Have you ever heard the saying ‘work always expands to fill the time available’? So what does that mean? It means that the longer you have to get something done, the longer you will take to do it.

One of my clients recently committed to taking every Friday off. He blocked out the time in his diary and guess what?  He gets the same amount of work done in the 4 days. Because we’ve been working together, his business is running much more effectively which has made it easy for Gary to step away.

On a recent walk I noticed that one of our local bakeries had closed down. There was a sign in the window saying that due to the passing of the owner, the shop was closed until further notice.

I had seen the owner a few times…he seemed to always be working and his physical condition looked awful. Unfortunately it was only a matter of time before something happened to him…and it did.

What are you focussing on achieving in your business in the next 90 days?

Do you have any idea? If you don’t then you better come up with a goal or outcome otherwise you may find that another 3 months has passed you by and you’re no further ahead than where you are right now.

When you’ve got a clear focus, you can easily say ‘no’ to activities and people who distract you.

Simple things like turning email and mobiles off, closing the door, working elsewhere and only having what you need to on your desk all help to stay focussed. However there’s often other areas that take you off track. ..and that you can be completely oblivious to!

Last year I facilitated a VIP Planning Day for a small accounting practice. During the course of the day we reviewed the progress they had made since the Planning Day we had the year before. As we were reflecting on their achievements before planning the coming 12 months,  one of the partners made the comment on how crucial their weekly meetings were.
When I first suggested they have regular weekly meetings, the same partner thought it was a waste of time. He was focussed on how much time it cost to have everyone stop work for that hour. Being an accountant he was always focussed on chargeable hours and if they are all in a meeting for an hour they are potentially losing in excess of $1000.

Have you ever worked in a cluttered environment and found yourself getting easily distracted, wasting time searching for information or just feeling overwhelmed?

Well clutter has that affect.  A messy environment creates a messy mind.

In fact The Wall Street Journal did a study some time ago and found the average ‘white collar’ worker spent 6 weeks a year looking for things around the office!

As an entrepreneur, you cannot afford to be so unproductive!

Jenny who is a coaching client told me that since removing the clutter from her home based office she is calmer, more relaxed and can concentrate on getting much more done than ever before.