Ditch the Overwhelm & Get Shit Done

The System

Use this system regularly to help you clear out your head, get rid of overwhelm and actually get shit done! Schedule a set time within your working week to go through them, and your to-do list will be done in no time.

 

• Your Daily Ritual

Each morning, before you start on your work, take time to do this short ritual which will set you up for the day.

• Write down your three key priorities for the day - we’ll go through how to decide these shortly.
• Write down three things you are grateful for today - it’s impossible to feel overwhelmed when you’re in a space of gratitude.
• Decide where you can bring in help - don’t be a hero and try and do it all!
• Decide what you’re going to let go of and scratch them off the list
• Take a moment to do some evidence tracking - note down everything, big or small  that has happened to show you are going in the right direction.

 

• Implement Tiger Time

Tiger Time was first coined by Amy Porterfield. It’s the time you set aside every day for business development and admin tasks - and you must guard this time as fiercely as a tiger guards her cubs.

It’s also vital that you schedule in time each day to walk away from your work, do yoga, read a magazine, go for a walk or even watch TV - anything that gives your brain a break, even if just for 10 minutes.

 

• Get Your Tasks Organised

And now, onto the exciting stuff! We know this sounds like a daunting task on top of everything else you have done, but if you follow this simple system you’ll feel far more in control of your to-do list.

 

• Dump all the stuff

Get everything out of your head and onto paper. It doesn’t need to be in any particular order - just get it all out. Keep the page open and available so you can keep adding when stuff keeps coming to you. This helps you to get it out of your brain, where it’s chewing up valuable space.

 

• Start sorting

Next, create different headings relating to different areas of your business. Some we recommend are:

Client

Acounts

Team

Admin

Marketing

You can even include groups for other tasks such as family, doctor, chemist, groceries.

• Prioritise

Choose one group at a time and start organizing them. 

So, you have a grid split into four quadrants:

1. Urgent - Important -  things that needed to be done yesterday! Typically time bound or someone waiting for you. Doesn’t matter how big or small they are.
2. Important - Not Urgent - Things which feel urgent because you want to get cracking with them, but aren’t time-bound, they might have been on your list for a while. If the business won’t fall over by x date, they go into Important quadrant
3. Not important - Urgent - these are day to day interruptions, emails, meetings you need to organise. They might feel time-bound but in the grand scheme of things they aren’t vital.
4. Not Urgent, Not Important - put anything that really isn’t important to your business here. Even the pleasurable activities you spend a lot of time on, but could actually be delegated quite easily.

• Go through this process for each of the areas of your business separately.

• Choose an area to focus on and take your top three priorities in the Urgent quadrant. These will be your three tasks to be dealt with first during your Tiger Time each day.

• Once those three tasks are done, THEN you can move onto the rest of the list. Concentrate on one task at a time and tick them off when done, it’s a great motivational feeling.

• Decide which of the non-urgent tasks you can outsource, and give them to a member of your team, or even look for a VA on a site like Upwork.

• If tasks really aren’t important then decide if you can just delete them! Failing that, park them in the future and give them a date when you’ll re-evaluate if they need to get done.

 

Figuring out what's most important each day and what needs to be done to enable the big jobs to get finished. Do this regularly and you’ll have a manageable to-do list, a clear plan for the week, and you will of kicked overwhelm to the curb.

Want more information on how to manage overwhelm and get more shit done? This program, including printables from this process is available in The Salon Owners Collective HUB. This program itself is usually $97 but is free when you join the HUB. Learn more HERE.