Can you believe that summer is over? The kids are going back to school. The flip flops and sunglasses are off and it’s time to get back to business, refocusing on your goals and desires. Fall is the time to bring in your harvest.
If you have children who are going back to school, you prepared for that—shopping for supplies and clothes or packing the car to send them off to college. You have to prepare yourself for getting back to business too. During the summer it’s highly possible that you cut back so that you could enjoy yourself so your routines and systems got tossed to the side. Now it’s time to pick it all back up and get the ball rolling again.
It can be hard to regroup after all of the summer fun, but it’s necessary if you’re going to bring in this year’s harvest. Here are some key points for you to use to get back into the swing of things as reality begins to set in:
- Get organized! Organize your office space in a way that allows you to find anything in no time flat. So many people waste time just looking for things and that time adds up. When you lose time, you lose money. Get rid of things you no longer need, archive files that you need to keep and mark them with a date that they can be destroyed. Once you get your office organized, maintain it.
- Develop systems that support you. Any business will have the usual systems—accounting, sales, filing, etc, but many forget that they need a time management system, which is one of the biggest mistakes I see solopreneurs making. Because of that gap, time flies by but nothing’s gets done. Find the tool that fits for you and create a system around that tool.
- Eliminate time wasters. If you haven’t yet learned how to delegate, start now so that you can focus on the more important, income generating things. If you don’t have a Virtual Assistant, get one. If that’s not in the budget, then find an intern who needs the college credits and hours. Don’t forget the #1 time waster—email. Control what hits your inbox and how you handle your email. Set designated times to check your email (not first thing in the morning). Use filters and folders to direct email to designated folders labeled for particular people, projects and newsletters.
- Get back on track with your goals. Take a look at what you created, review your plan and the tasks that will get you to the end result and see what changes need to be made. If there’s something that hasn’t gotten done because of your summer excursion, recreate it and get moving.
Those are four things that will get you back on track and help you make that shift from summer fun in the sun to being back to business.