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.

[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.

[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

[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.

[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.

[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!