Ever get to Friday and feel like you’ve accomplished nothing, even though you’ve been at your desk every day?
That's been me for many months. I’ve been working long hours 6 or 7 days a week but I wasn’t making any real progress. I’ve been busy but not productive if that makes sense. I've felt burned out, tired and bored.
They write about creating high-performance time by using a concept called time blocking.
You reserve these blocks on your calendar in advance. Here's how I arranged my working days.
At the start of strategic time I turned my phone off, closed my email, and shut the office door. I'd told Helen about my plan and she promised not to interrupt unless the house was on fire.
I can’t believe how much real valuable work I got done. This has been the most productive I’ve felt in years. I’ve worked hard but I'm energised even though the same work made me tired, bored and frustrated the previous week.
I used the last few minutes of strategic time to plan for what I was going to do in the next strategic block. That made for a running start the next day.
The buffer time on either side of the strategic block stopped me worrying that I was missing out on something that needed attention. Knowing that I would have time to take care of anything that came up made it much easier to focus on the real work during the strategic block.
I didn’t schedule out a breakout block but I’ll add that into the mix in the future.
I’ll stop now before I sound too evangelical. But it’s been a fantastic week and I wanted to share this with you in case you’ve suffered the same problem of working hard but getting nowhere.
Related articles
Leads ghosting you?
A business owner complained that his leads were ghosting (ignoring) him after initially showing interest. As we worked together we uncovered a mismatch between lead temperature and his response.
60 leads a week and no sales
Their first instinct was to change the adverts. It sort of makes sense. Adverts aren’t producing sales so the adverts must be broken. Fix the adverts and you'll get more sales.
But, they could change their ads, spend a load more money and get no sales. This is because the adverts might not be the real problem
Do I really need 7 websites?
Two groups of people visit your website: people who know what you sell and strangers who don't know you but want what you sell. One website can't serve both groups effectively.
Does PPC work for accountants?
The short answer is “Yes, but only sometimes”. Google suggests that AdWords will work for any business but this is not true in real life.
How do you test a business idea?
You don’t want to invest time and money on a business idea unless you’re sure that it’ll get traction. Read on to learn how to use Google Ads to test an idea before committing to it.
Is AdWords scaleable?
There are a finite number of people who want what you sell, can afford what you sell and are in an area you can reach. Some portion of those people will use Google. That number is the upper limit of AdWords scaleability.
Is AdWords worth it?
"Is Google Ads really worth it? I have found that through tracking my CPC, I am not having that much success." was asked on Quora. My answer saved below.
Selling to strangers is different
Ask 100 small business owners how they find customers and 99 of us will say "word-of-mouth". What we won't tell you is that our word-of-mouth marketing is not well tuned engine that spits out a steady stream of great prospects. They arrive by luck or magic.
The cost of zero.
Every small business owner needs to understand the cost of zero before they next invest in marketing. It does not matter what medium it is: Google Ads, Facebook, LinkedIn, magazines, radio, or anything else. The reason these campaigns fail so often is never as obvious as you might think.
Will Google Ads work?
Thinking about advertising on Google? There are thousands of people who've used Google Ads and never made a sale. You don't have to be one of them. Read on to learn how.
Zombie Hunting Wednesday 3pm. You in?
We’ve all got zombie leads. These are people we’ve quoted who haven't said yes. They haven’t said no either. Instead they’re ignoring us - our emails go unanswered and they’re always too busy to talk.
I can’t get to the decision maker.
"I‘ve got a great product but I can’t get to the decision maker." That’s a problem we smaller business owners face a lot. Can I tell you about how a former client of mine got the decision makers to come to her?
How to turn leads into sales.
Two businesses in the same industry. One converts 5% of website leads into sales. The other converts 60%. Read on to find out why.