Small Business Growing
Small Business Growth: Getting Control of “Overwhelm”
A question was recently asked by one of our Entrepreneur’s Journey participants. (The journey is a faith-based educational program for small business owners in the Northern Virginia and DC area).
“How do you deal with that feeling of being overwhelmed…having too much to do and not getting it done?”
Good question. Most of us in the world of small business have to deal with this challenge.
You might not solve this problem in a day, but you can invest 30 minutes to get a start that can be life changing.
Coming out of overwhelm: physical space, mental space, daily habits.
The first thing is to not accept “overwhelm” as inevitable, and schedule a 30 minutes block to get started on a strategy that will move you toward an increasing sense of control.
Work through three primary dimensions of your business:
• your physical space
• your mental space
• your daily habits
Our Physical Environment becomes automatic and taken for granted. But the level of order, clarity, simplicity, and ease of use of your physical space has everything to do with how efficiently work is done. The order and refinement of all the things you need to use to accomplish work has everything to do with personal performance and personal emotion.
POINT: get your personal space in a state of extreme order and neatness, maintain it, and watch what good things start to happen.
Our Mental Space includes all kinds of “stuff” that sits in our minds and hearts. The point here is to reduce and simplify that mass of perceptions and feelings down to a few key areas of our work that are the focal points. You will have more that three things in your work life, but identify the three really important areas of your work life that will be at the top of your list.
POINT: Radically reduce the mental clutter, by getting clear about the three most important things in your business at this time.
Our Daily Habits determine how the day plays out. Sure, stuff happens that you can’t control, and things arise that you must respond to. That is small business life. But our habitual ways of doing work determine a good deal of our productivity, as well as how “overwhelmed” or “in control” we feel.
POINT: Take a good look at how your daily habits are helping or hurting. Some habits are like fuel on the fire of “overwhelm” – such as jumping from one task to another before finishing anything – and other habits will start to reduce “overwhelm” and increase a sense of positive control. For example, starting the day with a clear image of what we will focus on, and staying with it, in spite of potential distractions.
Overwhelm is not a condition of nature. It can be reversed. It just takes starting somewhere.
[Fran O'Neal provides consultation and installation of a simple, low cost, easy to use marketing and business retention system that helps small business owners get and keep more customers. Email Fran with questions or for more information on this resource.]
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