How to Manage a Successful To Do List

Do you find yourself dreading your to do list?  Do you dread it so much that you basically ignore it?  Or possibly you’ve hated to do lists before and so have given up on them (either consciously or subconsciously).

The key to a successful to do list is to only have on it what you can reasonably do in the given period of time.

I have separate to do lists for today, this week, this month and long-term.  That way, I can realistically finish all the of today’s items on my list each day.  This keeps my to do list energizing as opposed to oppressive.  It feels great on the days that I have crossed everything off.  It feels even better to see my weekly list all checked off.  This keeps me motivated.

When you’ve got 50 things on one list, it is overwhelming. You feel like you will never dig yourself out of all the work.  Eventually, it gets to be too long and you simply start ignoring it.  Then a couple months later, when you’re having trouble juggling all that you have to do without a list, you start a new one.

Get yourself into the habit of judging how much you can accomplish in one day, one week, and/or one month.  Leave room for last minute additions.  This is the best way to have a to do list, stick with it, and really get full value out of it.

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Having a hard time managing yourself?  Do you know you could be more efficient, but could really use some accountability?  If you are having trouble getting on top of things, drop me an email at rebecca@whowinsandwhy.com or contact me here. I would be happy to answer any of your questions, or set up an free session to get you moving forward.

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One perennial question I am asked by my clients is how to go about negotiating salaries.  My standard advice is to try to head off the question before it even arises.  The first person to ask often wins in this scenario.  If you wait for the employer to ask you your requirements without first getting a sense of their range, then you go into the negotiation with the weaker hand.

A new study gives an interesting perspective — and offers an easier approach.  According to to a simulation conducted by Todd J. Thorsteinson of the University of Idaho, job candidates who jokingly requested ridiculously high salaries received 9% higher wage offers than candidates who made no such jokes.

I find this interesting because it may be easier for people who have a hard time with negotiation to follow this tactic instead. It can be hard to stick to your guns at the negotiation table.  Many people have a nervous habit of undercutting themselves without reason.  By taking a more open and more playful approach, you can defeat this harmful tendency. Obviously, this is a tactic to be used with discretion: gauging the personality of the person you are negotiating with is essential.

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It’s all well and good to talk about salary negotiations, but if you are having trouble landing interviews or getting to the negotiating table in the first place then that’s the place to start.  If you are having trouble getting to that point, drop me an email at rebecca@whowinsandwhy.com or contact me here. I would be happy to answer any of your questions, or if you would prefer, help you get started with a free initial session to get you moving forward.

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Very few self-employed people ever become truly successful.  It is not enough to have a passion for web design, writing, or photography.  If you want to work on your own, then you need to become a true jack-of-all-trades.  Your gift of creating amazing websites is not going to take you far if you do not also tackle your weaknesses in sales and marketing.  Your gift for sales is going to fall flat if you do not also develop the practical sense of how to get things done and manage projects.

Everyone has strengths, but we all also have weaknesses.  When you work for a company, a lot of those weaknesses are inconsequential because the math dunce has an accounting team to keep track of the budget, the spacy “big-thinking” manager has an executive assistant with an amazing attention to detail.

If you are going to go out on your own and start a small business, you will need to either learn or hire out all of your weaknesses.  Unfortunately, most people do not do either.  They keep plugging along at what they are good at and they ignore their weaknesses.  A year later, they are still struggling and finally give up and start job searching.

If you want to overcome the odds that you will be one of the estimated 90% of small businesses that fail, you need to be brutally honest with yourself about what your weaknesses are and come up with strong strategies to work around them.  Those strategies can include hiring help, but there are also many other resources that you can use to teach yourself how to overcome and succeed.

Some of my favorite books to start with:

• Good in a Room – By Stephanie Palmer  — This book is great for learning how to network effectively and naturally, as well as how to tailor your sales pitch and engage your potential customers.
• The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It – By Michael E. Gerber  — This is a classic small-business strategy book.  If you are struggling with whether you should go into business yourself, or if you are having trouble figuring out why you are not successful, I would highly recommend it.
• The Wealthy Freelancer: 12 Secrets to a Great Income and an Enviable Lifestyle — This book is great for marketing strategies for small businesses.  It really has something for everyone.

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Want to feel successful with self-employment but having a hard time figuring out what weaknesses are holding you back?  Maybe you actually know which weaknesses you have, but are having a hard time creating to strategy to work around them? Drop me an email at rebecca@whowinsandwhy.com or contact me here. I would be happy to answer any of your questions; or if you would prefer, help you get started with a free initial session to get you moving forward.

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Do you struggle with the decision of what path to follow?  Maybe you have many ideas about what you want to do and where you want to go. Until you narrow down your choices and truly decide on one, you will continue to be paralyzed.  It is impossible to move forward strongly while maintaining all your options.  There comes a point where you have to pick something and throw your all into it.

It is human to try to keep your options open.  Options make people feel safe.  They provide exit strategies.  But they are also the biggest time suck known to modern man.

The longer you continue to focus on the multitude of choices that you have, the longer it will take you to actually get started on the path towards success.  You cannot afford to live your life stuck in the mud by your choices.  You have to take control of them and actually decide on your path forward.

We don’t decide because we are afraid of the outcomes. Life is about trying and either succeeding or failing.  If you avoid that by never really making the choice in the first place, then yes, you may seem to avoid failure.  But eventually, that procrastination will catch up to you and never trying at all will feel like a failure anyway.

Choices are great, as long as you are tackling them in a timely manner and moving forward.  Avoid this paralysis. Ultimately, your success depends on knowing what you want, and going for it — without being distracted by the ‘options’ mirage.

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Not sure how to narrow down your choices to start moving forward?  Drop me an email at rebecca@whowinsandwhy.com or contact me here. I would be happy to answer any of your questions, or if you would prefer, help you get started with a free initial session to get you moving forward.

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Scheduling ‘worry time’ may help you fret less – Health – Behavior – msnbc.com.

An interesting study in the Journal of Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics finds that scheduling 30 minutes a day to worry can be effective at reducing overall worry.

This is fascinating to me, because while it makes sense when you think about it, it is a little counter-intuitive.

I think that for many people who get caught up in their worries, this would be worth a try.  Worrying and anxiety are often success-killers.  They can keep you paralyzed, stopping you from moving forward.

One of the most important parts of winning is managing anxiety and using it to drive you forward.  Worrying is healthy in smaller doses, but controlling it is key to a happy, successful life.

This study was done on clinically anxious people, so it may or may not be applicable to people with general non-clinical challenges with worrying.  Not to mention, the study was small, so it may not even hold for people with clinical anxiety.  Please don’t use this as a substitute for treatment if you need professional help with anxiety.

Sometimes I’m not a huge fan of Seth Godin’s blog because he can be fairly blithe and simplistic, but this post was short and sweet.  Basically, in it he says to stop making excuses as to why someone else’s success can’t be replicated, “… all success is special. That’s what makes it success.”

If we are too wrapped up in our excuses, then we are not focused on how to make our venture successful in its own unique right. This is applicable to pretty much everything in life.  I hear these rationalizations about job searches, about meeting deadlines, about coming up with great new product ideas, and from small business owners of all stripes.

Seth spends a lot of time focused on pushing people to think bigger and more innovatively.  I have a lot of respect for the fun niche he has carved out for himself.

Too often, cover letters are boring impersonal affairs.  If you want a callback from an unsolicited resume, you need to have a cover letter that grabs attention and strongly states why you would be an amazing candidate. What do you bring to the table?  I’m not just talking your experience, they will see your experience listed in the resume.  What you need is to highlight the intangible traits that you have that make you exceptional but don’t always neatly fit on your resume.

Pick the three things that make you an amazing employee, salesperson, or manager.  Stop and think about what you have been complimented on in the past. What do others value in you? What do you think makes you exceptional?

Here is a list of potential traits to get you started:

• Creative problem solver
• Excellent Multitasker
• Able to work effectively and efficiently with minimal oversight
• Outstanding at managing people to the best of their abilities
• Great at communicating new ideas effectively to a broad audience
• Able to meet and exceed time-sensitive deadlines
• Excellent at taking complicated information and developing strategies around it with speed.
• Track record of exceeding sales goals
• Proven record of creating innovative and effective business strategies

These are the things that employers want to see in a cover letter.  Your cover letter is your sales pitch, and you need to tailor it to your potential employers’ needs.  Help them get a sense of how great you are as an employee. Show them that you would be a pleasure to work with.

Once you have settled on the qualities that make you great, weave in examples from your work experience to highlight these strengths.  Don’t just say that you have a track record of exceeding sales goals, specifically state the most impressive goal that you beat.  Expand on your creative problem-solving skills. Paint a picture of how you would be a strong asset to them.

Cover letters are tough,  few people are really effective at marketing themselves. If you take this tip and weave it into your cover letter, it will make it much stronger.

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Is your cover letter driving you nuts?  In exchange for being able to use yours as an example on this site, I will offer two coaching sessions free to help you whip it into an effective sales pitch.  Contact me for more details.

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Effective networking is critical to a successful and speedy job search, but it can be overwhelming. Many people have a hard time getting started because it involves asking friends, colleagues, and acquaintances directly for help.  Many people are uncomfortable with this, which is why they overly rely on internet job postings.

I think that the easiest way to start networking is to add one networking task at a time, getting a good handle on one before starting the next. For people who aren’t extremely extroverted, networking can be hard. It helps to break it down into smaller categories and to not try to do everything all at once.

Here are a couple places you could start:

• Make a list of headhunters in your field – Send at least four your resume and continue to follow up with them. Try to set up informal meetings so that they get to know you. Stay on their radar — if a job pops up they are more likely to go with someone they’ve talked to recently. Often, people don’t contact the recruiter when they get a job, so therefore, if the recruiter hasn’t heard from you in 2 months, it’s easier for him or her to go with the person that he or she knows is still job searching.

• Make sure you email your resume to everyone you know who may possibly know someone whom you should be in touch with.  In the email, ask this person to connect you with any of his or her business contacts who may be helpful to you.

• Once you email all of your network, continue to follow up with them, keeping them in the loop of your job search every month or two.  Invite old colleagues you haven’t seen in a while out to coffee.  Make sure to connect with any new contacts that you are given in a friendly and prompt manner.

• Set up linkedin — and learn how to maximize it. Here’s a website with good starting strategies: 9 Ways to Maximize Your Linkedin Profile.

• Find groups to join and make a point to go to at least one networking event a week. This is especially helpful if you already belong to groups but haven’t gone to many mixers. Networking works best when you know people, so if you don’t have any groups that you are a part of, join some and make a commitment to keep going even if you feel awkward the first couple meetings. As you meet people that you connect with make sure to follow up with them, even if they aren’t in a position to higher you directly, you never know who they may know.

• Go to every social gathering you are invited to and organize you own gatherings as well.  This gives a great way to touch base with friends/colleagues whom you have not seen in a while.

I know this seems like a lot, but do one first and give yourself a couple weeks to get it firmly into place in your job search strategy before moving onto another one.  I know that it can seem overwhelming, so take one step at a time.  You know the bumper sticker that says, “He who dies with the most toys wins.”  I say, “He who utilizes the most contacts gets the job the fastest.”

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Still overwhelmed about where to start?  Not sure how to sell yourself in the first place?  Drop me an email (rebecca at whowinsandwhy.com) or contact me? I would be happy to answer any of your questions, or if you would prefer, help you get started with a free initial session to get you on your feet .

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Recently, I have fielded a lot of questions from individuals who tell me that they are having no luck in their job search.  My first question to them is always, “how are you mounting your job search?”  Invariably, the answer is that they have applied to tons of job postings online and they are fed up with not hearing back.

I totally understand the feeling, but unfortunately, it is predictable.

The hard truth is that most jobs are received through networking.  The person who is hired knew someone. Either they knew the person that was in charge of hiring or they had acquaintances that did.  This makes sense.  In the age of technology, we forget how far a human connection can go.  If a company gets 50 applicants, that can be overwhelming.  It is easier to go with the friend of a friend.  You have an automatic reference, the person hiring knows that you are who you say you are.

Focusing on responding to job postings is just about the best way to ensure that you do not get a new job anytime in the near future.  Instead, you need to focus on connecting with your target market.  Consider the job search a sales job. No self-respecting salesperson would simply rely on sending out cold letters, hoping that people will get back to them.  Instead, they will push themselves to get out there.  They will go to as many marketing events as possible.  Setting up meetings or coffee with anyone that may be able to help, or may know someone that may be able to help.

Good sales people are not pushy, but they do ultimately make a sales pitch.  A good sales person who was job searching would ask as many people as possible for help.  They would not just mention that they are job searching; they would instead ask if their contacts if they are hiring, know anyone that is hiring, know anyone that might be hiring soon, and know anyone that would be a good contact just for the sake of meeting other people that have similar career interests.

Take your job search to the next level.  Start reaching out to anyone who may be able to help you or may know someone that can help you.  You won’t get far quickly unless you maximize your network fully.

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If the idea of networking makes you want to hide under a blanket or run for the hills, please feel free to contact me. I would be happy to help you come up with tailored ways to network that focus on your individual strengths and minimize the fear that can come with putting yourself out there in such a bold way.

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Ever since we were kids, we’ve been told to live up to our potential. At a certain point, one starts to tune it out. We either are or we are not living up to it, but it gets overplayed so therefore is easily ignored. The problem is that if we ignore whether we are living up to our potential, we are missing out on a key indicator of what we need to do to be more successful.

Take a look at where you are now with your job. Are you meeting your potential?

If not, take out a pen and paper. List all the ways in which your potential is not being met. Are there common patterns? Maybe you’re procrastinating on projects too often, so not doing as good of a job as possible. For others, the problem may be that their job is not in line with their talents. Often, self-employed people do not market themselves as strongly and as often they should.

What road blocks are you putting up that keep you from truly meeting your potential? We all have them, and often we can rationalize them quite well. But in order to move around the block, we have to be honest with what they are and what we need to do to get around them so that we can leave them in the dust. This is much easier if we are honest about where the blocks are in the first place.

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If you are having trouble identifying where you are not meeting your potential or if you are struggling with coming up with reasonable and workable solutions, please feel free to contact me. I would be happy to help you strategize solutions that will help you succeed to your fullest.

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