cleaning and deleting of stuff on computers and in the real closets this week. What I found is that I’m not nearly as good at being focused as I need to be.
You and your husband seem to have being focused and on task down to a tee. What is it that you do daily, monthly, yearly, to stay on task, focus, and make your goals reality?
Could be a good blog post…
your pal,
brian
ME: Totally! Thanks BTW. I feel like I’m all over the place sometimes.
I think the key is to hire and delegate as much as possible that can be delegated that doesn’t produce any result that would make you more money or allow you to do something you love to do, even just to get more sleep. Doing the things you love to do, and getting your needs met, stimulates creativity to then produce more monetary results.
It’s difficult for Americans to get this concept. In other countries it’s much more prevalent. People hire help all the time and many people are clamoring for jobs that can help.
If you make $10/hr, hire someone for $5/hr that can do a task for you. There are tons of outsourcing communities out there. Even Craigslist has people that will rake your leaves, or sweep your deck. Any kind of “busy work” has to be delegated because it takes up precious time.
I’ve had house keepers since I was living on my own at 18, making less than $2000/month. I split the cost 3 ways with my roommates and only had her come every other week, but it saved me hours of cleaning up after them (2 guys). I was broke, after I paid my rent, food, and other living expenses, but I made it a priority.
Now that our income has built up over the years, we outsource everything that we don’t enjoy. We have a housekeeper every week, a full time assistant, handymen, accountant, CPA, bookkeeper, you name it! I only do the things I like to do. No taking out garbage, doing dishes, returning things to the store, staying on hold for 20min to dispute a credit card charge.
Here are some sites to check out:
http://www.fiverr.com/ , http://www.domystuff.com, http://www.elance.com and Craigslist.
I use Craigslist and elance religiously. A la Four Hour Work Week. Read that book and The 80/20 Principle and apply it to every area of your life.
Also, we schedule every little detail in our schedules with an alarm and follow it. Plus keep things pretty routine. My appointments are always on the same day at the same time and I schedule them months in advance to make sure those times are reserved for me. I schedule when and what(or how) I’m going to eat, drink, sleep, hike, meet up with friends, travel, work on my blogs, organize stuff, plan, plan, plan, create, learn, pretty much everything except going to the bathroom. My alarm goes off constantly for me to shift gears. This way, I get all of my needs met, I’m my best self, and extraordinarily productive. Within the schedule there is spontaneity.
I mentioned planning 3 times. It’s is crucial. Planning, re-planning, planning again. Circumstances change but you can be somewhat prepared. It’s kind of like guessing in some ways because you never know the future, but when you put it out to the universe it almost always shows up in some for or another. Planning meals, times to eat, times to workout, times to have time in nature with friends, sleep, sleep and more sleep; you need to plan.
Also, we’re good at saying No. We ask ourselves, “Is this an effective use of my time?”. If not, we don’t do it. Like, (No offense) but if you didn’t say this would be a good blog article; I probably wouldn’t have responded to you until Sunday. But to me, that makes this response and effective use of my time in this moment. Sunday, I don’t have much going on, so if I was just hanging out, I would’ve responded to you then.
I think those are the main points. Hopefully that helps and makes sense. Start with something small and use that free time to plan, create, or move towards something that will generate more income to pay for that service. The help has to come before you can afford the help. I know it sounds backwards, but that’s the way it works. The money ALWAYS shows up to pay for it. Even if you can’t see how it’s possible.
BE committed to what you are doing and BE focused!
