Prep to Make Your Life & Business Easier

©The MBT Blog published by MBT Mindful Business Today

For Mardi Gras and Fat Tuesday this week, I wore my beads (and so did Snowy, one of my dogs) and celebrated. To accomplish the bead wearing first thing in the morning, I relied on an old hack I taught myself years ago – make things easy for yourself. That self-commitment showed up for me, and my very simple Mardi Gras prep made it easy for me to sparkle in purple, pink, green, and gold. How about you? Do you take a moment for yourself and find ways to make your life easier?

Here is one thing I do. I box things up at the end of each season, put them in the attic, and then retrieve them ahead of the next season. Hence, my Mardi Gras beads were boxed with the Valentine’s Day table runner and wreath. My bag of beads and special socks, the ones I bought in New Orleans last year, were handily tucked in a bright, glittery bag in the Valentine’s box. When decorating for Valentine’s Day, I placed the bag next to my dresser. On Tuesday morning, I grabbed the bag, retrieved the adornments, and was ready to snap a photo with my dog. Thank you, self, for being proactive!

The concept is simple. I bet many of you already do these things to make your life easier. Buy multiple corned beef briskets around St. Patrick’s Day and freeze them. Then you can enjoy a Reuben sandwich throughout the year whenever you have the craving. Leave notes in your calendar to remind you where you stashed the lawn mower batteries. Then, you have found and charged them in advance, so the moment “No Mow May” ends you are ready to trim. Create a list of all the things you need to do before hosting a gathering at your home for annual occasions. I also make notes on recipes to remember the changes I made to make the food extra delicious.

Yes! We can all be pretty good at getting ahead of ourselves to stay on track. But how do we translate that into our business life? Here are a few ideas:

• When a conference you attend each year announces its dates for the following year, add it to your calendar immediately.
• When a potential client indicates they are not yet ready for your services, put a note in your calendar (or CRM system, if you have one) to follow up in an appropriate amount of time.
• I am very supportive of calendaring! Use your calendar to block out time to work on business strategies. This is especially useful when the need is many months in the future. It is too hard to create the entire strategy and plan in one week. Better to give yourself a head start.
• Keep a “me” folder of the compliments and accomplishments you receive during the year. Then, you are ready to write your self-evaluation, lobby for a raise or promotion, or feel better after a day that did not go so well. You can take a moment to read through your folder.
• If you have calendared time to work on developing business, add notes to the appointment to remind yourself how you can use that time.

How about you? How do you make your life easier?