68 - Work your plan with flexibility and delegation
Work your plan with flexibility and delegation
TL;DR:
If you feel stuck in a plan you’ve made, change it.
Delegation is always a trade of time for money. Where would it feel better to use some money to take something off your plate.
I mentioned in last week’s newsletter that I am aiming to publish something every day in the month of June. You’ll see below that so far, I’m on track to meet that intention.
When you take up something that you’ve not been successful at in the past, it helps to think about what got in your way. One of the things that has caused other attempts to publish daily to fail is not being flexible enough with my goal for the day. For example, I have a video/article combination that I’m working on that was going to publish on Saturday. Saturday had other plans for me (as you can read about in the article list below) so I had to flex. I made great progress on the video and article on Sunday, but it still wasn’t ready yet so I had to flex again.
The other difference this time is that I’ve also been looking ahead more at what’s coming up. I’m thrilled to have two new work projects with deadlines that are pretty tight. And, I’m working on something on the more “personal” side of the business with my classes and publishing. I knew as I looked ahead if I was going to be successful with all of these things, I needed some help. Luckily, I was able to set something up with someone to do some of the not hard but tedious work for me. Bonus on this specific instance is that it is included in the account I’ve purchased for my new course provider. But, in that instance, it would actually have been worth paying someone to do that work for me as it will take about a full day to do this first part and it’s not hard - just monotonous.
So, if you’ve made a plan, consider where you can flex it if you’re feeling stuck or up against a wall - and delegate or ask for help to move things forward.
5 Things You Might Find Interesting
What I published this week: I have successfully published every day in June thus far! I’m already learning some things that will help me sustain a publishing habit beyond June so I’m really pleased with the effort this first week.
Shampoo and Conditioner Bars - I HATE carrying my own shampoo and conditioner in my travel bag. Inevitably, that’s the one thing that leaks when I’m traveling. I decided to give shampoo and conditioner bars a try in my travel bag and I’m so incredibly happy that I did. The shampoo bar lathers up beautifully and the conditioner bar makes my hair feel fantastic. And bonus for the environment - no plastic bottles and no shipping of shampoo and conditioner that are mostly water anyway. As soon as I finish up the shampoo and conditioner I have in the shower now I’m moving to the bars for home too. While I haven’t tried these, I’ve got it on good authority that the Dip Shampoo and Conditioner Bars are a good place to start. I use the Kitsch purple shampoo and conditioner bars which are great if you have color treated hair or blond hair.
Next time you need some Super Glue, give the Super Glue Single Use Tubes a try. While I was cleaning this weekend, one of the plastic feet broke off of the wooden couch leg. On one of the three trips to the store that I made this weekend to finish the closet project (check out the article in What I published for that story), I saw a pack of those single use tubes in the checkout lane at my local Menards. I don’t know about you, but any attempt I’ve made to keep bottles of super glue or gorilla glue from going hard have failed. These single use tubes seem like just the thing that’s needed!
Get old audio and video files converted to digital. I’ve been in a major cleaning mode the last few weeks. As a part of that, I finally decided to pay someone else (see that theme of delegation) to digitize old audio cassettes. I’m so happy with her work I’m going to send off a couple of video tapes to her this week. The cost was reasonable - about $15 per cassette. And turn around time was about two weeks. I’m so happy to be able to get rid of the cassettes and still have access to those audio files. This is the person I worked with. Highly recommend - and love supporting a woman owned small business!
YouTube is such a great source for background music. I love to have something quiet playing in the background while I work. Lately, I’ve been binging a lot of YouTube channels that feature instrumental lo-fi music. I enjoy this blend of lo-fi cover songs. Occasionally, I’m listening closely and will start singing must most of the time it’s just enough to hear a song I like and smile a bit and keep working.
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