Blog : Uncategorized

A quick jolt of momentum does a business good, right? If you find yourself (or your business or teams) coming up a little short of your ideal progress tracker, then there are a few things you can try without having that will keep you from hitting the panic button.

I’ve categorized these common progress slips and slumps by themes: Decisions & Focus, Tasks, Time, & Resource Management, Planning, Team.

Decisions & Focus

1. Kick decision paralysis to the curb by taking action.
2. You are doing too many things at the same time so you can’t see what (if anything) is actually turning into momentum. Focus on no more than two things at a time.
3. Stop spending time on low hanging fruit. You have to focus the things that really matter.
4. Letting too many voices affect your instincts. Stop asking for people’s opinions, it is just throwing you off.
5. Stay in your genius zone, stop focusing on low hanging fruit.
6. Eyes on your own paper. It doesn’t matter what the experts are doing, your strategies need to work for your business.
7. Stop feeding your excuses. Too busy? Too late? Not smart enough? Good enough?
8. Pause before you decide. Knee jerk reactions are reactionary and often off base.

Planning

1. You keep backtracking over work. Stop, make a plan, and be smart in your resource management.
2. Overplanning is keeping you from jumping into action. You don’t have to see every pine needle in the forest.
3. Under planning is costing you money. Try planning for a sprint then adjusting for the next sprint. You business isn’t sustainable on the no-plan plan.
4. Set a goal, desired end product, and due date. Stop working with no end in sight.

Tasks, Time, & Resource Management

1. You don’t know what you actually accomplished last week. Try a daily recap and sprint review to monitor your completed and incomplete tasks.
2. You aren’t tracking your data. You may be doing the right thing but you don’t why it is or isn’t working. Try tracking your analytics for a week.
3. Set a get out of jail free card so you can work freely, but with resource management (time, money, and energy) in mind.
4. You aren’t making progress because your action items are not not broken down into actual tasks. Too large of a project keeps you from moving things to the DONE! column.
5. Workday or work week is unproductive. Build in a specific distraction free work time every day or week. Monitor where, what kind, and when distractions happen.
6. Keep out of open ended work by setting deadlines and circling back to incomplete tasks.

Team

1. Ask your team. They are the experts and can give you objective advice (but with your strengths and weaknesses in mind).
2. Your team is going in their own directions. Gather them up for an impromptu meeting.

You aren’t always going to be in peak progress mode each and every day.

There are so many things that can slow down your progress and keep you from moving things consistently to done. BUT there are many things you can fix quickly before they spiral out of control. I can’t tell you how many times this week I had to squash a negative thought that was feeding my fears. I have had to call out clients on over or under planning. We had to pause and really dive into numbers, traffic, insights, and all kinds of analytics to make sure we were maximizing not only our inputs but our impact as well.

Not everything has to be overhauled if things start to slip. You have more than you need to jump back into momentum and keep your progress up. I would LOVE for you to learn more about how planning your next 90 days keeps your momentum going and your team focused on the big picture. Try Your Progress Gameplan and dive into sprints!

There’s a couple things I do better than most. 1) Vaca Prep  & Pack lists; 2) Pizza Sauce; and 3) Quickly getting from A to B.

While numero 1 and 2 won’t get you very far in business. . . number 3. . . that’s my jam. In one plan I can map out what you need to do, what is the very basic to most bells and whistles options and we can banter back and forth on your ideal plan. But not everyone has that eye or ability to assemble and get to work quickly. Most people get caught up in one (or more) of these 7 things in project planning that actually COST you money (well before you even see a return).

#1 Planning too much

This is seriously the most expensive mistake you can make. Don’t get me wrong, I am a planner and a break it downer. BUT planning every itty bitty thing about the project before you actual start is costing you money. Why? How? Isn’t be best strategy to be girls scout prepared?

No. It is not.

You need enough to get started, but you do not have to see every pine needle to get your rear in gear. You will spent MONTHS planning this thing PLUS MONTHS actually putting it together and 6 months later you might have a doable project. Who has 6m of ROI to waste? I certainly do not. 

#2 Planning too little

Yes I see the irony here. This is kinda hypocritical, but here is cost associated with planning to little. Like I said, you need a minimum amount of planning to get started, but you still have to have a plan. If you don’t plan your starting point and your next few steps you’ll likely end up somewhere you didn’t intend and waste so many hours by being 3 degrees off your ideal target. That can add up and cost you so much in money, time, and mental energy.

Ideally, I like to plan specifics is 60 days-90 days. You learn so much about your business, your ideal client, and yourself in 90 days and that is a good sweet spot to aim for. 

#3 No get of jail free card

One of your main jobs as the CEO of your company (or if you are lucky to have an #allthethings manager like me) is to subjectively look at the resources in and product out. Sometimes you have to make a tough call to shelve an idea or scrap completely because it is simply not coming together.

That is HARD and many times we are so emotionally connected to the idea in all its glitter and sunshine and glory. It’s hard to let it go. I get that. BUT the worst thing you can do is continue to force a round peg square hole scenario, continue to pay actual dollars for your team’s focus, the inputs, and your attention. When you are working on an idea, whether its revenue generating, growth focused, or BTS if you continue to work on the idea without a clear and completed stage or viable end product then you gotta make the call.

It is FAR easier to do this when setting the priority and focus of your team into sprints, you also set the ‘get out of jail free’ date too. This mean is by 1 sprint worth (or maybe 2 if you are feeling it) and you haven’t made significant progress to a milestone or completion, then you move on. 

#4 Planning in a vacuum

It is so easy to make grand plans for projects, without considering the environment. Here’s some examples: Launching product 2 weeks before a vacation or busy family season; planning for Stage 2 of a product when Stage 1 isn’t finished or ready for refinement; Planning a launch without considering the development stage; Taking the project’s end goal (money, program numbers, or extensive growth) without milestones and benchmarks to help you reach it.

Its easy to make the plans, but hard to execute when it extends yourself and your team too far. You should aim for the stars- but in practice you need to have a layer of practicality and don’t marry a project or idea without living the real world with it. Vacations, family time, your team’s schedule, development, and goals ALL matter- but you want to feel accomplished not defeated at the same time so don’t plan your company’s sink or swim projects in a vacuum. 

#5 Not delegating

Right now, if you were to look at your active projects you can probably pinpoint at least 3 items that you do not need to be doing yourself. Even if it is easier for you to just schedule the thing, follow up on that, write the email, or pull the graphics. .  .that may not be your job and how you best serve your team.

The lack of delegation (even if unintentional) will keep you off target, working on items outside your zone, and cost you money because you are doing something you are paying someone else to do. It also is training your team that you will pull up their slack, keeps them from asking questions, and- by no fault of their own- decrease their opportunity take initiative. 

# 6 Not keeping the end goal in sight

This should be easy right? Set the project, lay out the tasks, pace yourself to complete XYZ. How many times have we started off on a simple 3 email sequence and it has bloomed into a multi-step funnel that will nurture, retarget, and hard sell the product. You look back and think, ‘what was this in the first place?’ Answer: a simple sequence. Working on the project with no clear end goal in site allows for the project to morph into something that it is not. Which is not only wasting resources working on something you didn’t need and causes unnecessary stress working on a level 20 task when it started at an 8.

# 7 No Minimal Viable Product defined

I love big ideas. I love working on massive projects that set up businesses for success and open the doors for mire opportunities. BUT what I really hate is when at a certain point in time, we have a viable product (meaning something ready to sale or complete) and we continue to push towards adding bells and whistles and hype music. The goal of how I manage is to get you quickly to A to B. That involves not only breaking down steps towards your ideal vision, but also keeping in mind when we have something ready to sell- to bring it to the people! I see this a lot with perfectionists. Does it really need those extras right now? Especially if you have a primed, warm, or ready to buy crowd? MVP is made easier to see when you set up benchmarks and milestones during project development. 

These mistakes can cost you money time and resources. What I love about using an agile framework, The Progress System, to break down and manage projects is that it keeps you from falling victim to one of these mistakes.

Whether its dates, or planning, delegating, or end goals. . . you can see the progress and how quickly you are getting there all the while make adjustments on the fly if needed. You can learn how to adapt the system to your operations and project planning (and avoid these costly mistakes) by download your complimentary Progress Gameplan. It’s all you need to pace yourself, set goals, and keep the gears moving in the right direction. 

So you’ve grown a team, which means you’ve got yet another hat to wear: Manager of the stuff AND the people. It’s not always glamorous but deadlines and delegation do matter. Progress without collaboration is just plain BORING!!

I’ve seen plenty of teams who get the job done, however they do it separately in their own little universe. And while that may seem to work for some (definitely not sustainable though) it doesn’t really work for those of us who want true collaboration and teamwork.

Just like when I spot too much work in not enough time or stalled progress. . . another common place for inefficiency is separate bubble syndrome. This is when teams work on projects or pieces of the pie in their own little world, without really working with each other. You know like when toddlers play BESIDE each other but not really WITH each other. That’s the kind of work scenario I’m getting at.

I’m really passionate about teamwork. To me, that’s the ONLY way to work, even though we as super boss ladies are fully capable to run the show ourselves it takes a village to make the dream work.

No matter what your team runs on (Asana, Monday, Trello, etc), if you can’t take a sweeping view across the tasks and if your team can’t see how their slice of the pie fits into the larger vision (or works with the whipped cream and cherries on top) then your team collaboration needs some retooling.

Here’s what can happen: Your copywriter writes a blog two weeks in advance. It sits there until your social guru plugs aways with custom quotes and sends them over to your VA (or creates them in Canva herself). You sit to write a newsletter and have to go find the post to make sure you’ve properly written that paragraph.

Technically you are each getting it done, YET that whole process could have been reworked and several days shaved off the process from beginning to end.

Try this on for size: Your copywriter writes a blog two weeks in advance. Pulls 4-6 quotes for the social guru and tags her in your system. Your social guru decides, sends over the content and the graphic gal is super happy to have several to batch at once. The quote cards are attached to the blog post section in your Asana and you know exactly how to phrase or write that quote because you are staring right at it. In fact, your copywriter and your social gal just had an exchange on edits and new ideas for upcoming stuff for the next round of posts.

All that is done collaboratively and within the week you’re all set, instead of wasting time waiting on so-and-so to finish so you can do your tasks. Everyone is chipping in bringing their expertise to the table.

WINNER WINNER CHICKEN DINNER!

This may be my FAVORITE part of the Progress System. Bringing everyone together!