BMP183 Holly Worton ~ How to Get Things Done YOUR Way

by | Jan 23, 2017 | Business, Podcast Episode

BMP183 Holly Worton ~ How to Get Things Done YOUR Way

Today’s Guest

I’m back with another solo show! This week, I’m back talking about focus and getting things done…in a way that works for YOU. I share what’s worked for me, and what’s not. I’ve been talking a lot about getting things done lately, mostly because Jo Casey and I have been running a series of webinars on how to focus and get things done as part of our Make 2017 the Year of BIG Things series.

Listen to this episode

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What You’ll Learn

  • How to focus and get things done YOUR way (because there’s no blueprint that works for everyone)
  • Which is better for YOU: unstructured flow or structured days?
  • How to make unstructured flow work for you (so you’re not just wasting time)
  • How to know when unstructured flow is more appropriate for the work you need to do
  • Should you be a pantser or a planner in your business?
  • How to balance focus + taking breaks in a way that works for YOU
  • How to change location to get things done more efficiently
  • How to reduce distractions so you can improve your focus

The proven way to stop procrastinating (hint: it has to do with mindset!)

Episodes With Transcripts

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  • Transcript

    The transcript for this episode can also be downloaded here (no opt-in required).

    Holly:

    Hello and welcome to Business Mindset Podcast, episode 183. This is your host Holly Worton and I am back with another solo show.

    So, today, because I have been talking so much about focus for the last, probably month or so now, I am going to continue to talk a little bit about how to focus and get stuff done, because this is a big thing in business, if we just sit back and don’t do anything, things won’t get done. Surprise, surprise. So, you may have heard my last couple of co-hosted episodes with Jo Casey, where we have been talking a lot about how to focus and mindset and that kind of thing, in terms of getting stuff done. And the whole reason we have been talking about this so much is because we just ran, over the course of the last week, our big action boot camp challenge, which was a week-long challenge where we guided — about 60 people — to get a mini-project done and completed. So, for a lot of people these things were like: setting up their MailChimp creating a new opt-in gift, finishing a course that they were studying, creating a short programme, or workshop. Often, they were things that people had been procrastinating on for a while, and they wanted that extra support of – not only having Jo and I on their case to help them with any questions, problems and also kind of goading them along, to get things done — but, also, the support of the community. People were really great about stepping up and giving feedback on what people were working on. So, it has been a really great week. We started out with a group call, and we are finishing it up with a group call tonight. So, it is Tuesday when I am recording this, and this is going to go live on Monday as usual.

    So, it has been a great experience, and I think that people have seen the power of setting something as a priority, and actually doing the work to get it done. So, I think, there is no blueprint for getting stuff done in business. I don’t think there is a right way, or a wrong way, to get stuff done. And, I don’t think there is a blueprint, I don’t think there is a simple recipe you can follow that works for every single person, I think people have different styles, different ways of working, and it is going to be different for everyone. And I know that whenever I talk about anything, I think that one of the underlying, overarching, things to the way I approach business, is that everyone has their own way of doing things and there are no blueprints, there are no recipes. So, you need to find what works for you. So, I am not 100% sure where I am going with this episode right now: I’ve got some notes about things I want to talk about but, basically, I am going to be sharing things that have worked for me in the past; things that work for me now; and hopefully that will give you an idea of things that you can try to see what works for you. Particularly if you have been stuck in a cycle of not getting stuff done in your business. And not getting stuff done in business can lead you to being stuck in the place where you are, because nothing changes, because you are not doing anything differently.

    So, I think one of the things that has been, one of the biggest challenges for me, in terms of running my business over the last few years, has been finding a balance between flow and structure. I have gone through periods in my business where I have been super-structured in how I plan my day, and then I have gone through times when I have been completely unstructured and just allowed things to flow. Now, my tendency is towards structure. I tend to find structure to be really comforting, it helps me get stuff done, it helps me stay on track, it is kind of where I naturally go. But, like I said, I alternate between periods of time where I am structured, and periods of time when I am going into flow, and I think there is a time and a place for both – however, unstructured flow really freaks me out. And I actually had a session with my business mentor Lisa Weichtenheiser, I think it was about a month ago, or maybe a little bit more, probably two months now, where I specifically discussed this with her, and I said: ‘you know, look, I worked with you over a period of three months, quite intensively, over the summer of last year, of 2016, where I got SO much done.’ I mean, I was having regular sessions with Lisa, I was really structured, I had a list of things to do, I did it; I stayed on my path; I got so much done. I really transformed, not just my business, but myself. But, since then, I have kind of fallen into a period of unstructured flow, and it was making me feel like crap about myself and my business. And one of the things that came up with her, was: ‘there is a time for structure and a time for flow’. And, now a couple of months on from this session, where we were discussing this, I realised that she was right. You know, I tend to beat myself up a lot when I am not being super-structured and productive, and getting stuff done — but, there is a time for flow. And, as I have kind of alluded to in my emails to my list, and in my private Facebook group and also here in the podcast, I am creating a new technique that I am going to be using to work with people; starting probably in a couple of months.

    So, that creative process required less structure; because this is a process that I kind of ‘downloaded’ intuitively and had to work through it very slowly and step by step, it wasn’t something I created with my mind and my logic, so I needed a period of unstructured flow in my life and my business. So, on one hand I felt really bad about myself for not being productive, and not getting done a lot of the little stuff that I wanted to get done day-to-day in my business; but as a result of allowing myself this period of unstructured flow, I was able to create this new system of working with people, a totally new technique, that’s going to be transforming my business, it has already transformed my life, and it is going to be helping my clients in the future.

    So, sometimes unstructured flow can be really, really, useful. The question is though: how do you determine when you are in one of those periods where you need that unstructured flow to maybe download a creative process, or go through and create new things to get ideas for your business, to kind of stop and slow down and get a new perspective. How do you know when that unstructured flow period of time is useful? And when it is just procrastination and you are not productive for your business? That’s a good question. I think it is really hard to tell sometimes. Now, I had this goal, very clearly, that I wanted to kind of receive this download of information in terms of my new technique, my new method, my new way of working with people. So, I think that the fact that I had that goal and I had that intention, made that unstructured work period more useful and more worthwhile. Whereas, if I hadn’t had any particular goal or thing that I was working on, it might have been just a period of procrastination; however, the interesting thing is in this situation, my kind of doing busy work on the computer was procrastination.

    So, I think this all comes down to: what are your priorities in your business right now? You know, is your priority getting out there, getting visible, getting more clients? Are your priorities: kind of stepping back and getting a new perspective? What is your priority in your business, what is your #1 priority and what is going to be the best way for you to approach that? Is it going to be to map out a series of tasks; and a strategy; and just kind of raging through that to do list; or, is it going to be giving yourself alone time, quiet time? Time to walk out in nature, time to go to a café and just journal or spend time alone and just sit there and meditate? What is it that you need? And I think that making this — and I am saying this in retrospect, because when I was going through the process it was just, I don’t know what it was, it was unstructured – but now that I am exploring this with you (if you are on this podcast), I think that’s the most important thing: taking awareness of your #1 priority, and consciously deciding what is going to be the best way to approach that: is it focussed action, or is it time and space? That sounded very cosmic. Is that allowing you space to be creative and receive that information and meditate and get that new perspective?

    So, I think that’s the important thing get your priority, and figure out what’s the best way to approach it. And this kind of reminds me of fiction writers, they have these – there are kind of these two different camps of working –they have got the pants-ers and the planners, so people who just fly the seat of their pants, they start writing a book, they have got the characters, they are building the world, they are writing, writing, writing…they don’t know where the heck it is going to go. They are just writing, and they see what happens as they write. That scares the crap out of me! I don’t think I can write a novel like that. However, when I used to write, that’s how I wrote in the past, so that’s very interesting. Nowadays I think, when I become ready to start writing fiction, which I will at some point, I have got ideas, it is in the works; I think I am going to be a planner, I think I am going to be the kind of person who needs to know where the story is going to go. However, when I actually sit down to write the book, we shall see what happens. But when I write my non-fiction books I am very much a planner. The first thing I do is: I sit down, I have the topic, I map out every chapter that I am going to write, set it all up in Scrivener, which is the software that I use for writing books, and I just start writing. And, sometimes, I will re-name chapters, sometimes I will delete chapters, sometimes I will add chapters, because as I am writing the book it takes a form, it evolves and I realise that people need more information to understand, or less information or to focus on different things; but I always start out with a plan. It is flexible plan, I don’t always stick to it, it is not set in stone, but it’s a plan. But, again, you have got to find out what works for you.

    And I think this all comes from having a clear plan and clear goals in your business. You know, what do you want to get out of your business this year? What would make you super satisfied and happy and proud of yourself, and feeling successful, when in December of this year, December 31st, 2017, you look back at your year and you think: “wow, that was a great year”. What would make you super-happy with your year, if you had achieved it? A lot of people don’t set goals. Hopefully if you have been in business for any time, you will be setting goals for your business, because, if you are completely flying by the seat of your pants, it is hard, because it is like wandering around with no sense of direction. I think even if your goals change, and even if you adapt your goals throughout the year, and you re-evaluate, and I think you should be re-evaluating… because you know, we grow and we change throughout the year. I am not the same person now that I was a year ago, I have grown and my goals for my business are different, my business is very different. So, I think it is important to re-evaluate, but I think you do need to have some vision for your business; some goals of how you are going to get there, and some plan of how you are going to achieve those goals. So, I do think some structure, vision; some planning is important. Even if you are the kind of person who needs to kind of flow through things.

    So, another thing that I wanted to talk about in terms of getting stuff done is, you know, I talk a lot about hyper-focus, I talk about my Workcation Weekends, and I am particularly good at just hyper-focussing on one thing, for a big chunk of time. I am not so good on doing the little tasks throughout the day. So, in an average work week I only see clients and have calls: Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday; Mondays and Fridays I don’t do calls with people, unless I make an exception for some reason. But, generally speaking, those are my days to kind of have big chunks of time to get stuff done. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, I often have very kind of half hour breaks of time, an hour here and there, in-between calls –I don’t have that much time to get stuff done. So, it has been also a really important perspective for me to realise that on those days I am not going to be getting big stuff done; you know, the days that I have lots of calls with people, those aren’t days when I am going to be able to set three big most important actions for my business, and get big stuff done, and get important stuff done. Because I don’t have much time, I need time to focus and get stuff done. You may be different? Some people can work very well in chunks of 30 minutes or 20 minutes. I hear a lot of people talking about the Pomodoro Technique, and I am sure that works with a lot of people. It helps them be more effective and what that is, I think it is setting a timer for 20 minutes and then giving yourself a break after that. My brain…I would just be all over the place, it takes me so long to kind of get into what I am doing, I need to really hyper-focus on it for a big chunk of time, to get it done. So, again, this comes back to figuring out how you work the best. Do you work the best with little chunks of times, 20 minutes, 30 minutes and then taking a break? Or, do you work better hyper-focussing on something for a bigger chunk of time and then taking a break? Or, maybe getting burned out, because sometimes I find that when I go into hyper-focus mode, get a massive thing done, come out of it, I am a little bit burnt out. So, that’s another lesson: is learning when to take the breaks.

    Location is another thing that is really important, you know. I work from my home office five days a week, and I have got it all set up the way I like it, I have got a kettle for tea, I have got a water filter, I have got all my stuff that I need in my office. I don’t need to leave it all day long, except to go downstairs and have lunch. Which is nice, I like it like that. But, sometimes, being in my office all day every day is just…I need a break. So, there are other places that I will go to: there is a little pub down the street that has got a nice cosy chair by the fireplace, and I like to go there and get stuff done sometimes. So, if I am ever, you know, getting behind on my emails, I will go down there and get that done. I find that’s easier for me to focus on stuff that I have been procrastinating on if I change my location, and break it up, and do things differently. I think that’s why, and I recently did a whole episode on the Workcation Weekend, so if you haven’t listened to that, it was episode 175, which went live I think at the end of December 2016. The Workcation Weekend is basically a working retreat, where I go to a hotel over the weekend and hyper-focus on a single project and get stuff done. So, that works for me, it may or may not work for you. If you think it might work for you, I have got the Definitive Guide to the Workcation Weekend, which you can download for free at hollyworton.com/Workcation. I have found them super-useful, I have been doing them for over a year now, to get big projects done in my business. That might work for you, it might not. Everyone that I have recommended it to, who has actually gone out and tried it, has said that they were amazed at how much work they got done. But, again, everyone needs to find what works for them.

    I think one of the most important things though, in terms of getting stuff done in our business and achieving our goals, and doing great things, is reducing distractions. I have been talking about this a lot lately again because of the big action boot camp challenge. But, there are so many distractions in the world. I mean, social media is fantastic for marketing our businesses, but it is so easy to get distracted there. It is so easy to get distracted with phone calls, with all kinds of stuff. Six years ago, I wrote this blogpost called: 10 Easy Steps to Improve Time Management and Reduce Stress. And it was really, really, big, it got picked up by FreshlyPressed, on WordPress.com because I was hosting my website with them, back when I very first started this whole coaching world / project / business thing. And it was such a massively, massively, important post for a lot of people, I was just looking at it this morning it has got 119 comments on it. So many people read this post that I ended up doing a follow up of 10 MORE steps to improve time management and reduce stress. Now, time management was a term that felt right at the time, but now I just don’t think in terms of time management; it just sounds so corporate and yucky. But, time management is a concept, managing our time so that we achieve our goals, is really, really, important.

    One of the big things that I talk about in these goals is stopping procrastination; so, you need to minimise the distractions of things that are getting in the way from you getting stuff done. So, what is distracting you? Is it your phone? I do not work with my phone on. My phone is on airplane mode all day. So, if you call me it probably is going to go onto voicemail. I can’t concentrate if texts are coming in, if phone calls are coming in, I can’t deal with it. So, when I have a break during the day, or at the end of the day, I will turn the phone on, I will get new messages, phone calls, call people back, text people, whatever – but, I don’t let that interfere with my work. Same with social media, if I go onto social media, I go on with a specific intention. Whether that’s marketing my business, or just checking up with my friends, or whatever. But I go and I do it, and I get out and I move on. So, I think it is really important to identify what things distract you and stop. So, like Skype. I use Skype a lot for my business, but I have always got Skype on…I am always invisible on Skype, so I appear as if I am not online. And often I turn it off, so if I don’t have any calls with someone on a certain day, Skype is not even on my computer, the app is closed. So, find out what distracts you and minimise it. Does noise distract you? Then, put on some headphones. You know, you need to figure out what is distracting you in your business, and get rid of it.

    Another thing I mentioned a couple of minutes ago, was, procrastination. What are you procrastinating on and why? And this is one of the questions that I ask clients in the very first questionnaire that I send them, before they come to work with me, because, a lot of times the stuff we are procrastinating on, is specifically precisely the stuff that is going to get us the biggest results in our business. So, oftentimes, people procrastinate on doing webinars, on doing videos for their business, social media marketing; stuff that makes them visible. And a lot of times that’s because they have fears about really putting themselves out there and being visible and marketing their business. So, you need to identify what you have been procrastinating on, and why. And this is a mindset thing. Do the mindset work to clear the fears, clear the blocks, clear the limiting beliefs, so that you can get this stuff done more easily. So, that’s not something that is going to go away on its own. I know that I always talk about this, that you can’t just sweep your fears and blocks under the rug and hope they go away. They don’t, they don’t. You really need to dig them up, become aware of them and do the work to get them done, and that just eliminates procrastination and it makes it SO much easier for you to do the work that you need to do, to take the actions that you need to take, to build the business you want. And, again, this is all about making this a year that you are really satisfied with in terms of your business.

    Jo and I are running a three-part webinar series of which you can attend all or none (you don’t even need to show up live we have got recordings from all of them). It is called Make 2017 the year of big things. So, we are going to be talking about pretty much similar stuff to that we have been talking about on the big action Bootcamp challenge. It is going to be a three-part series because all (episodes, episodes?), all classes are kind of intertwined, but also stand alone. So, we are going to talk about focus, in class one; we are going to talk about mindset, in class two; and we are going to talk about action, in class 3. The whole idea here is to help people get what they need, so they can get stuff done and make 2017 the year of big things.

    Now, big things, what is that? It is however you define it — whatever ‘big things’ means to you. Whatever it takes for you to be super-satisfied with yourself and happy with your business at the end of this year. So, I would absolutely love to see you on the series of webinars with us. I think it is going to be a lot of fun; it is kicking off on — it is actually going to kick off before this goes live, so the first episode is going to be on Thursday, so last Thursday; but the next ones are going to be Tuesday, so tomorrow; and then Wednesday 25th. So, again, if you have missed Thursday’s because you weren’t aware of it, I will be sharing about it online, so hopefully you will have seen it, but if you missed it, you will still get the recording if you sign up for the webinars. So, the best way to do this, is go to my website, so go to: hollyworton.com/bigthings and what I will do there, it will redirect to the sign-up page for the webinars and you can sign up for the webinar series. We have been doing the webinars on Zoom, and they have been really fun, really interactive, and really a great place to kind of engage. So, it is not going to be the two of us blabbing on about stuff, it is going to be a lot of engagement from other people. People who have been really just chatty and conversational, and it has been a lot of fun to do these webinars that we have been doing. So, I would love to see you on this webinar series; again, it is https://www.hollyworton.com/bigthings.

    So, I hope you found this podcast useful, I think the overarching thing from it, is that you need to find what works for you, which I say always. But it is really important to identify your goals and your plan, and your vision for your business. Because, if you don’t have those things clear, then, you don’t know where you are going. You are just kind of wondering around in the dark. And, as I discussed at the beginning with this, I think there is a really big difference between unstructured flow, and just wandering around with no sense of purpose, or idea — it is just like you are lost in the dark, and you are just kind of wandering around in the fog. So, I think there is a big difference between that. And like I said: there is a time for structure, and a time for unstructured flow, but, even when you are in that unstructured flow process, you need to be kind of working towards something, or allowing, being aware of what you want to allow to happen, whether that is a new perspective, creative downloads, or whatever.

    So, I hope you found that useful in terms of exploring the best ways for you to make 2017 the year of big things, and get stuff done in your business in a way that feels aligned and congruent, and manageable and doable and not overly-stressful. If you are listening to my podcast, and if you have been drawn to the way I present things and talk about things, you are probably not one of those people with a type A super-driven personality. If you are, probably don’t pay attention to what I say, and just drive, drive, drive and get stuff done your way. You may have noticed that’s not my style. So, again, you have got to find out, what works for you.

    Another thing that I wanted to draw your attention to before I sign off today is, I have got a very lovely person who is helping me out with transcripts; so about once a week, she is doing transcripts for some of the older episodes, kind of randomly based on what her interests are. So, I wanted to draw your attention to, the episodes that now have transcripts. So, the first one is: episode 155 which is a co-hosted episode with Jo Casey; that’s the one where we talk about how to get a book out of your head and onto Amazon. And, those are available for free, you can… they are copy and pasted right on the website, so you don’t even have to do anything to get them, but if you would like to download a pdf of the transcript you can do that as well in the show notes, no opt-in required, you just click: it is https://www.hollyworton.com/155 and you can download the transcript for how to get a book out of your head and onto Amazon. And there also is a free download for that episode which you can find in the show notes.

    The other episode that I have got transcripts for is another co-hosted episode with Jo, on how to know whether you need business coaching, mentoring or mastermind and when. So that’s HollyWorton.com/164. And again, just scroll down to the bottom of the Show Notes and you can find the transcript there copy and pasted in the show notes, and also available for a free PDF download, no opt-in required. The latest one that I have got transcripts for is: episode 172, with Lizzie Goddard, where she talks about how to revolutionise your email marketing with ConvertKit; and Lizzie has some super-great tips on how to use ConvertKit; and she is absolutely wonderful, I have been using Convertkit for over a year now, love it, and Lizzie is the #1 expert on this, so I am super-excited to have had her on the show, and to have transcripts now for that episode. So that’s HollyWorton.com/172.

    That’s all for now, I hope you found this interesting, and useful, and I would love to have you join us on a webinar series, whether you join us live, or join us for the recordings, again that’s HollyWorton.com/Bigthings. So, that’s all for now, thank you for listening and remember to visit HollyWorton.com/183 for the show notes on this episode.   And hopefully we will have a transcript at some point in the future. Thank you very much for listening and have a great day!

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