Working From Home – Your Not-To-Do List Is 80%

For those of us who work from home, keeping lists of things to do is vital. I have major project lists, calendars of when things are to be completed, step-by-step project lists, lists of people, lists of what to include in my books and recordings, and lists of lists so I don't forget where anything is.

But Gary Bencivenga, who is really well known to those of us working in the copy writing end of marketing, details in his article in Bottom Line Personal that the list of what NOT to do is even more important than the list of what you should be doing.

Gary applies the Pareto Principle (80/20 rule) to say that 20% of your daily activities are responsible for 80% of your success. So if you can stop doing much of that other 80%, you'll have much more time available to do those important things that will make you successful.

AND… you'll have more time for your family.

Here are some suggestions from both Gary and me:

• Don't listen to or read the news first thing in the morning. I have a friend who used to say that if you pour dirt into your car engine each morning, it wouldn't run well either. Why pollute your mind when it's the freshest and most ready to help you succeed? Listen to business, marketing, or inspirational programs from a CD or your iPod and leave the news for later in the day – believe me, all the bad news about the economy, the war, killings in nearby cities will all still be there after dinner.
• The second most important hour is right before you go to bed. Organize yourself for the next day or week. Let your unconscious mind (some still say subconscious mind) work for you as you rest… it's amazing how many solutions you'll have in the morning when your brain keeps working for you while you sleep.
• Do NOT read email first thing in the day. This is a tough one for me because some of my part-time staff get working before their kids get up and then send me questions that will let them work later in the day. So I scan for messages from them and save the rest until later.
• Turn OFF that annoying "you have email" notice that Outlook (or your email device) uses to tell you you have email. You don't run to your USPS mail box every 5 minutes to see if you received a letter, do you? Why is this any different? But every time you stop working to check email, the flow of what you're working on STOPS… and then has to be restarted. Save email for twice a day OR once every hour or so. One way is to check it when you take stretching or bathroom breaks… but then get back to work quickly.
• If you have important people that just HAVE to get to you on a regular basis, set up one of the Instant Messaging services and give them your user name. I use AOL's Instant Messenger (AIM) with my staff. They know it has to be pretty important. But if they can ask me a quick question which lets them get back to work, I'd much rather have the short interruption and have them working than have them work on something that then has to be redone once I've answered their question.
• Always have your To Do list in WRITING… carrying it in your head takes up too much processing power for your mind AND you'll never be sure that you'll remember to do everything if you trust your brain to remind you. (And by trusting your brain to remember, it will keep bringing it up, so you'll never get good "rest" until you know it's done OR written down.) I once read that you can keep 6 plus or minus 2 things in your mind at any one time, so do yourself a favor and clear out your mind by writing things down.
• Multi-tasking is a huge time waster. I plead guilty to this one. As an entrepreneur, I'm always doing several things at once with several projects zooming around in my brain. But have you ever found that you are MUCH more successful and accomplish SO much more when you concentrate on one thing at a time? Now what I do I call Compartmentalize: set definite time periods to do a project and when that time is up, I move on to the next one. Amazing how much more efficient you are when you know you only have 20 minutes to do something and then you don't let yourself stretch that to a full hour. AND, I have my general daily schedule in writing: I know which mornings I'm dictating my new book, I Learned It All From My Kids, which hour I'm recording my version of Scientific Advertising, which minutes I'm working on LizSeymour.com to finish a new video. And because I have organized myself, I don't have to worry about forgetting something and I stay on schedule much better.
• Don't answer the phone just because it's ringing. This is a REAL tough one for most people. They can't stand NOT to pick up the phone. But don't you see that by answering it you are now on someone else's schedule? THEY thought it was important to talk to you at that moment, YOU didn't! So what I do is SCHEDULE all my incoming phone calls. If someone wants me, they schedule an appointment just as if we were meeting face-to-face. Everything goes to my answering machine which I get to once or twice a day. Those needing me will generally set up an appointment by email and when we get to the appointed hour, THEY are more prepared for the call and so am I. Nothing is more of a time-waster than being called and not having the materials I need right in front of me. (Well, ONE thing is more of a time-waster – taking a call from someone you don't need to speak with at all!) Get a good answering machine and use it!
• Learn to say NO. There are very few new projects I take on these days because my life is so full and busy. When someone asks me to do something that THEY want me to do but I don't find it fits with what I want to do, I listen to what their request is and then say, "Let me tell you why I can't do this…." I've gotten REAL GOOD at saying No… it's the only way to stay sane, get my projects finished, and give the most attention I can to those projects I really want to complete.
• Learn to delegate. You can't do it all yourself. Every entrepreneur I know who has some Independent Contractor Assistants the way I do tell me that their only regret is that they didn't get help sooner. Learn to give up what you don't NEED to do, so that you'll have time for the really important things that ONLY you can do. So… that probably means that 80% of what you do can be handed off to someone else. Try it… it makes a world of difference.
• Get enough sleep. This is my toughest and I'm really bad at this. I'm at my computer by 7:30 most mornings, go off to dictate or record a book project, and spend much of the rest of he day back at my computer (when not out at prearranged meetings). My wife, Pam, and I love to watch the Philadelphia Phillies, so we arrange our schedules to do that most days during the season, but then when she goes to bed, I spend another hour or more working. Sometimes midnight sneaks up on me. My energy level is still good so I keep working… but some times I tell myself that I simply have to stop. I plan my next day's work and go to bed. I seldom use an alarm clock to get up because my internal clock automatically wakes me by 6:00 or 6:15. But some days I have trouble getting up because I didn't program my mind to "relax, you have to get up by 6:00." And some days I get up knowing that I'll nap on Sunday afternoon after church and lunch with my parents at their retirement community (which has become quite an event for Pam, younger daughter, Liz, and me – older daughter, Stacie, joins us when she's here from Boston). But I do MUCH better with 7 hours sleep than with 5.5 or 6.

So… there are a few things TO do and NOT to do… hope that is helpful for you too!

Charlie Seymour Jr.
Charlie@RaisingGreatFamilies.com

Charlie Seymour Jr is the founder of RaisingGreatFamilies.com, FathersAndTheDaughtersTheyLove.com, and ILearnedItAllFromMyKids.com. He is also working with his daughter, Liz, as she publishes her own website and releases her first solo CD: LizSeymour.com. Charlie is a Social Marketer and Community Builder and often consults about marketing through his site, GetThemOffTheRaftMarketing.com. He's a prolific writer, including blogs on each of these sites, his book Dream Inc (32 Philadelphia-area Entrepreneurs and their Million Dollar Secrets For Success), and articles about Social Marketing for national and regional publications including NSA Magazine (for the National Speakers Association) and Spotlight (for the American Association of Community Theatre). He's the father of two daughters and lives in Wallingford, PA with his wife, Pam.