Lloyd Williams

Get Organized with One Sheet of Paper

The Pocket RoadMap™ is a single sheet of paper folded into six small panels that puts you in control of your life and time. Download the PDF file and print the two pages back to back on one sheet of paper.

Whether you are using GTD or ZTD or any other productivity system the Pocket RoadMap will keep you focused on the most important items each week. Download it for free and give it to your friends. This is a tool your entire team can use.

Video showing how to use the Pocket RoadMap coming soon.

Occasionally a book comes along that helps us understand our own behavior in a meaningful way. Steven Pressfield’s book The War of Art defines for us the nature of our greatest enemy and how to combat what holds us back from the results we desire.

Whether you are an artist, writer, entrepreneur, or professional this short book clearly identifies the source of procrastination and internal obstacles to our success in part one. The cure is clearly defined in part two. Like Robert McKee, who wrote the foreword, I too see in part three the effect of inspiration the same and the cause of inspiration differently.

This is a quick read and can immediately be applied to your current practice. Great books can change your life. This in one of them. For more information on The War of Art.

Getting Things Done (GTD) by David Allen revolutionized productivity, though many find it overly complicated. For those of us less inclined to be engineers or lacking follow through, we need a simpler solution. Thank you Leo Babauta for writing Zen to Done: The Ultimate Simple Productivity System.

This short book simplifies the entire GTD system down to very specific actions that are easily implemented into your current routine. No longer are you burdened with maintaining a large organization system. You can apply the concepts at you own pace and decide what is most important for your needs.

Leo writes a great blog at ZenHabits.net which is a valuable resource. Take a moment and read this short book, then apply one habit this week and add another when you master the first.

The economy will always go up and down. The important habit to master is knowing what to do during the bad times. When things are good focus on your clients because during these times clients are difficult to replace. Everyone is happy with their current relationships. Therefore strengthen your client relationships by helping them fulfill their dreams. This will be easier during the good times.

During difficult times, first prepare yourself, see earlier Mastery Habit: Crisis Management. Then settle your clients worries quickly. Remind them that times like these have occurred in the past and will occur in the future. Help them establish a long view of the economy. They have no need to worry. Reconfirm the disciplined process that you have taken them through to determine their needs and the unique solution that they have working for them currently. Do not try to call or contact each client personally, use mass communication tools like email, broadcast fax, letter, podcast, or conference call. The exception to this would be your Top 20 Clients who you should call after you have sent the mass communication information.

Your mass communication email or letter should include the following:

1. A clear, positive, reasonable response to what is happening currently
2. A statement to calm their worries about the future
3. An opportunity to reassess their risk or comfort level
4. An offer to others they know who are scared or worried and do not have someone like you in their life to help them assess their situation. This offer should be a “no cost, no obligation” offer to assess where they are today, where they want to be in the future, and an action plan to get there.

The last part of your mass communication is most important. This is one of the rare opportunities when you can ask your clients to introduce you to others without any risk. Your clients know others who are scared in times like these and they may not have someone who is returning their calls. You will be surprised at the number of introductions that are only available during difficult times.

Your last action is to renew contact with every prospect you have. They are more open to change during difficult times than any other time.

One important point. This opportunity to focus on prospects is for a limited time only. Once the economy strengthens and the good times return prospects are difficult to move because they are once again happy with their current relationship. Do not miss this opportunity when it comes around. The greatest new growth for a business occurs in difficult times and is exponentially leveraged when things improve.

To review:
1. Prepare yourself
2. Settle clients’ worries through a rational argument using mass communication
3. Ask if they feel a need to reassess there risk and comfort level
4. Offer an opportunity to help others they know who are not being communicated with properly
5. Focus on prospects

Extraordinary teams know their capacity for work. They respect team members’ energy levels and avoid burnout by establishing a cruise speed for the team. When necessary, they increase capacity during crisis, then quickly return to cruise speed. Most businesses run at 100 percent of capacity all the time and have no ability to deal with crisis. The team shuts down as everyone becomes exhausted and demotivated. The best practices value all members of the team and understand that the ability to deliver a consistent solution to clients depends upon the team’s energy and motivation.

An outstanding business knows the value of being prepared and defining where to focus its time and effort. It also knows which meetings are most important. A typical business drops everything when the biggest client calls. But this client controls only 5, 10, maybe 20 percent of the business. A great business knows when it meets as a team, or when the business leader thinks alone about the business, it is in control of 100 percent of the business. Team members know that a meeting with themselves is the most important meeting of the week because without the team prepared and focused, everyone loses. The best make team meetings free of interruptions and distractions. They also understand the need for the team leader to have time alone to think, rest, and prepare. These times are blocked on the calendar and protected. The best teams use the calendar to guarantee distraction-free time to plan, think, and prepare. Blocking time allows teams to use the rest of the time to execute and deliver.

Your ability to handle stress inducing circumstances is directly proportional to your preparation. Those who master the art of business know the art of dissection. They follow a few simple steps to avoid repeating the same stress in the future.

1. Examine the root cause. We normally are dealing with the end result of a situation. Example: the tax crunch of April. What is the cause? The stress of incoming calls and rushing around is the effect. The cause is a transaction that occurred the previous year.

2. Identify a strategy that can change our response and be proactive. Back to our example. Instead of waiting for the crush of work during April we could collect the needed data when the transaction occurs and log it in the client file. Then at the first of the year we could proactively send the client the tax information.

3. Make a habit, procedure, or process so your response is different in the future. From our example: create a logging sheet and post as the transactions occur throughout the year, rather than compiling a years worth of transactions in a few weeks.

The right decision is made before the crisis. It is in the clear light of day that we make a decision and then we execute in the midst of the crisis.

Your business is your baby and like any parent you want and need feedback from the team about how the baby is doing. Too often the advisor delegates to team members and then worries about whether or not the actions have been executed. This lack of communication is a major cause of team dysfunction.

To increase team productivity meet with each team member weekly for 15-minutes with the following agenda:

1. Feedback - 5-minutes the team member gives feedback on previous delegations
2. Delegation - 5-minutes the boss delegates any new tasks or projects
3. Acceptance - 5-minutes both agree and reprioitize the team member’s tasks

This simple 15-minutes weekly meeting will eliminate the excessive workload many team members face and will also remove the anxiety of many managers concerning delegations.

15-minutes a week can transform your team.

Set aside a day to do Life Planning, not just business planning. Look at your entire life-to-date. By answering the following four quesitons you will have a better idea about what is most valuable to you going forward.

Four Questions to Ask and Answer

1. What have I accomplished in my life? List all the accomplishments in your life that make you proud. these are the raw material for your knowledge and experience and will be the foundation upon which you will meet and exceed your future dreams.
2. What have I not accomplished, but intended to? List now the dreams that were important in the past and have not yet been accomplished. Some of these will still be valid and desireable.
3. What are the challenges and problems I face today? Looking at your life now, what challenges do you face today? Because of your past experiences you are more capable in some areas of your life and less capable in others. I am wiser than I was when I was 20, but I can not physically do the same things I once could.
4. What are the opportunities that are available to me right now? List the opportunities, both personal and business, that are available to you.

You can now look at your Roadmap for Change and jump start your new year. For a blank Roadmap for Change form go to the Downloads page.