GET PRODUCTIVE (AND LET YOUR MIND WANDER) (Glen Stansberry)

It seems like whenever I sit down to do a task that requires brainstorming and planning (like writing a blog post), it’s a lot harder to stay focused. Maybe that’s just the ‘ol ADHD kickin’ in, but I’m guessing I’m not the only one out there who has a hard time when it comes to staying focused while mapping out a project. I can sit and stare at a blank screen for hours, and nothing will come to me. Yet there are times when I do some really amazing brainstorming, and I’ve found some constants that are always present when I go on those idea-hatching spurts. The main constant: you need to be doing something else.

The mind is a fickle thing. I’ve found that the brain does not like to be told when to be creative. If you tell it to think, it won’t. But if you’re doing a small task that doesn’t require much thinking, you can bet your mind is working overtime, and it’s working on something completely different than what is in front of you. Here’s an example: last week I drove to my parents house and went running in the country. During the run and half-hour drive each way, I managed to come up with 10 blog posting ideas. They just came to me. I wasn’t thinking about driving because I’ve driven that route a hundred times, and I wasn’t thinking about running because I run all the time, and it’s a fairly automated process.

The trick is planning for times when your mind can wonder. It’s during these times that you’ll be the most creative. While you excercise, driving, household chores, taking a walk, at the beach… this is when you’ll find creativity oozing out of your brain. Odds are you may not even notice that you’re being really creative and productive. If you can become aware of that and always have something close by to write your ideas down on, you’re set.

A wandering mind can be a very, very good thing. You just have to be ready for it.

AVOIDING ENTREPRENEUR BURNOUT #3: WORK OUT OF REST

The third part of this Avoiding Entrepreneur Burnout series deals with resting. Yay! The funny thing about rest is that most people don’t see the benefits, even though they know the negative effects of not getting enough. And it’s real easy to blame just about everything on being tired. That’s why we’ve got all sorts of shmancy sports drinks with electrolytes, carbs and what-not. Everyone wants to be energized, but nobody wants to actually rest.

Unfortunately, this is especially true for entrepreneurs. We have a never-ending list of chores and things that only we can do, not to mention the fact that our projects are like babies to us, which require constant attention. It’s kind of like a mother letting her child go to day-care for the first time. It’s hard to let go.

But let go we must, lest we find ourselves burnt. Here’s how.

Schedule Around Your Breaks

This little trick works wonders. Instead of sitting down to your calendar and mapping out all the things you have to do, pencil in your breaks that you’re planning throughout the day, week and month FIRST. Except don’t use something that you can erase, you cheater. Use a pen, permanent marker, blood–anything that you can’t tempt yourself to scratch out later. Instead of fudging on your breaks, you’re going to have to schedule less.

While this might seem pretty anti-productive, the benefits outweight the costs in the long run. First of all, by doing less work during the day, you’re making yourself do something that benefits you and your organization like no other: You’re becoming focused in your planning and leading. You’re only doing the things that have to be done, and you’re delegating or even throwing away completely the things you don’t. This makes you really evaluate what’s important and why in all of your decisions. By doing this you’ll trim the fat from your workload, and you’ll get more accomplished.

Your Day Begins When You Go to Sleep

I don’t claim to be a sleep specialist, but if there’s one thing that most people suffer from is sleep. Lack of sleep is America’s top health problem, and studies have shown that lack of sleep can link to a variety of major illnesses, including cancer, heart disease, diabetes and obesity. (Looks like the individuals suing McDonalds may have found a new scapegoat for their added girth. Mr. Sandman better find a good lawyer.)

Yup, turns out having proper sleep is good for your health, just like your mother always told you. Why? Well one of the reasons is that your deepest REM sleep is between 10pm and 3am. Some of us don’t even go to bed until after that!

Here are some other benefits of sleep:

• It makes you smarter
• It boosts your immune system
• It helps you look better
• It makes you nicer
• It increases concentration

So instead of staying up all hours of the night working, go to bed instead and get up earlier. By learning to cooperate with your body’s natural patterns, you’ll get more out of your day. You’ll be more efficient in and productive during your day, and you’ll feel better about yourself in the meantime. You’ll start getting more done in less time.

On the flip side, the costs of not properly resting throughout the week is critical. The long and short of it is this: If you don’t properly take breaks, your productivity will suffer, both sooner and later. We weren’t meant to spend 16 hours a day blinking at a computer screen, and your body will constantly remind you of that fact.

AVOIDING ENTREPRENEUR BURNOUT #2: UNDERSTAND THE BALANCE IN LIFE (Glen Stansberry)

A lot of people have the misconception that taking a break is lazy. It’s not! We learned yesterday that in order to be really effective, you need fun things in your day or else you’ll burnout. Well, you’ll also burn the people out around you if you don’t take care of yourself and your family life. So here’s the second installment of our Avoiding Entrepreneur Burnout series.

2. Understand the Balance In Life

Everyone knows the principle of the fulcrum. (Or at least the principle of the teeter-totter.) Basically, in order to have balance, you have to have equal weight on each end of the bar. But nothing in life hardly ever works out to being equal, so there really isn’t any balance. Enter the fulcrum. By moving the fulcrum (aka the bar that holds up the teeter-totter), you can balance unequal things.

The same is true for balancing our lives. We have families, work, and other outside organizations that we are a part of. It’s important that we maintain a balance in all of those areas. Yet balancing means having to distribute unequal amounts of time and resources to different things. Now you see the quandry: How do we assign the right amount of time for each thing in our life? The best way is to move the fulcrum as needed.

There may be a period in your life where you’ll want to spend some time starting a business. So fudge a little on everything else and devote more of your time to that. But don’t keep the fulcrum in that position for too long. It’s easy to establish the balance, and not want to move the fulcrum. Once your business is bringin’ in the bling, spend some more time for yourself or for your family. The important thing to remember is that you move the fulcrum to where your time is needed.

This will require constantly evaluating your situation in all aspects of your life, not just your work. Too many times we seperate work from everything else; but really you should be viewing work as a part of your life, not the center. Truly productive people aren’t the ones at the office 24/7. They are the ones that recognize the value of their whole lives, and work as a part of it. No one sits on their deathbed wishing that they had worked more and spent less time with friends and family.

AVOID ENTREPRENEUR BURNOUT #1: FILL YOUR TANK (Glen Stansberry)

If you’re like me, you see opportunities everywhere. You find limitless ways to improve on things, or you’ll have an idea dump and before you know it, you’ve got 5 projects cooking in the skillet, 2 in the oven and about 10 on the backburner. Congratulations, you’re an entrepreneur.

Us entreprenueurs are blessed with a unique gift: the ability to see the things that could be, as opposed to what should be. We don’t settle for less, we figure out a better way. We’ll jump right in and build a prototype and have the 3rd round of revisions done before the committee decides the “best” way to do it. We’re movers and shakers, and the thrill of creating something new, sleek and sexy excites us.

BUT.

Being hard-wired as an entrepreneur has its downsides. I know, I know… we don’t want to admit it. But it’s true. Unfortunately, the curse to being an entrepreneur is that everything we start, we’re the leaders of. While this is an amazing feeling at first, eventually it begins to tear at us.

Feel the Burn

Burnout is something that can happen very easily to an entrepreneur. Although we love improving on things, ironically we don’t allow give ourselves the proper rest during and between projects. As we bury ourselves in more and more projects, the people around us become less important. Our creativity wanes, and our decisions become harder. Sometimes it feels like the “vision” we have can imprison us.

I went to a session by Wayne Cordeiro at the leadership summit, and he said that being a “reckless” entrepreneur had even gone so far as to seriously hamper his health. He had gone to the doctor after thinking he had a heart attack, and the doctor informed him it was actually a nervous breakdown. His body’s seratonin level had depleted so much that he was only running on adrenaline. The doctor informed him that if he did not recover right, he would never be as productive as he was before.This caused Wayne to completely re-evaluate everything that was important in his life. After completely changing his work and family habits, he found 5 principles that enabled him to have a healthy work life as a leader.

(A quick note: I’m sure you noticed that this series is title “Avoid Entreprenuer Burnout”, yet Wayne’s principles deal with leadership. Don’t worry, I’ll explain. Like I said before, entrepreneurs have to lead everything they start. Therefore, entreprenuers are leaders. For those of you who like equations; if a=b, and b=c, then a=c.)

So here we go, Wayne’s principles to avoiding entrepreneurial (leader) burnout.

1. Know what fills and drains your tank

Everyone has things they have to do that drains them. These are the things that we dread, and feel exhausted after doing them. They could be anything from long meetings to folding laundry. It’s important to make a list of these things, so that you can delegate them to someone who actually likes what you can’t stand. After you make list of the things that drain you, make a list of the things that fill you as well. It’s good to compare these with the people in your organization, because you might find the things you can’t stand to do, others love to do. That way, you can focus on the things that only you can do.

[This is also a great tactic for couples as well. If you swap lists, you'll have a better understanding of each other. That way you can help ensure the things on his/her fill list happen, and you can provide support of the things that drain them. If you're sensitive to each other's likes and dislikes, I guarantee your relationship will benefit from it.]

Here’s where the interesting shift in thinking happens. Typically, when things come up that make your life busier, the first things that go are your tank-fillers. Everyone knows that the busier you become, the less free time you have. Well, it shouldn’t be this way.

Having those things that fills you is just as important as doing the things that drain you. Without these enjoyable things, your day becomes a solid drudgery. Now here’s the best part: the busier you become, add MORE things to your day that fill you. You’ll stay fresh, and won’t burn out because your day has fun things sprinkled into it. Heck, you might even enjoy your workday. Just remember, you can only do so much in one day. Building applications, organizations, or whatever, won’t get done any quicker if you put yourself into a hospital.

P.S.  Glen covers the other 4 principles in other posts… we’ll definitely get to them!!

ACTION IS KEY TO INTERNET MARKETING (Glen Stansberry)

There’s a great post on how GTD relates to internet marketing atconversionmarketing.com. Basically, Ian lays out 2 case studies of business trying to market their their products online. The major difference between the companies: action.

It’s not how big you start. It doesn’t necessarily matter whether you hire an agency, either. What matters is that you set small, manageable steps at the start of your campaign, and stick to the plan. The important thing is that you start.

What’s the number one thing that hinders the ability to get things done? Not starting.