7 Easy Habits That Help Successful People Maximize Their Time

These tips might be for you if you’re someone who consistently feels that there aren’t enough hours in the day. Maximize your productivity without losing sleep or increasing your stress levels.

Maximizing time throughout the day is a high-achiever’s specialty. Those who are most successful in life are able to maximize their days without adding undue stress, pressure, or chaos into their lives.

Here’s how you can use your 1440 minutes in a day to the best of their ability.

1) Work Smarter, Not Harder (Lazy Person Brain)
Applying processes and leveraging networks around you to drive efficiency is a major key to increasing your productivity. Successful people are “big picture” thinkers. They are most often reassessing and analyzing not only what they’re doing but HOW they’re doing it.

Create workflows, automations, and innovations that will allow you to do more but with less effort. This will help you divert some of your time to be used in other ways or to push other large tasks forward.

2) Outsource the Least Interesting Pieces (to You)
Successful people understand how to leverage talent around them to achieve collaborative goals.

Pieces of business, personal life, or other realms that don’t interest you can be easily outsourced.

Again, you can turn your time and focus to other things that you are more passionate about in the meantime. There are others who are passionate about the tasks that you are not – let them handle it!

3) Appreciate and Reward True Talent

Part of outsourcing successfully means maintaining the team of people, friends, and family that you build around you. It only takes time and thought to appreciate those that have helped you get to where you are today. Treat others with patience, kindness, compassion, and understanding. When possible, reward those who are around you in the ways that they will appreciate (monetary, words of affirmation, experiences, etc.).

4) Maximize your To-Do List Strategy

To-do lists can be easy to use as a way to feel productive. Successful people use a unique to-do list strategy that includes time estimations on each item (time blocking). They also will often start with the hardest or most time-consuming tasks first to ensure that the mental and physical energy is there to accomplish them. Don’t procrastinate your necessary tasks until the end of your list because it’s likely that you won’t get them done!

5) Find Time through the Day for Efficiency

Is there time through the day where you can be more efficient? Do you commute on public transit? Do you spend time scrolling on social media? Do you have time in the morning that could be used in a better way? Whatever it may be – there is likely a way that you can structure your day to maximize time better. Successful people do a great job of filling their day but not overwhelming themselves.

6) Prioritize Passions and Health

Being successful means that you’re also actively pursuing things that provide you joy and excitement. If you love to travel, ensure that you have a plan to work that into your short and long-term future. Successful people also take the time to prioritize their health by eating a balanced diet, moving their body as often as possible, and making time to take care of themselves. You only get one bill of health so it’s important to maintain it the best that you can over time!

7) Live Authentically and Consider your own Needs

Finally, it’s imperative to live an authentic life. Consider your own needs outside of traditional “success” models. This is part of taking care of your mental health. Successful people understand that they’re in the journey for the long-haul so start to organize your life and habits around what makes you happy.

Will you incorporate any of these habits to boost your daily success and productivity? Are you going to do anything new to maximize your time?

We would love to hear your comments. Please contact us today!

Gary Brunson
gary@myclearfocus.com

Debra Rider
debra@myclearfocus.com

574.361.2674

Sustainable Growth & Profit Consultant, Coach, Mentor and Counselor/Therapist for Business Owners and Professionals.

All articles, quotes, and material in this newsletter are copyrighted by our associate Gary Sorrell, Sorrell Associates, LLC ©. No part can be reproduced in any form without specific written consent. All rights reserved worldwide. Thank you!

February 20, 2023February 17, 2023

My New Book Is Here!

How to claim your power: Become who you want to be.

Are you ready to get more of what you want? To become who you want to be? To build confidence to make better decisions? If you want to get unstuck and move forward, this book is for you. The framework Gary Brunson leads readers through is one that has brought help, healing, and personal insights to hundreds of people throughout his career, first as a psychotherapist and for the past few decades as an in-demand executive consultant to business owners and entrepreneurs.

The model set forth here provides an avenue to becoming more aware of the filters we default to and the patterns of response we might not even realize we have. It is for those who want to better understand themselves as well as for leaders who want to create more emotionally healthy workplaces.

The overarching frame for this book is three things that we have control of in our lives:
1. How we are going to turn up each day
2. What we decide we are going to be, become, and try to accomplish with the life we have left.
3. How we view all experiences of our past, and what we choose to do with them in our present and future life.

Doing the first two things requires us to intentionally reconnect with ourselves to reclaim the power we already have to be the creator of the life we want from this moment forward to the end of our lives. Then and only then can we execute those first two things, jettison the role of a victim, and live out our power to be the self-determined creator of our own lives.

We have all scripted ourselves to manage our lives in hundreds of ways. We operate daily out of automatic patterns of behavior, and mostly we are unaware of the fullness of those patterns or where they have come from. It pays to examine them when something happens that puts us in a situation about which we feel a strong emotion such as sadness, anger, scare, happiness, excitement, or tenderness. Brunson provides what he calls Golden Questions to gently interrogate those emotions when we experience them, as a means to reveal the existence and source of those patterns.

You’ll appreciate Brunson’s practical wisdom and story-telling whether you are a young adult launching on your own, a CEO or owner of a company who wants to take your businesses to the next level, or you just think it’s time for life transformation.

Click here to order on Amazon or to read more.

We would love to hear your comments.

Gary Brunson
gary@myclearfocus.com

Debra Rider
debra@myclearfocus.com

574.361.2674

Sustainable Growth & Profit Consultant, Coach, Mentor and Counselor/Therapist for Business Owners and Professionals.

February 17, 2023

The Misconception of a New Normal

The Misconception of a New Normal

The New Normal. The term has become a bit of a catchphrase since the early months of 2020. So much so, in fact, that the concept feels to many almost cliché. “New Normal” implies that current business dynamics are stationary, but business owners know that is far from accurate. Nearly every aspect of today’s marketplace looks and feels different than it did just a few short years ago. And it will look and feel even more different tomorrow than it does today. Yes, the rate of change in the post-pandemic business world is simply astonishing.

There are so many innovations that are altering the way businesses do business. November 2022 saw the release of ChatGPT by OpenAI. The artificial intelligence chatbot is already shaking things up throughout the business and education sectors and is expected to wield widespread impact for years to come. Maybe even forever.

Many businesses are still struggling with a sluggish supply chain. For some, it is probably better than it was a year ago, but a Gartner survey found that 76% of supply chain executives say their company is facing more frequent disruptions than three years ago. The slow supply chain recovery is due in part to continuing global political unrest and issues in China. The causes are almost irrelevant for most business owners; what is important to them are the continuous ups and downs in their ability to secure the raw materials and goods to run and grow their businesses. Look at lumber. It has been on a crazy rollercoaster ride since 2020, propelled by the pandemic, but also exacerbated by weather and other factors out of the Pacific Northwest and Canada. Lumber costs soared then plummeted (then soared and plummeted again). And there is nothing normal about that.

The point is that the explosion of innovation and the impact of ongoing market stressors will continue to thwart any semblance of a New Normal. And in a way, that’s okay. Business owners who survived pandemic slowdowns, lockdowns, and shutdowns have learned firsthand how to accept – and almost embrace – change.

What Should Business Owners Expect?

Again, business owners are perpetually in the midst of significant change right now. However, there are evolving trends that appear to be establishing their footing in most businesses today.

Artificial Intelligence. As we mentioned above, ChatGPT is poised to change the way we run our operations. Business owners can easily apply the technology to enhance their customer service capabilities, incorporate it into their recruiting and hiring processes, and leverage it throughout their marketing.

A Focus on Hiring & Retention. Employee acquisition and retention are very challenging. Added to the mix is an influx of workers due to mass layoffs in big tech. By concentrating on your people and your company culture, your business will be better equipped to find and keep the people you need to successfully run and grow your organization.

Commitment to Cybersecurity. The current threat environment in technology is expanding, even for small businesses. Data breaches, malware, ransomware attacks, and other cybercrimes are expected to cost $8 trillion in 2023. Small businesses are a hacker’s favorite target. Make sure to carve out money in your budget to secure a strong cybersecurity posture.

So much is in flux in today’s world, so let’s not call it the New Normal. Let’s just call it progress.

Have you taken a look at our new book? Check it out today!

Click here to order on Amazon or to read more.

We would love to hear your comments.

Gary Brunson
gary@myclearfocus.com

Debra Rider
debra@myclearfocus.com

574.361.2674

Sustainable Growth & Profit Consultant, Coach, Mentor and Counselor/Therapist for Business Owners and Professionals.

February 9, 2023February 17, 2023

Tips and tricks to help you become a better change leader

Leadership can be challenging, since many times you are forced to make risky decisions. However, effective leadership is important when it comes to making a change. And, many times, change is needed within a company if you want to make it grow. That’s why it’s imperative to become a change leader. But how can you do so, and what should you focus on? Let’s find out!

Focus on improving your communication

A good change leader needs to learn how to communicate his wishes and requirements. That’s why you need to be good at sharing what needs to be improved, while offering guidelines to everyone. If you want to make a change, then you have to communicate properly. Improper communication might not give you the results that you are waiting for.

Learn how to strategize (and improve all the time)

Strategizing is crucial for any change leader. When you want to make a change, your first focus is on creating a plan. However, you also need to strategize and find the ideal way to implement your plan. Once you start doing that, it becomes easier to make that strategy a success. A great change leader will always have a clear action plan, which is adequately structured with timelines and any specific priorities.

Make yourself more vulnerable

It might seem counter-intuitive, but yes, it’s a good idea for a change leader to step a bit outside the regular CEO or leader mold. By trying out new things, experimenting you will be able to show everyone needs to be open to change, and that can make a huge difference. You should be firm and with a vision, but also open to many new ideas.

Expect initiative

Yes, you want to expect initiative and not encourage it. The best change leaders are the ones that expect their team to be proactive and take action. Encouraging them means you’re doing half the job yourself. You want to let them push their limits and expect initiative from their side. It’s totally worth it, and the potential can be second to none.

Conclusion

It’s always going to be tricky to become a change leader, but these tips and ideas can be a great starting point. As you can see, you need to be the initiator of change, yet at the same time it makes sense to expect some signs of change from employees too. Avoid any rush, establish the right change-focused strategy, and results will be amazing!

What have you done to become a better leader? Please send us your tips today!

Gary Brunson
gary@myclearfocus.com

Debra Rider
debra@myclearfocus.com

574.361.2674

Sustainable Growth & Profit Consultant, Coach, Mentor and Counselor/Therapist for Business Owners and Professionals.