How to manage your unruly to-do list

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As a business owner you have a lot of to-do’s.  I know first hand what it feels like to try to manage a business, employees, a home and my personal goals.  If you don’t have a handle on it you can feel overwhelmed and when you do get a handle on it you have to wonder: How the heck am I going to do all of this?

Six tips for what to do with the overwhelming to-do list

  1. Identify the one thing that absolutely MUST happen today and do that first. The momentum will carry you forward.
  2. Batch like items together. If you need to send 4 emails do them all in one block of time and then leave that task in the rear-view window of your day.
  3. Eliminate it.  If it doesn’t actually have to get done – eliminate the item from your list.
  4. Delegate it.  If someone else can do it – delegate it.
  5. Procrastinate.  If it doesn’t have to be done today – schedule it out for when it does.
  6. MY PRO TIP: Set a time for when you’re done for the day. You can’t do it all but you can do all you can do.  If you see an end in sight you’re more likely to push on during work hours to get as much done as possible.

Tweet: You can't do it all, but you can do all you can do. http://ctt.ec/8M558+Click to Tweet:  You can’t do it all but you can do all you can do.

What it Means to Work With Strategists

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There are a lot of choices in the marketing vendor space – what makes one vendor preferred over another is something that always intrigues me.  One of the things that I believe differentiates Capra is the emphasis on strategy – it’s not just a part of our logo, it’s the foundation for how we deliver work.

What does it mean to be strategic?  Good question.  Here’s our four cents:
When you’re talking about your marketing plan you are looking at your business objectives.

  1. More than a few times we’ve been asked to bid on a project – lets call it a new website. We ask what the business objectives are and we’re met with a very blank stare. Whatever effort you are expending should be at least in line with your business objectives. So if your objective is to grow so that you can open a physical location then your website needs to be focused and thoughtful to deliver to that objective and should not be focused on creating a rousing mail-order based business, because that’s not what you want. That leads us directly to…
  2. You know what you want OR you at least know that you SHOULD know what you want.
    A lot of time our customers don’t know what they want – they haven’t really thought about it and those are great customers because we get to be really curious about them (something Cass is particularly invested in) and help figure out what it is they want. If you don’t know what you want there’s one thing I can promise you: you’ll never know even if you get it.
  3. You want actual goals.
    People and businesses pick Capra because we give actual goals – we don’t say things like “we want this to be a big success for you” because what does that even mean? We say things like we want to get your per day impressions from 50 to 500 in the next 12 weeks. And here’s how…
  4. You’re committed to getting that desired result.
    Part of the benefit of working with a strategist is we’re thinking tactically about delivering to your goals and we’ve got a whole lot of tools in the tool box. We’re going to use what you need and when you need it. Also: We’re nimble and assessing our collective progress and if a change in tactics is needed to deliver the results that’s what we’re going to do.

 

That’s why its different to work with strategists.

A Peek into my Work Bag

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I’m starting a new category on the blog talking about stuff that I want to talk about which is How We Work – I find this type of stuff really interesting and because we like to attract people, clients and work that we love I figure that if I talk about stuff that I love that might just do it.

So today you’re getting a peek into my work bag.  And yes, I realize that I am an organized junkie – if you saw how much I actually do on a daily basis you would recognize that the ONLY (that’s no exaggeration – that’s legit) way I get everything done is by being this level of organized.  Was I always this way?  Not to this extent but I have no time to be hunting for my keys anymore so they needed a home.
Detail-Whatsinmybag

  • I use a Mac Book Air – I love this thing – I have it backed up on a weekly basis and that is redundant on a physical hard drive and on the cloud.  It’s fast – it’s light – it fits in all of my favorite purses which makes it perfection. I use a laptop sleeve from Acme Made.
  • iPad Mini – it’s the device I use when I’m waiting – I use Feedly to read blogs and that happens a lot on the iPad – I also have the Kindle app for books (looking for a good read check out Twin Turbulence from the hilarious and candid Kristin Myers) and I use it for testing resolution on mobile devices.  When I need to decompress I play this game called Forty Theives and it’s addictive and you will lose 98% of the time but when you win that is a sweet sweet victory.
  • Bose Noise Canceling Headphones.  They have a microphone which makes it the perfect thing to use when taking conference calls in busy airports or in shared spaces – I’m not distracted by the background and people can hear me clearly.
  • Note Cards (made by the crazy talented Amy Rau) I love them and they’re perfect for to-do lists like my Wegmans shopping trip (sorry – I hate apps for lists).
  • My hot pink clutch (from Banana Republic) is the perfect size for my wallet, iPhone and keys.  I can’t tell you how many times I was hunting for my keys or my phone. Now it’s easy and if I’m running out and I don’t need my huge bag I have everything at the ready.  This is the thing that I resisted most and now three weeks later I feel foolish.
  • Business cards – we use Moo Cards for our business cards – the quality is fantastic, the turn around is great and I just plain like how they do business.
  • Pens & Highlighters – I tried really hard to get on board with the LightScribe so that my notes could be uploaded easily but I am the most finicky person about pens you will ever meet (I make no apologies for my love of office supplies).  The pen that you MUST have right now: The Zebra pen with stylus – it writes like a dream. I do not joke about these things.
  • Chargers.  The thing that you should know about me is that my phone is almost always nearly dead. Do I hate apple and what they’ve done to me with their 15 minutes battery life? Yes. Will I ever change? No.  Why? Because Siri now understands me.  Because of this I have two iDevice chargers – a little guy that will give me one full re-juice that fits in my clutch and the grand daddy charger that will do 3 iPhone charges and an iPad mini charge.
  • Then you’ve got the containment system which is honestly a game changer for wrangling all of that stuff which is called a Grid-It and I saw it for the first time at CES a few years ago. This thing is now a necessity.  And under the Grid-It is my notebook – I always have a notebook with me where I capture the full to do list and I’ve been using this system lately which is basically a more organized version of what I had been doing for the past decade.


So there you have it.  Any questions?  What would you like to know about How We Work?