How To Slow Down To Speed Up...

[JosephRatliff]

Well...2007 is coming to a close.

2008 is just around the corner, have you written your plan for the year yet? What do you plan to accomplish? Goals? What resources to you plan to acquire to accelerate your business plan?

What? You haven't written a plan yet for 2008? Did you slow down enough towards the end of this year to be able to do just that? Unfortunately, the majority don't. And therein lies the challenge...

We all move so fast doing all of the things to help our businesses produce a profit, market it, and operate our businesses properly...that sometimes we fail to slow down long enough to actually work on our business, and frequently get trapped working in our business instead.

So, slow down. As many times as you can. The time you take for yourself to look at your business from the outside, or have some one look at it for you from the outside...pays BIG dividends for any business owner.

I challenge each of you to take the last three days of 2007 to do nothing but look at, think about, and write down a detailed plan of action (I am figuring most of us will work on our business the 26th - 28th, and take a weekend off).

If you aren't taking weekends off, start taking at least one weekend off to spend time with your family a minimum of once a month, then accelerate that to twice a month, etc... for 2008. By the end of 2008, you should be taking every weekend off, or at the very least, taking two full days off every 5 days at most.

Now, back to your action plan.

After taking the three days in 2007 to prepare your 2008 action plan, I challenge you to schedule (right now) the three days in each month of 2008 to adjust and further plan, or work on your business.

Then hold to that plan...no excuses...because there is absolutely no valid reason why you cannot take three days each month to work on your business instead of in it.

And, I don't want to hear that you are going to use your days off to accomplish this. That is not valid either.

If you prepare, polish, adjust, and execute your plan in this way for all of 2008...greater success awaits you.

Folks, if you seriously think about the time you are using in your business, and how you are using that time each day...there really is at least 20 hours a month you can use to focus on your business, instead of working in it.

That time is when you slow down, to speed up, your business.

This will be my last post to this forum for 2007. I wish all of you a Happy Holiday, and continued success in 2008.