For many small business owners and professionals, email overload is not the real problem. It's the sign of a much bigger problem ... it's a form of ESCAPE … it allows us to avoid the boring work that our businesses demand of us ... work that we didn't actually sign up for in the first place.
Most professionals and small business owners got into business because they were really good at something …. maybe you were a great lawyer or architect or engineer or software designer or …
After gaining some experience working for someone else, you branched out on your own and in the beginning it was fantastic. The enthusiasm of doing something new gave you the energy to do everything that needed to be done.
But after a while, you had less and less time to do what you originally wanted to do … now you have to do what the business DEMANDS. Sales calls need to be made, invoices need to be raised …. Even after you hire and delegate, you still find yourself doing many things that you don't want to do.
Soon you find that you no longer enjoy what you originally meant to do with your life … because of the continual (silent) thought that "those boring tasks still need to be done".
THE BUSINESS HAS NOW BECOME YOUR BOSS!
So email becomes your escape … you spend your time answering emails and reading newsletters … because it makes you feel busy … and helps you NOT do the work someone in your business still needs to do.
Email overload is NOT your problem. The real problem is that you no longer have the time to do the WORK that you WANT to do.
The Solution is Easy!
YOU NEED TO RECLAIM YOUR BUSINESS. IT'S TIME FOR YOU TO BE THE BOSS AGAIN.
That doesn’t mean that you start bossing the rest of your team around. They're the ones who have been doing most of the real work while you were checking your email.
It's time to be the BOSS OF YOUR OWN TIME. Give yourself time to do the work you enjoy.
SCHEDULE time in your calendar to do the type of work your enjoy and STICK TO IT.
If it's work that you need to do on your own, then make sure that you are not interrupted during this time. Don't check your emails and don't take any calls.
You are NOT that important. Nobody's world is coming to an end because you didn't respond for a few hours.
ENJOY YOUR WORK.
Once the scheduled time is up, go back to the tasks that need to be done, answer your emails etc. Guess what … it's still there waiting for you.
Except now you may actually enjoy doing some of it. Or maybe you'll look for creative ways of delegating or outsourcing because today YOU DID YOUR WORK.
1 comment:
Great post!
I bought your software recently and it's really helped. I bought it mainly for email-merging.
One of my challenges is the number of responses I get.
You need to answer them all pretty quickly when they arrive.
I use the auto-text plug-in that came with the software you supplied. It's great for building a library of standard replies.
This has saved me time too - so when I'm creating time using your tip, I also spend less time than before answering emails because it's easy to be able to add it paragraphs that I used to have type from scratch or go surfing in sent items to be able to copy and paste the text in.
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