Deb Pilgrim's Blog

My aim for this blog is to provide YOU with ideas, strategies, tools and knowledge about how to market and grow your business. These articles provide answers around how you can grow your business - faster and more successfully. Simple, how-to-solutions that can impact both your business and life success, in an easy to read format.

Top Ten Productivity Ideas by Deb Pilgrim

Deb Pilgrim - Thursday, May 10, 2012

1. Shift from Not Valuing to Valuing your Time. 

This is an important change to make and when it happens you will never waste another minute! In a dollar sense - this means you are comfortable charging for your lifetime of knowledge, learning and experience - don't allow clients to take this for granted. You have invested a lot of time and energy and in life, we only get one chance with our time - we cannot go back and use the last 10 seconds!

2. Get the most out of your day.

Every now and then ask yourself: "Am I making the best use of my time?" If not, stop what you are doing , re-access what you are doing, and begin working on a project that will allow you better use of your time. If you are 'bogged down' or don't want to start a project, use the ten minute rule: set a timer for 10mins and start your project.  If after 10mins you still aren't in the flow of this project -stop and move onto another project.  If after 10mins you are in the flow of this project, then keep going!

3. Work with goals in mind.

It’s amazing how differently we work when you have goals to work towards. If you don't know what your goals are, stop now and spend some time working out what they may be. Use them as a road map for your daily 'to-do' list! Examples may be professional (project deadline, sales quotas, product development, etc) and personal (health, fitness, family relationship, financial, etc).

4. Handle every e-mail only once.

Use the '3 D' rule of Do it, Delete it or Delegate it. Use day-based folders to keep your inbox on track. Check your emails twice through out the day, and then either respond if that is needed, delete it or place it in the appriorate day-based folder. If you print a copy then use the '3 D' rule, for this as well!

5. Ask some one who is efficient - What their secret is?

Ask the most efficient person you know what their secret is and how did they develop these habits. Then see if it will work for you.  Remember that productivity is a habit, so be prepared to give this new habit time.

6. Don't allow anyone to take your time from you.

Set up boundaries around your time. If you are constantly interrupted with phone calls - think about

forwarding your phone to voice mail, and then bundling your return calls at a certain time.  If you work by appointments and someone is late for an appointment and hasn't contacted you - give them 15 minutes past the appointed time and then move on. It is up to you as to how you allow other people to use your time!

7. Build family and personal time into your day.

We all need to have the support of our family or friends - so make sure you build them into your daily habits. You don't want to get to the end of your working life and realise that you missed out on the closeness and development of your family.

8. Your health is important - isn't it!

Maintain your health and fitness because this is what will help you through in the long run. There are three things that I feel are valuable to us all - they are time [which we are talking about]; knowledge and energy. Take care of your energy and its levels. At the end of the day being overworked and stressed is only going to hamper your health. So take extra care of this - go for a walk, have a massage, spend time with your family, stop, breathe and smell the roses.

9. Dry clean the clutter from your office and home.

Take some time to remove the clutter from your life. The more you simplifier your office or life the more time you will have. Clutter zaps your energy and allows you to waste time on non-valuable tasks. So plug the holes today.

10. Work in your peak performance times.

Schedule demanding tasks to the part of the day that you work best, where your energy levels are at their highest. It maybe first thing in the morning or early afternoon - work out when it is and then see yourself moving ahead.

What are your favourite strategies for being productive?  Feel free to share them with us here and over on our facebook page.


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Five Strategies to Overcome Procrastination

Deb Pilgrim - Thursday, July 28, 2011

Do you sometimes find yourself sitting there putting things off to the last possible moment? Thinking, “I’ll do that later”, even when the ‘THING’ you need or want to do is actually quite straightforward?

Let's face it, nearly all of us procrastinate at one time or another. To be honest, I have been procrastinating about writing this week's article! At best, procrastination is a frustrating (and annoying) habit. At worst, putting things off may cause us stress, anxiety and even problems with others. Yet if we boil it all down, in most cases we know just what we need to do to get started.

So I thought I would ask psychologist Victoria Kasunic, one of my Alumni Mentor Clients to share with you, her top five tips to overcome the procrastination monster that lives inside of each of us.

1. Take action now!

Taking even the smallest action, such as reading an email, or making a phone call relating to the goal or task will give you a boost of energy. So do it now!  Action is the antidote to procrastination. When you feel overwhelmed, ask yourself what the first step forward is; just one small thing and do it. Notice how it gives you a little boost.

2. Move past the excuses.

We all have a million excuses and reasons as to why we are procrastinating. These are just distractions or red herrings that we allow ourselves to get caught up in, and they take us off our path. Imagine your excuses are like clouds drifting across the sky, you can see them but you can't hold onto them. They are a backdrop to your life rather than the main event.

3. Get support

Tell a friend or colleague what you are trying to do, and set up a system where you check in when you have accomplished a step or completed the task. Perhaps you could set up a buddy system if your colleague also wants support when it comes to dealing with procrastination.

4. Write it down

Be clear and write down what you need to do, and when it has to be completed. If it's not written down and with a timeframe, it tends not to happen. Use reminders to prompt you, such as a reminder message in your phone.

5. Link it to the bigger picture

Tasks that are connected to a bigger vision for your life or your purpose have much more meaning. If being a parent is important to you, then being able to finish work at a reasonable time links to your vision of being a present loving parent.  It gives you a greater meaning and purpose in your life.  This makes it about so much more than just completing a basic task.

Try these tips and see how using them makes a difference. You may want to use one or all of them at various times.

But here's the key:  Now that you've read this article, use one of these tips right now, and get into action.  Before you know it, you'll be over the procrastination monster, and you'll actually be getting things done.

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Want to read more of Victoria's strategies, then visit her website at www.victoriakasunic.com and you can download her free e-book: 5 Steps to a Happier Life.


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Want to use this Article?

I would be honoured if you did, just be sure to use it in full and include the following information:

Deb Pilgrim is the trusted authority for Woman in Small Business.  She helps her clients start, run and grow their businesses. To find out more about how you can work with Deb visit her website, and whilst you are there download her latest report that will show you how to be one of the Top 5% of Entrepreneurs who succeed.


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