It’s that time of year again folks…the time where thoughts switch to taking a few days of well deserved rest to be with friends and family and enjoy the holiday season..but for those of us who are self employed either in traditional or online business can we ever  just switch off and take a break?

In this post I plan to discuss simple focused action steps that we should all be taking throughout the year, these actions if performed consistently should help to bring some relief in the process of business and lead generation to allow us to take that downtime and actually have some time off while our opportunities continue to work for us!

So what is focused action?

Sounds like a simplistic question but far to many of us lack this vital step to success, in a nutshell focused action is the act of planning out your goals, creating a series of simple steps, and then taking the action on them that will make those goals achievable. The most important part is to actually follow those steps in a consistent and meaningful way with a sense of purpose and without  the diversions of the usual distractions that day to day life can bring.

How many of us make a list in the morning either in our heads, or on paper of all the things that we would like to achieve that day..how many of us then get distracted by the husband, the kids, the TV or Facebook?…how many of us get to the end of that day and feel a sense of overwhelming failure over all of those those things that we didn’t achieve?…I would hazard a guess that the percentages are high..we put to much pressure on ourselves and then get despondent when we cannot fit everything in..

So what do I do to achieve focused action?

I am going to suggest for the purpose of getting into good habits that we choose just 3 tasks each day that we MUST achieve..these tasks will vary in size and nature depending on your business and what it is that you want to achieve.Once you get into a HABIT and perform these tasks everyday with ease then additional tasks can be added.

It is important to create good habits…it is a well known fact that if we follow a course of action for  30 days then those actions help to form new neural pathways in the brain that eventually become a habit. We call this conscious competence and it is the process that the mind goes through to learn new skills and make them an automatic part of our day to day living..simply put they are skills and tasks that we complete everyday without even needing to think about the mechanics of how to do them..if we practice something often enough then it just becomes second nature and we will continue to complete those tasks as part of our day to day routine..

Some suggestions for actions to focus on

1. Write or record an original piece of content each day
2. Create 1-3 social media posts (do not get bogged down in the social media website, set yourself a time limit and stick to it!)
3. Contact 3-5 people and talk to them about your business, this contact can be a message, a phone call, face to face etc
4. Find 3 places to increase your presence on the internet, this can be adding your link to directories, creating links and relationships with other websites etc
5. Spend 20 mins working on self development, reading books, articles, blogs and listening to audios
6. Work on your website for 20 mins per day, improve the look and content, work on SEO
7. Build an email list, aim to add a certain number of subscribers per day
8. Research reliable sources of free and paid traffic
9. Learn how to create original images and banners and then make some!
10. Learn how to write persuasive emails, then email your contact list daily.

This is obviously a small snap shot of the many hundreds of things that you can do to start to choose your 3 areas of focused action..the 3 areas should provide REAL value to your business and the action should have measurable outcomes.

But how do I make the action FOCUSED?

The key to this is not to allow yourself to become overwhelmed..the brain is a muscle and it needs to be exercised..by starting out with a few actions that have tangible results you will allow yourself to really concentrate on performing those tasks to the best of your ability..you will be able to measure those actions and see how successful you are at completing them, what you need to work on to improve and what effects those tasks have on the productivity of your business and opportunities. You will also take the pressure away from yourself..as long as you complete those tasks to the best of your ability you can feel good that you have taken steps towards achieving your goals..and each step that you take gets you more exposure.there is also the added benefit that as you begin to see results you will be driven to do more!

So  how does all of this translate into that well earned rest?

It’s quite simple really, all of this focused action will expand your reach and presence in your particular market..a business (either traditional or online) will benefit greatly from having great content and reach in the public domain, you will also benefit from building a contact list.. the more focused and consistent action you take, the better your results will be..the more you measure and refine the action the more efficient you will be..this efficiency will free up time and ultimately allow you the time freedom that you need to achieve a great work and business balance!

So that’s it from me, have a productive day!

Emma x

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