De-cluttering for Success!

Don’t wait for spring; dust off those time management skills and clear your path to a more successful business!

Our theme this week is de-cluttering for success – a method we put into practice (or try to) on a daily basis at K. Ivie Consulting. It is so important for Entrepreneurs who are pursuing their dream to stay focused and organized so they maintain forward momentum, not lateral motion.

Our most valuable tip is a roadmap of sorts. Point A is knowing what your ultimate vision for your business is, point B is figuring out whether it is to be a long-term venture or point C create a buzz and be bought out by a larger company. We find that if you can work backwards towards your ultimate goal, you can break your process and journey into distinct phases and create an action plan that gets you to your end goal in the most efficient fashion. By creating business milestones, you can then create weekly task lists with real, purposeful projects and outreach that will yield forward moving results.

It is also crucial to have a weekly meeting, whether it be in-office or remotely through Skype or conferencing. Hold it early in the week to discuss and prioritize what needs to be done for that week, what decisions need to be made based on the previous weeks’ work, and how those actions relate to the next milestone and the big picture. This will keep every single team-member’s eye on the prize.

In addition, you should calendar your tasks and mark them as complete or in-process so you know what is needed at all times. Create progress and outreach trackers in an Excel spreadsheet format with tabs covering each topic, which will give you the ability to easily track your process, phases and results with weekly updates. These awesome (o.k., maybe a little daunting) spreadsheets were created for a reason! We can’t be at the top of our mental cataloguing game all of the time. Make things a bit easier on yourself by tracking (electronically) what you have accomplished, and what decisions have yet to be made!

Lastly, “know what you don’t know and surround yourself by people who do.” Asking for advice from other experts and other valuable team members, also commonly known as outsourcing, is a strategy that makes all the difference in having a business versus building a brand that yields the financial and professional rewards. De-clutter your literal and metaphorical desk by strategically distributing tasks and responsibilities to your team, allowing yourself the creative space and focus to master your entrepreneurial craft.

7 Steps to De-cluttering for Success: