First Ingredient: The Sweet Spot

I believe that for every business owner, there is a sweet spot, a perfect and unique blend of:

• Passion — loving what you do.
• Audience — a specific group of people that you’re inspired to serve and that you love being surrounded by.
• Interaction — participating in very engaging conversations and providing one-of-a-kind content
• Offering — differentiated products and services.

If you can find that perfect blend, you and your business will become magnetic to the audience you love to serve.

Second Ingredient: A Few Core Actions

You have to find those handful of core actions that keep you immersed in your sweet spot. To find them, you usually only have to look as far as the things that make it up.

• You have a passion. Lay it out there. Be bold about it. Let people know exactly who you are and what lights you up.
• You have an audience. Find them. Surround yourself with them. Stay in the places they hang out.
• You need interaction. Start conversations. Talk with members of your audience daily. Ask them what they want and need. Find ways to be of service to them. Keep churning out high quality, helpful content, whether that be through a blog, a podcast, video, tweets, comments, or any other medium that works for you.
• You have an offering. Once you know what your audience wants and needs, find a way to provide it. Keep asking questions and find ways to improve on your products and services. Find strategic partners who can help you further serve your audience.

Once you find that sweet spot, your job is to stay thoroughly immersed in it through consistency in your daily actions. The core actions aren’t all that hard to do, but the trick is being consistent and doing those actions over and over again on a daily basis.

We tend to over-complicate things, but it really boils down to finding what uniquely distinguishes you and your business from everyone and everything else, and then doing a few key activities each and every day to constantly communicate that unique message to your niche group of customers.

What have you learned to be the handful of core activities that keep you fully immersed in the sweet spot of your business?

Image from Flickr by Muffet

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So what do we do if we can’t afford to fall into an unproductive day? In this case, prevention is better than cure. We need to develop systems that will prevent unproductive days, weeks, or moments take over our working lives. We may not be productive 100 percent of the time, but there are some things we can do to develop better work habits:

Regular time boxing. I recently finished Neil Fiore’s “The Now Habit”, where he recommends trying 30 minutes of uninterrupted work as a way to beat procrastination. After those 30 minutes, you should take a break or reward yourself before punching in another 30 minutes of uninterrupted work.

Perhaps “uninterrupted” is the key word here, since it’s easy to get distracted when you’re working online. If you’re a random web surfing junkie or if you find yourself compulsively clicking that “Stumble!” button, then this especially applies to you.

When trying time boxing, I suggest that you select a timer that will work with your needs. I sometimes use a kitchen timer, which works well since I don’t bill by the hour and I can use it if I’m working away from the computer. OS X users might appreciate 3-2-1, a simple yet handy timer they can place on their dashboards. For those who use a time-based billing system, you can take advantage of FreshBooks’ time tracking feature.

If you’re looking for more time tracking solutions, a previous post by Mike Gunderloy lists different ways you can do this. (Be sure to skim the comments as well, as there are some great  suggestions from WWD readers, too.)

Make your schedule support your working style, and not the other way around. Some teleworkers say that they like starting work at 9am and finishing at 5 pm like a regular office employee. That might work for some, but just because it’s the model that traditional businesses use, it doesn’t mean it’s right for everyone.

Since teleworkers generally have control over their schedule, then why not follow a schedule that is best suited to your working style? The first step is to know your peak working hours, the hours of the day when you’re most productive. Make sure your working schedule includes those hours.

You also have to consider your ideal way of working. Do you work best in long, uninterrupted stretches, or do you find yourself easily distracted after half an hour of work?  By creating a schedule that is tailored to your needs, you won’t feel too forced or pressured to follow a cookie-cutter schedule that doesn’t fit. Instead, you can spend most of your energy on the tasks at hand.

Take advantage of being in “The Zone”. Even when I’m not working during my peak hours, there are times where I may be doing some gardening or making some coffee and suddenly I get a very, very strong urge to work. I call this “The Zone”, as it puts me in a mental zone where I am so productive and excited to work that I can accomplish so much in a small amount of time. When I’m in this zone, I know that I have to stop what I’m doing and start working.

Why is it important to take advantage of this unexpected urge to work? Well, it’s going to make up for the time when you feel less than inspired to do it.  These “low inspiration” times make work more challenging, so you’re likely to be slower and less passionate about what you’re doing in that moment. If you take advantage of being in “The Zone”, whenever and wherever it happens, then these low inspiration times won’t be as detrimental to your productivity.

Reward yourself. If you become too productive and spend most of your time working, it’s easier to fall off the wagon and revert to time-wasting habits. Trust me, I’ve been there. Now if you’re rewarding yourself after a time boxing session, or after completing a project milestone, then you subconsciously associate the reward with the satisfaction of getting things done.

Use whatever reward makes sense to you. It could be some time off to watch a DVD, an hour working on your favorite hobbies, or even time for a nap. Whatever reward you choose, it has to be something you’re looking forward to doing after work.

The best way to be truly productive is to make it a habit. By implementing these four techniques, we can set up systems that will work with our individual needs, as well as take advantage of unexpected bursts of creativity.

What do you do to prevent unproductive behavior from throwing you off schedule?

Image by H. Berends from sxc.hu

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A common goal for a lot of folks is to get organized and be more productive, and for many this means committing to an organizational framework like David Allen’s Getting Things Done.  I’ve been thinking about throwing my hat into the GTD ring but it seems like an overwhelming task.

So I was pleased to see our fine mobile friends at jkOnTheRun alerting us that the premier issue of Productive Magazine is available as a free downloadable PDF.  This new publication is full of useful information about the GTD system and should be a good resource for the newbie or a seasoned veteran.

My first action item of the day – Done!

Do you GTD? Will Productive Magazine help you Get Things Done?

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If you haven’t found satisfaction with any of the productivity tricks you’ve tried, it’s possible that you’re mistaking some of the myths for facts.  These myths could come from something you’ve read, or they could be your own preconceived notions.  To get productive, you need to get rid of these myths.

What are they and how do you debunk them?

There is one system to rule them all.

Once you get into David Allen’s Getting Things Done, or other similar productivity systems, it doesn’t mean you have to stick to its rules permanently.  There is no perfect system that’s already pre-made for you.  You need a bit of time, as well as trial and error, to find something that works.

Organized = Neat

If your office is neat, does it mean that it’s organized?  If your office looks messy, should you clean it up?  Before we start criticizing ourselves for not being neat enough, we need to get our semantics straight.

Neatness or cleanliness is more of an aesthetic value.  Organization, on the other hand, is more about how things function.  For example, if you have a stack of folders and all those folders are aligned on top of a dust-free desk, that’s neatness.  The stack of folders are only organized if they are arranged in a way that makes each folder easy to access.  So even if the desk is dusty and the folders aren’t perfectly aligned on top of each other, as long as they’re arranged in a way that makes sense to you (chronologically or alphabetically), then they are organized.

If you’re the type of person who has a messy office and hates it when someone comes in to “clean it up”, you know what I’m talking about.  Just because things don’t look orderly or like they were arranged by a robot, it doesn’t mean you’re not organized.  If you can find anything in your office within 2 seconds, you’re doing great – whether you’re neat or not.

The more tools you have, the better.

With all the number of Web 2.0 tools out there, and the number of web workers eager to try out each tool that comes along, it’s a surprise that we get any work done.

As for me, I prefer to stick to the least number of tools, and I try to avoid daily usage if it isn’t necessary. Tools should be there to help you out, not suck up your time and attention, which, of course, is better spent on other things.

Your schedule should be tight.

As someone who focuses mostly on creative work, I’ve realized that both routine and randomness have their place in your schedule.  My partner used to be very specific about my schedule.  She even created a spreadsheet that listed what I was supposed to be doing every hour.  When I told her I wanted some randomness, she blocked out a few hours in the weekend and labeled them “Randomness”.  Not quite what I meant.

The one thing that should be absolutely rigid and non-negotiable are your peak working hours.  These are the hours of the day when you are most productive and creative.  As such, those hours are when you should get the bulk of your work done.

As for the rest of the day, I prefer to make a simple list in Google Calendar of the major things I should accomplish, both business and personal tasks are included.  I find that I can’t do more than 7 major tasks each day.  What I do in between those tasks depends on what I feel like doing, whether it’s taking a walk, reading a book, carpentry, or even working.  It’s the random tasks surrounding my routine that makes my day more interesting.  They even make my work feel more fulfilling.

The key is not to worry if you feel unproductive at times, there are still some ways for you to feel accomplished at the end of the day.  As long as you get your few major tasks done, you shouldn’t obsess about working during every waking hour.

What preconceived notions on productivity did you have?  Which of these notions were true, and which were false?

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