We hope everyone is having a great summer. Thank you to Francine Rodrigue for hosting our annual Barbecue. It was great to see so many of our members out as well as several past members.
We are looking forward to starting our new season in September. Our first meeting is Tuesday, September 8th, 9:00-10:30 am at K-C's Restaurant in Vars, and our evening meeting is Wednesday, September 30th.
We can’t touch it or see it, however we can measure it and event track it. SO DO YOU?
Just think about it this way…..we are all born into this world with the same amount of time in a day yet we have no way of knowing how many days, weeks, months or even years that we have available to us in our lifetime. For this reason, it is important to strive to be smart with our time and most importantly to be grateful with the time that we do have, so treat it with respect.
Time is actually the currency of business success and creating a sense of urgency around accomplishing tasks is the key to happier clients. Having a DMO or daily method of operation or a DAP daily action plan for any area of your life will lead to greater success results. Setting a daily goal to PLAN – DO – REVIEW will help you to continue to move forward to become more efficient and productive.
Step #1 is to evaluate or track your time, where you are spending it which will save you time because you are very clear on where it is being invested.
Step #2 is to create a task list and prioritize the 6 most important things to do using the 80/20 rule so that the most income producing activities are done first.
Step #3 is to plan and schedule blocks of time to start and stop a task, and remember that for every minute spent planning saves you 10 in the execution.
Step #4 is to create boundaries and become laser focused on 1 task at a time which can actually increase your productivity by 50%.
In the end, it is really a matter of respect – when you respect your time others will respect it also.
I challenge you to make every minute count as it is so precious which is why we call it the present.
Top What’s all the buzz about adult colouring books?
Think back to your childhood, a box of new, fresh crayons, paper just begging for a picture to be created. A picture of a house with the mom and dad, kids, maybe a dog, and the sun in a corner. Or maybe you preferred to draw a rainbow or cars and trucks or a princess.
Do you remember how colouring made you feel? How many hours did you spend at this activity, especially on a rainy day or when you were sick? Many of my childhood art pieces came back to me several years ago when my mother downsized and sold her house. I didn’t realize just how many pieces she had kept. What a hoot going through these. Do you have some of yours, or your children’s or grandchildren’s?
You’ve probably heard – and maybe even seen – all the hoopla out there about the new adult colouring books. Have you tried one?
Most are very intricate, which is the main difference from children’s colouring books. But not all are so detailed so you can pick one that suits you. Or make your own or even download pictures off the internet. Can you picture yourself picking up crayons, markers, or coloured pencils and giving it a try again after all these years? What colours are you drawn to? What designs do you like best?
Feel your breathing slow, your shoulders relax, that tension drain out as you focus on your colouring. There’s a reason colouring is so popular with children: it sparks our imagination, it’s expressive, it’s creative, it’s calming. These are all great benefits for us adults as we deal with life’s stresses. And it really doesn’t matter if we colour outside the lines or choose to make a cow purple. There are no rules. So just try it, let go of your inhibitions and enjoy.
Top Stress Management
As business owners and leaders, there is a lot of stress put on you. Some of it can be good stress such as striving for excellence or putting the finishing touches on a months-long undertaking. This kind of stress motivates you to do better, to stretch your limits and to take on new challenges. It is the kind of tension you need to pull you forward. It generates excitement and enthusiasm.
There is another kind of stress, a more negative kind. This second type can drain you of energy and passion for your work. Harmful stress wears you down. It is the kind of stress that gives you headaches, muscle pains and knots in your stomach. This stress disrupts your sleeping and eating patterns. Sometimes you’ll lose weight and not get enough sleep, for other people you may put on weight and be constantly tired. This kind of stress is a motivation killer. You force yourself to go to work grudgingly. The more you live with this kind of stress, the less likely you are to be healthy and successful. You will find yourself falling apart at the seams if you don’t change your habits and do so quickly.
Working hard to help those around you succeed can take a toll. Here are some tips to take some of the edge off of your stress:
Schedule slack in your schedule. You want to meet as many clients and colleagues as possible in a day. Realistically, scheduling meetings back to back to back to back all day, every day is unproductive. Some meetings run 5 minutes late. It happens. Without slack, your entire day’s schedule is off. By the end of the day, you’re likely running 30-45 minutes behind. That puts a lot of unnecessary pressure on you and can make you rush through conversations that should not be rushed.
Try to separate your meetings by 15-30 minutes. If you have to go to another location, give yourself 60 minutes. Use the downtime to clear your head, eat a healthy snack, take a quick walk around the block.
Schedule time for yourself. Business owners are always thinking of the next sale, the next networking event, the next chat with a potential client. In all of the planning involved, the person that tends to get overlooked is you. Block out time for yourself each week to do at least one activity that is not work related and that you enjoy. When you schedule around activities you are reminding yourself that you are a person outside of work. You have the right to have time for yourself.
Do not let bad habits replace good habits. A few examples: i) When we are stressed, it is easy to reach for junk food and keep working. It’s quicker and easier. Do that too often though and you’re health will suffer; ii) It is easier to drink high caffeine drinks to keep going than to take a nap or go to sleep for a reasonable amount of time. Chronic lack of sleep will lead to poorer concentration and lower productivity even if we think that burning the candle at both ends will get us to our goal faster.
Everyone faces stress on a daily basis. It is how we respond to that stress that will determine our ultimate success, or not, in our undertakings. Be sure to take care yourself and to be mindful of your habits.
