A question for business people/entrepreneurs...

[stevieannie]

This is kind of following on from yesterday's post which *wasn't* me putting on a pity party and asking for sympathy (although it's always nice to have people saying that they think you are doing a good job - thankyou all!).

It was more to do with the fact that I've requested a whole bundle of money and business books from the library (it was that Amazon wish-list thing I did!) and have been reading and mentally digesting everything therein. It's not that I think I'm doing a half-assed job (although I *did* forget a couple were booking into the cottage last night - it was a horrific hour of mad rushing around and the liturgic repeating of "I'm SO sorry!") on anything, but rather than it has been brought home to me something that my mother always told me (and I believe completely):

"You've got to work. Nobody is going to give you anything in this life."

Mum and Dad have worked damned hard all their lives and consequently have a very nice house, comfortable lifestyle, new car etc. etc. They have never been bequeathed anything (well, I believe my Nanna may have left a small three figure sum in her will - Mum was astonished that there was that much!), and ours is not a wealthy family. We're strictly working class, and very proud of it, thankyou.

My discontent may be stemming from the fact that I think I am falling back into my 'comfort zone' and expecting money to just happen. I've got my cottage advertising in place, so I'm not doing any extra advertising. We're not soliciting for higher paid building jobs because we're comfortable doing the small scale ones that are currently on the books. I'm not sure about doing the session vocal work, or pushing FFM too hard because of time conflicts.

This would be fine if we were happy in our small house with minimal outgoings. But we're not. We're building a house whilst keeping another two in a good state of repair and finance. We're aiming high, and I think I need to work harder to achieve that. The time to relax may well be in a year or two, but I don't think it is now, not unless we are prepared to give up on the dream of our self-built home.

So my question is this:

I am having to reorder priorities and identify what makes me productive. What makes *you* productive? What motivational tools work for you?

I'm not looking for the suggestion to sit down and have a nice cup of tea. Whilst it might be nice to do nothing for a while, I don't think that I'm a "do nothing" kind of person in the long run. I need to keep rolling at this speed, whilst altering my focus and multi-tasking more effectively. I long ago figured out that the surest way to make me miserable was for me not to have anything to work towards. I adore the feeling of having a goal and working towards it. Pulling in unison with my beloved husband towards something is even better.

So - business people and entrepreneurs: your motivational tools and opinions would be nice!

Comments

[fleetfootmike.livejournal.com]

What makes me productive?

Deadlines, sadly.

My usual mind-game with myself to get round the 'writing a week's code in two days' panic is to chop things up into small chunks and find some reason to commit a deadline for each fragment to someone else.

Also. working /with/ someone. I can't convince Anne of this: she doesn't get 'teamwork' like that - we both hate gardening, for example. but her approach would be to find something to do at one end of the garden and pack me off to the other to do something else, 'cause that's 'more efficient;, or something.

[stevieannie.livejournal.com]

Well, there's the problem, I guess. I work quite well to deadlines too, but deadlines are almost always set by somebody else - usually a manager. And in the lines of business we've chosen, there isn't actually a manager to set those deadlines. I could set them myself, but then I would know how false they were and not feel driven by them.

Bother.

Not going to work for me :-(

However, the anecdote about Anne and the gardening did make me laugh :-) Thankyou!

[deborah_c]

Deadlines tend to make me hugely unproductive, because my panic reaction is to go and hide for a couple of hours and see if things get better. When they don't, repeat until deadline missed, at which point I can finally work again.

Working closely with other people is the way to get the best work out of me, I find. And, of course, in general, doing things I enjoy, and (importantly) getting enough sleep.

[grey-lady.livejournal.com]

I'm with fleetfootmike on the 'teamwork' one; I think I take motivation in working with someone. It's one of the reasons why, ideally, I'd love to do a day-swap along the lines of "we'll both do X at my house on this day, and on that day we'll both do X at your house; it'll get done twice as fast each place and we can natter while we do it!" Because if I have someone there working with me, I'm less likely to get distracted by 20 other things.

Deadlines too.

I'm also one of the sad people that *does* find a To-Do list motivating; I take satisfaction at ticking items off the list. And I *will* add things to the list just to strike them off, because then I get the satisfaction out of it.

[bardling.livejournal.com]

I'm willing to do day-swaps, 'cause I'm another definite team worker, although for me it has less to do with distraction and more with willingness to work hard as well as making it *seem* to me like much less hard work, just because I have company/am working together with someone.

[grey-lady.livejournal.com]

I know you were asking specifically about business people / entrepreneurs so my example for teamwork isn't exactly helpful - but it still applies in a business sense as well; I get my best ideas when I can 'spark' off someone else. I know a lot of people that laugh at the idea of getting anything done by committee, but my goodness, with the right committee....

[stevieannie.livejournal.com]

Lists. That's a good idea. I haven't tried those. I know they work very well for some people whom I respect enormously...

Thankyou!

[zencuppa.livejournal.com]

With the New Year, I found myself feeling beleagered by details, and having great difficulty focusing my efforts.

So, I wrote and (now) read every morning and night, affirmations. These keep me from getting distracted with other "stuff," and keep me focus what's most important.

The last time I felt buried, waltzr (Jim, boyfriend) handed me my affirmations, and said "I noticed you haven't been reading these." I took the list, reread again and that got me out of "feeling unfocused and unmotivated" vein.

For now this is working, along with exercising and not letting work dominate my life. My friendships, kids and health all need my attention too :-)

I hope this helps!

Good luck.

Andrea

[stevieannie.livejournal.com]

Oh, I like that. I admit that you were one person who I really hoped would answer, as I respect what you are carving out with your writing business.

I think I may need some affirmations of my own :-)

[zencuppa.livejournal.com]

I am very glad this might work for you :-)

And I am quite flattered by your respect *wistful smile.*

And on the list thing, yes I use them too. But one way I really like to use them, is to start from the *bottom up* every now then, to get the lower priority stuff done every now and then.

If you'd like to see my affirmations (with really private stuff removed, of course) let me know and I'll send them off to you via email . . .

Andrea

[stevieannie.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'd *love* to see them, thankyou!

My email is awalker*at*walkerwork*dot*co*uk

Thankyou :-)

[keristor.livejournal.com]

I'm with fleetfootmike on this as well. My normal way of working to a deadline is to do virtually nothing for 90% of the time and then do everything in the last 10%. Now admittedly that "virtually nothing" means "nothing visible", a lot is going on in my background processing which does eventually result in the final activity, but a lot of it is that I'm not self-motivating. Nor ambitious, I don't want to run a company, or be at the top of anything, or slave all my life to get to retirement and drop dead of exhaustion. I work to live, not live to work, if I could get away with not having to work then I would.

And I'm there on the working with other people thing as well. Left to myself I'll give up and read a book, I need interaction (and encouragement, and "we'll do this bit and then have a cup of tea"). In my line of work I need people to bounce ideas off as well.

[stevieannie.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. Can't say that works for me so much. I couldn't help but think what I could have achieved if I'd worked the other 90% of the time, too. I'm pretty results driven at the end of the day, and highly self-motivated (or I've certainly learned how - I'm not convinced that people are born one way or another - I think it's a choice).

I don't want to get to retirement and drop dead of exhaustion. I'd like to get to retirement real early so that I can enjoy it before I get too old. I want to savour all those lazy days, and not have to worry about where my living expenses are coming from, because (a) I'm a worrier, and (b) I trust any government about as far as I could throw it with a pension of any kind.

I will admit to curiousity about how someone such as yourself (who obviously has a very different world view to me) views old age and pensions - care to share? I'm not suggesting that any one person is right or wrong, but I get so absorbed with my own perception that it is difficult to see the other side of the coin...

[keristor.livejournal.com]

I've never had 'ambition' in the conventional sense that I remember, I've never wanted to be 'better' than anyone else or have more, or compare myself to others except for interest. I know that in any field there will always be people who know more than me, and I like it that way because then I can keep learning new things. I think that in other times I could easily have been a hobo, content to just drift from one place to another. I'm not a perfectionist, I'm an engineer: "If it works, don't knock it" -- or "good enough for jazz".

As far as old age is concerned, I aim to have the house paid for by the time I retire (if I'm allowed to retire before I die). I don't trust the government pensions either, but neither do I trust them to not steal any savings I make or make my money worthless, I've seen too many times where they have said "save" with one head and "you have too much saved" with another.

And frankly I'm not at all sure that I want to see what the world will be like in 15 or so years time, the way things are going. I can no longer believe in it getting better. Certainly the dreams of my youth are not going to happen in my lifetime (they wouldn't let me into space at my age even if I were fit, for instance), and it seems that since I turned 50 I've finally accepted that.

(On a more cheerful tangent, I put my 21" TV on Freecycle yesterday, and within a couple of hours had loads of responses! I'll be taking it to the recipient tomorrow (easier than trying to find a time when I'm in) for her mother whose TV has just gone phut.)

[stevieannie.livejournal.com]

Oh, now THAT is interesting. I am assuming that you perceive me as "ambitious" by the way that you deny your own need for it in the response to my post.

I wouldn't necessarily disagree with you, as I do find the whole "forward motion" thing inspiring and achieving certainly feels good.

But I have NEVER compared myself to others in that respect. I envy other people, but it's rarely for things they have, but more for things that they ARE. I greatly admire Talis' songwriting, but I know that even if I worked day and night at it, I'll never have that spark that makes her material so compelling. I admire Anne W.'s single-mindedness and ability to cope with difficult situations. I admire Lissa's ability to carve out time for herself and advocate for others. But I couldn't give a *fig* about what stuph they have in their homes or what their credit card balance is. I don't think any of them is any better than I am, nor am I any better than they are - we're all different and vive la difference.

I have a goal which is set in rules completely seperate from the people around me:

I want to own my own house, which has enough space for me to pursue my hobbies without frustration or anger at those who I love and live with. I want enough space to share with my family and friends and to live as gently as I can on the earth. I want Tim to achieve his life-long ambition to utilise his architectural training to build our house as I know how happy that will make him. I want to be out of debt. I want the ability to retire early and to enjoy all the things that having a family has forced me to put on hiatus - creating art and music, travelling to see friends, taking a very active volunteer role within my local and wider community, and reading lots and lots and lots of books! As my primary mindset is "worrier", I absolutely will not enjoy doing all of this unless my financial and physical future is as safe as I can make it.

At no point do I frame my "want" list in terms of "well, Lissa has one, therefore I want one!". Some of the mothers at pre-school are astonished at how little I value clothes, shoes and hairstyles. Their entire life is framed by these, but mine is framed by my children's happiness, my artistic life and what I have to do to secure these in the future. Quite frankly, the idea of spending all my time shopping would bore me senseless.

I entirely understand your point about the future in 15 years' time. Talis has collected a saying (or maybe it is one of her own, I'm not sure) about staring at the scary issue for so long that it loses it's ability to frighten you, and you can start to deal with it. I subscribe to this. As a child I memorised the Frank Herbert "I shall not fear, fear is the mindkiller..." speech from "Dune" and recited it in moments of stress. It worked then, and it works now. It's still scary, but now that fear just manifests as anger and determination to live the kind of life that I want to . I guess that it is one more thing that I'm "ambitious" about. I want to live my life, on my terms.

Cor! It's jolly deep, this conversation!

[keristor.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I conflated the two things, 'ambition' isn't directly connected with the comparison. But it is connected with a striving to be better (in some way) than one is at the present, and that is often inspired by what other people do or have (if everyone lived in a mud shack would people aspire to a brick house?). Not "Fred has one so I want one" to be equal ("Keeping up with the Joneses", which I think we both find foreign to our thinking) but "Fred plays bagpipes, I'd like to play the pipes a well". Whereas I don't even have that sort of envy most of the time.

Yes, I do see you as ambitious, for yourself and others, you have a drive that I don't have. Having a house, yes, that is a goodness (it gets damp out in a field, and that's not good for books), but for me it's just a place for living and putting stuff (OK, especially putting stuff!). Just as for me a car is a means of transportation and I only want it to do what I need. My requirements are just a lot lower than yours, I think, and partly that's because it's "just me" and not a family but I think we do have different levels of drive. From what you say you seem to have the "work ethic" that you need to be working all the time (or feel that you should), whereas I have the "beachbum ethic" where work is a (sometimes necessary) evil.

(I resent any time spent shopping, my ideal would be to walk in, get the thing I want and walk out. Or preferably have it appear where I need it without me even thinking about it -- internet shopping has almost that level of non-work, but unfortunately has a lot of delay before the thing appears...)

I'm not frightened of the future, I just accept that it will likely be worse than the present. That way if it turns out to be about the same as the present I'll be pleasantly surprised. I don't have any dreams left which are likely to be even possible, let alone probable, whatever I do, with the exception of some very localised ones (there are some pieces of music I would like to arrange and perform, for instance, some books I'd like to read and films I'd like to see, some software I'd like to write or finish, but no grand goals). I'd still like to go out into space, but that dream was killed off several decades ago for my generation (yes, there are a few commercial ideas but none of them will be viable for 'elderly' people in time).

[hobbitblue.livejournal.com]

Lists, "must should could" prioritising (with or without a list, helps focus the mind and helps one feel in control) and swapping things that need to be done with somebody else, so if one person hates, say, mopping floors and will leave it till forward motion is impossible, and the other person is fine with floors but would rather cut off an arm than iron, the tasks get spread around. Which you probably do anyways but it never hurts to double check on things that are getting left undone. Um, and scheduling in 5 mins "sit down with a cup of tea" type stuff just to keep balance between all the busy stuff.

[stevieannie.livejournal.com]

See, the "sit down with a cup of tea" is deadly to me. If I sit down, I find it almost impossible to get back up. It's a bit like that old myth about the shark swimming forwards all the time because they'd sink to the bottom if they stopped?

I really do sink. Only it's called "a nice cup of tea and a sit down. And a biscuit. Or 6. And turn on the telly. Ooooh, look at the rubbish that is on. Why do people watch this? Oh, hang on, I'm watching it. Just five minutes more..." etc.

Maybe I'm Dory from "Finding Nemo" - "Just keep swimming... just keep swimming..." ;-)

[hobbitblue.livejournal.com]

Ah, oops. Though I was using the "tea & sit" as a gloss for any fun thing you want to do in between the busy vital stuff, so "play the bagpipes" or "surf the net" (though I have to say that not going anywhere *near* the computer gets me a lot more done, tis an evil vile timesink of a thing). I just meant that old "all work and no play" saw does apply.

[stevieannie.livejournal.com]

I totally agree about the vile timesink thing :-) It is the reason that I allot an entire two days to doing my website work, because I just don't stop surfing whilst waiting for things to upload, download, arrive etc.

Argh!

[keristor.livejournal.com]

To me even 'must' is a conditional -- "I must get the laundry done if I intend to have a clean shirt for work", "I must go to work if I want the money", and can be overridden (if I am ill it's more important to stay in bed than to do laundry or go to work, for instance). I reject 'should' on the basis that either I decide to do something or to not do it, but whichever is something which I determine based on a balance of desires not on whether it's something I 'should' do (in my experience most things that people 'should' do they don't -- "I should lose weight"). To misquote Yoda: "Do, or not do, there is no 'should'." 'Could' is just a statement of possibility, I don't need a list for that.

What I do need lists for is the trivia. The number of times I go upstairs to do or get something, and by the time I get to the top of the stairs I have no idea why I went there, so I do or get something at random and go back down, only to repeat it several minutes later when I remember what I wanted to do there. Rinse and repeat...

[unclechristo.livejournal.com]

I've recently found that breaking up my day helps a lot and Balance is the thing I have to struggle for. If I can tick my boxes
1. music for me
2. interacting with people
3. some movement - a walk maybe
4. remembering to drink and eat.

on most days even in a small way, then I'm doing quite well with the time I put towards work. Putting endpoints is good - I'll record til 3pm then do something else.

Plus lists too. I;m a list man. Not alays good at completeing the ticking off to the bitter end tho...

In tough times I;ve found certain books motivational Human Givens, Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway - given me another way of looking at things.

One big hit I get is from getting a strong shot of a creative person that inspires me. A documentary of their work or a good DVD or book about their life or even a good piece of their work - live or DVD. Creativity in others who I admire often I find infectious and drives me on.

I'm lucky just having the music and few Real Life (TM) demands - I doubt I could combine all the things you do as successfully as you do.

[ex-lark-asc.livejournal.com]

Gah! Damn LJ. Just ate my comment.

What I was *going* to say was, meghods M is exactly like most of your friends list (I guess he really was born to be a musician), and I think I do self-motivation by a reward system. I make a list of necessary jobs (or several dozen lists if I've just moved house *sigh*), then reward myself once they're done by doing something just for me, like painting or writing. And in fact it's neatly self-regulating, since if I slack too much in the mornings I don't get the necessary stuff done before the light goes or M gets home for dinner or whatever, so laziness is self-discouraging because it means I lose out on my me-time reward.

[gas-king.livejournal.com]

Lists. I am a disorganised sole and have a very limited ability to multi-task (as witnessed in my recent attempt at backing vocals - completely stopped playing the guitar at one point!) But I do like crossing things off. The sense of achievement is a good motivational tool. Unfortunately, not completing items on the list is demotivating, then it comes down to sheer effort of will and getting the job done! Rewards are good too (if I can just finish this post, then I get a cup of tea & an M&S percy pig!)

One of your rewards must be the new house. The feeling of being in a home you designed and built, fitted, decorated etc is one many of us only dream of and fewer still have the patience and strength to see through to the end.
So start your list, item #1: Move into new house (wot I built)!

[callylevy.livejournal.com]

Just (re)discovered this entry and felt I wanted to reply!

About every 6 months I review what I'm up to and decide what my priorities are for the coming 6 months. It might be that there are certain goals which completely blow others out the water, or it may be that I have a number of things which I'm juggling, but I decide on their order, the "if push comes to shove, and these things are in conflict, this one wins". From this I might set a few concrete goals for those things which are most important to me in the coming 6 months. I might also decide that there are a few things I need to drop or completely deprioritise, and I'll try to do the uncomfortable task of setting that in motion (the difficult phone call etc) as soon as possible so it's not hanging over me.

I have less of a problem of feeling motivated to do things but more of a burn-out issue, where I find I'm too tired or emotionally weary to do any more useful things, and there is more to do. At least at this time knowing that I've probably done the task of greatest value to me can be helpful.

I keep track of things with lists. Lists for each project, with the most important things marked, and daily lists of what I'm going to do each day. I find that if I can progress each important project a little each day (or week) then I don't start feeling concerned that something is quietly sliding away from me.

One of the things that motivates me is having someone who cares about how/what I'm doing, even if the work is fairly solo. So having a mentor at university to whom I can talk about my paid conducting work outside the uni, for example, is very helpful.

Somewhere in the comments you mention the 'keep swimming' mindset. I feel this too, perhaps because I'm acutely aware of time passing and feel there's so much I want to try to do while I'm still around to do it.

It's been interesting to read what other ideas people have about being productive and motivated, so thank you for kicking off this chat!