Watkins Home Based Business

Originally posted in November 2006, I believe this short article is worth repeating. For those of us involved with network marketing or other home based business endeavors, keeping ourselves organized is crucial to our success.

I am on vacation this week through next week, and each day I am re-posting articles on topics that will help anyone achieve greater success with their home based business.

Originally posted in November, 2006….

How does a network marketer and home based business person juggle everything - life, work, play, family, and business - and make everything work?

Some people like to use paper-based planners. Others prefer computer software designed to organize and keep track of everything from finances to fun. Whatever works for you is what is best - but at a bare minimum, you need the following things on hand to create your own personal organization system.

- a daily planner or some sort of “things to do” list that you can work from.
- a written list of your short term and long term goals, for your business and other important areas of your life.
- a definition of your values and what is most important to you. For example: family, love, spiritual growth, career, wealth, and so forth.
- an electronic timer is very valuable in helping you keep things on track.

Take your timer first thing in the morning or last thing before you go to bed. Set it for 10-15 minutes. Take out your lists and review them, then start your “things to do” list. For each thing you put on your “things to do” list, ask yourself if that thing takes you closer to your written goals, or not. You may need to remove some things from your list, if you find they are not helping to bring you closer to your desired goals.

Once your “things to do” list is written, assign each item on the list a priority as follows.

A - very important, must be done today!
B - important, should be done today, but can be postponed a day or two if necessary.
C - something not urgent, something you can do if you are caught up with your A and B priorities.

B priorities and C priorities can turn to A priorities if put off or bumped up enough times. Be careful not to endlessly bump up items that need to be taken care of.

By each item on your “things to do” list, put A1, A2, A3, B1, B2, B3, C1, C2, C3 and so forth, to assign what order these things should be done in.

Now, work these items into your daily schedule. This scheduling can be flexible. In time you’ll become better at knowing what and how much you can and cannot schedule on given days.

If you schedule 30 minutes to call a new downline associate in the evening and call it A3, but something comes up and you can’t get it done, you can transfer it to the next day where it may become A2. If you skip it again it may become A1 and you’ll have to make it a top priority.

A Quick Summary of Your Organization Process:

- Set 10-15 minutes to look over your goals and values.
- Look at your last “things to do” list and move anything that you didn’t get done to today, or to a future date if more practical.
- Congratulate yourself for the items on your list that you checked off as completed yesterday.
- Add today’s new items and evaluate.

Doing this, you’ll quickly learn how much you can do in a day, and become more skilled at getting the right things done that will build your business and move you forward on your other goals as well.