We all have pieces of work which sit and fester on our to-do lists and this is for a variety of reasons. Here are a few you might recognise:

• You just have too much to do
• The work is outside your comfort zone or your normal skill range
• It is just a bit boring
• It is too big and overwhelming

All these reasons are very valid but if the piece of work is going to be critical to the development of your business you need to find a way to get to it and to get on with it.

Here are 5 simple ideas from Sarah at 54 degrees to help you take that step forward into your piece of work – because as we all know getting started is the hardest bit.

Encouragement and Support

Find a friend or business buddy and offer them a coffee and cake or a glass of wine to sit with you whilst you talk through the work to be done – this makes it seem like a social occasion, it will be in the diary so it is more likely to happen and you get two brains for the price of one!

Open Minds and Creativity

Grab a piece of A3 paper (A3 is better than A4 as it allows a bit more space for creativity!) and a pencil and rubber. You want to encourage a free flow of thought – if you feel you can rub out and rethink you will be happier to write more openly ad that is where the creativity is.

Your Goal and How to get there

• Decide what your vision is or your mission or your goal – whatever you want to call it that is fine.
• Make sure that it is something real which you can work towards and try to be as specific as possible.
• Put this into words and put it in the middle of your piece of A3 paper.
• Then around it put all the activities you will need to carry out to work towards your goal.
• Make sure that these are also specific and that they are worded as activities. For example: instead of “make an appointment with the dentist” write “call the dentist and make an appointment”.
• Here is where the magic happens.
• Something happens when we write an activity like that, we can see ourselves carrying out that activity and so it makes it so much more likely to actually happen.
• Depending on how big your original goal is , you might need to drill down another layer to the detailed activities.

Elephant Eating

I have written before about breaking work down into manageable pieces but I will just repeat myself to really emphasise the point. Make sure that the activities are broken down so that they all feel manageable. The only big ones should be the ones further in the future which are still so unknown that you cannot break them down yet.

Cracking the Whip

And finally – enlist the ongoing support of your business buddy to review your progress and get your doing your actions and delivering your vision.

If you want to have a chat about how to try out the magic – give me a call on 07976 395754