Over the past few months, I’ve felt like I haven’t gotten as much work done on my online business as usual. Why? Because life has gotten in the way. Now that my daughter is in elementary school, I’ve found that I have a lot less time each day to work on my business. I know it sounds counter intuitive, but it’s what’s happened.
In fact, there are some days that I feel like I don’t get anything done at all. Now I KNOW that isn’t true. I’m always spending at least a few hours a day on my business. So I wanted to change that, and pay more attention to exactly what it is I’m getting done each day.
I love February for one reason. (I mean really…February isn’t a great month. It’s usually freezing cold here in New Jersey and we often get a lot of snow.) What do I love about it then? It’s short! It’ll be gone before we know it.
That’s why it’s a great time to do a challenge. 31 days might sound like a long time to do something…but 28 days isn’t bad at all! I can do a challenge for 28 days in a row. So can you!
Hence my “Small Wins” February Challenge. Each day this month I have to do something that I consider a win. It has to be something that helps my business. It can’t be something I do on a daily basis either. That doesn’t count.
I hope you join me! Even if you’re reading this and it’s May. Or July. Or any month. You don’t even have to do it for the entirety of whatever month you’re doing it in. Pick a number of days. Do a 20 day challenge or a 15 day challenge. If you think you’re not going to be able to do with it, start with a 1-week challenge! You’ll see that you’re stronger than you expected, and you’ll be able to do it.
If you follow along, I’m sure you’ll see that not all of my wins each day are big. Some will be pretty small. But it’s still better than being stuck and stressed and doing nothing at all.
Day 1: Finishing things that are only partially finished
Do you have something that’s partly (or mostly) done? That’s a great thing to work on. You won’t be starting from scratch, and will be able to get something done in a lot less time. You’ll also feel a lot better, as the thought of having a partially finished project is probably weighing on you. You’ll have one thing less on your to-do list, and can feel good about what you accomplish.
My big goal right now is to finish a funnel that I have almost 95% complete. The bad part is that it’s been 80% complete for months. I had some issues with the membership site software I was using, and let that become my excuse. I finally started working on it again a few weeks ago, and want to get it up and running by next week sometime. Earlier this week I finished the Welcome Sequence emails (Thanks to this workshop, which was so helpful!) and now all that’s left is my free-opt in. So I spent an hour working on it, and got a good amount of it done.
Day 2: Just do it!
Is there something that you haven’t done because you want it done “right”? Or you want to do it one way, and know that you can’t get it done that way? All I have to say to that is, seriously, just do it. Just start it.
In my head I have the idea that I’d love to blog almost every day. It’s not that I don’t have a lot of ideas. I do! It’s lack of time. It’s also that I let each blog post take too much of my time. In reality, I’d be happy if I ended up with 2 new blog posts each week. But I put so much weight on myself that I have to have all of these blog posts done, that I never do them! A month will go by and even though I wanted to post, I just don’t. So today I decided my “win” was going to be blogging. Not only did I write a blog post for this blog (The Relaxed Marketer), but I posted on another one of my blogs too. That made me feel really good! Hopefully this will get me more in the habit of blog posting, and I’ll get myself to do it more often again.
Day 3: Even if It’s a bit Repetitive….Get it Done!
I like posting my blog posts over on Medium. I already did the hard work, writing the post. Now all I have to do is spend 5 minutes posting it somewhere else, and I can have a much bigger audience read it and take action on it? What’s not to like!
I don’t know why, but I haven’t posted on there in almost two months. I can’t believe it. I was doing 2 posts a week, that way they would be on my own blog first before they were on a second site. I love that I got more people reading my posts and commenting on them. So why did I stop? The only thing I can consider is that it’s a bit boring. It’s literally copying and pasting your blog post from one site to the other.
Oh, I do add an additional step in it. Once it’s posted, I click on the Twitter button and post it there too. I guess that takes an extra 3 minutes as I not only Tweet it right then, but set it up to tweet a few more times in the future.
But seriously. I have NO excuses. It’s something that takes only a few minutes, is really (literally) copy and paste easy, and gets me more interaction and people reading my articles.
So I just went over and posted the next blog post from this site over on Medium, and did the Tweets too. I really have to make sure I continue doing this. There is no reason not to, and I can easily spare the 8 minutes total that it takes me.
Days 4 & 5: Weekends are for Family & Friends
The reason that I have an online business is so that I can be flexible, and spend time with my family and friends. Therefore, most weekends I don’t work much. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes I’ll spend an hour working on something if I’m excited about it, or I’ll send a quick email out.
But on the whole, I spend my weekend with my family. They’re my priority, and I want to give them my full attention.
That’s another reason to have your own online business. You decide when you work, you decide when you don’t. You can do things completely different than me, and it’s not right, it’s not wrong. It’s you! Living the life that you want is a big win.
…to be continued tomorrow.
Enjoy,
