There is a little-known secret that, once understood, will absolutely change the way you run your life.

That secret is using your natural energy cycles, or playing to your strengths.

When you work with your energy cycles instead of against them, you save time because you do things faster, with more clarity and with greater focus.

Quickly grab a piece of paper and answer these four questions:

1. Are you a night owl or an early bird?

If you’re a night owl like me, then plan your life so that you start the day off slowly and work up to your peak. Or vice versa.

2. When do you do your best creative work?

I don’t know if the real creative types will agree with me but I think that any form of writing uses the creative side of our brains.

When I need to do some writing, I’m generally great first thing in the morning (well, for me) or very late at night (9pm onwards). If I try to write from lunch-time onwards, it takes me FOREVER! When I leave the project and do it at one of my prime writing times, the ideas flow easier and the quality is just better.

3. When do you do your best logical/ reasoning work?

This involves things like budgeting, playing with spreadsheets (that’s what I call it to make it seem more fun!), working with numbers, etc.

Figure this out and as best as you can, try and schedule these kinds of tasks when that side of your brain is awake and kicking!

4. When do you prefer to exercise?

Um, never Okay, let me rephrase: if you had to exercise, when would be the best time for you?

This usually works the same as number 1 but if you find that if you’re stuck, lacking motivation or just feeling overwhelmed, you might want to add in some exercise to jump-start yourself.

This week’s coaching challenge

a. Pick a task you’ve been procrastinating on.
b. After you’ve identified the type of task, work on it at a different time of day.
c. Get it done

Want to use this article in your ezine or on your blog? You may, as long as you include this complete blurb.

Marcia Francois is a time management and business organising coach who helps small business owners break out of overwhelm, make the most of their time and get important projects done. Visit http://organiseyourbusiness.com for your free 7-part audio series, 7 tips for time-strapped business owners.

There is something so powerful about a central place to store all of your ideas, thoughts and to-do items.

You don’t feel distracted and scattered because everything is in one place.

Whenever I start feeling overwhelmed, I make a master to-do list of everything I need AND want to do.

My current list contains emails I have to send, projects I’m working on and documents I need to update, like my travel checklist, some e-books and coaching tools.

So why a master to-do list?

What’s wrong with the back of an envelope and millions of post-it notes?

1. Writing it all down frees up your brain for big picture thinking so you don’t have to concern yourself with remembering details.

2. It eliminates all those bits and pieces of paper, post-it notes, backs of envelopes, etc.

3. There is something about the act of actually putting pen to paper that seals things in your mind. If you’ve heard my goal-setting teleseminar, you know exactly what I mean.

4. Once you see it in black and white, you can deal with reality so much better rather than imagining how bad it all is.

5. You can choose the exact number of tasks you want to tackle every day (I don’t recommend more than 6) without feeling overwhelmed. Move these 6 tasks to your daily to-do list.

My challenge to you

* Download my paper-based master to-do list from my website or use Outlook if you like the electronic version. The method doesn’t matter much; what matters is that you have a central place to collect your tasks.
* First brain dump everything – go wild, you can sort it out later.
* Now, make categories and then start attacking that list.

Happy organising!

Want to use this article in your ezine or on your blog? You may, as long as you include this complete blurb.

Marcia Francois is a time management and business organising coach who helps small business owners break out of overwhelm, make the most of their time and get important projects done. Visit http://organiseyourbusiness.com for your free 7-part audio series, 7 tips for time-strapped business owners.

Do you remember what it’s like getting back from leave?

You’re all relaxed, birds are chirping, the sun is shining, there’s no tension in your shoulders and everything’s wonderful.

Then you get to work.

After you look at your desk, and then see the 2000-odd emails that have piled up, you’re about ready to take your bag and your car keys and go right back home!

I have a few ideas to help you prepare and get organised for your holiday:

1. Advise your clients and friends that you’ll be away.

I suggest that you write separate emails because…well…the tone and content will be different for each of them.

For clients, you’ll be explaining how long you’ll be away, what to do for queries and who your stand-in is. For friends, I like to tell them to please not send me any personal emails. After all, you don’t want to return to an Inbox full of PowerPoint presentations and the friends who really want to talk to you have your cell phone number if they want to chat. Right?

If you’re on Facebook, update your status too.

2. Delegate as much as possible

You need to be motivated to delegate! Now just think how lovely it will be when you get back from your holiday and after scanning through your emails, you only have to attend to about 10% of the emails.

You can delegate to a virtual assistant or my favourite, an auto-responder. I have an auto-responder set up to manage my mailing list so that it delivers my book automatically to any subscribers and removes people who want to unsubscribe. Just putting this one thing into practice saves me at least an hour a week.

3. Update your website

Go through your Sent Items to see what type of questions you get a lot. If they’re not questions you have to think about and answer fresh every time, they probably belong on your site as a Frequently Asked Questions site or on your website somewhere else.

4. Turn on your out of office assistant

Remember to give the dates you’ll be unavailable, if your clients need to route their query to someone else and a number to contact you if it’s urgent.

5. Declutter

Do a good clear-out of any paper, both on your desk and in your files. While you’re feeling the lovely rush of endorphins, do a good clear out of email and document folders too.

6. Plan for when you’re back

Write down the top 3 – 5 things on your to-do list for the day you’re back at work. Jot down a maximum of 5 items because you know you’ll be catching up on email!

This will ensure that you hit the ground running and that you beat the feeling of overwhelm.

Enjoy your vacation!

Want to use this article in your ezine or on your blog? You may, as long as you include this complete blurb.

Marcia Francois is a time management and business organising coach who helps small business owners break out of overwhelm, make the most of their time and get important projects done. Visit http://organiseyourbusiness.com for your free 7-part audio series, 7 tips for time-strapped business owners.

What is a boundary? In a physical sense, it is easy to understand that a boundary marks off where your property starts and where the neighbour’s ends. You are responsible for your property but not for anything that happens on your neighbour’s.

While not as easy to mark off, our emotional boundaries also mark off where our responsibilities start and end. Too many people feel out of control of their lives because they don’t have good emotional boundaries.

Boundaries are like fences in that they keep bad things out and good things in. This means that you protect yourself from things or people that might hurt you and you nurture things or people that help you. Notice I said fences and not walls. A wall means that nothing gets through from either side whereas a fence allows flow.

Boundaries are limits or barriers that protect you, your time and your energy. When your boundaries are well-defined, they help to prevent conflict within your relationships. They are like your personal rules or policies.

Laura Stack says it beautifully, “setting limits is a way of defining who you are and what you’re all about, what you will do and what you won’t; what’s acceptable to you and what’s not”.

Setting boundaries means owning and taking responsibility for your personal choices and the consequences thereof. You make the choice, you take responsibility and you can make a different choice if you don’t like the consequence.
You can’t control other people’s behaviour but you can control the extent to which it affects you. In other words, control your exposure to people.

For example, I don’t allow people to make racist remarks around me. Now I can’t control what they will say but I can control whether I continue to listen. Another example is I don’t allow anybody to speak to me in an abusive manner. Again, I can’t control what they say but I will warn them before putting the phone down. It’s their right to say what they want but it’s also my right to not sit there and be a doormat.

Here are some physiological signs that your boundaries are weak:
• Knots in your stomach when you agree to do some things
• Anger and resentment
• Deep feeling of dread
• Feeling shocked or being appalled at something someone said

The first step to creating stronger boundaries is to learn to say no.
Remember if the reaction to your setting boundaries is not great (sulking, anger, etc), it’s not about you – it’s about them. That feeling belongs on their side of the “fence”.

Write these 3 sentences on a piece of paper and write out as many statements underneath each as you can think of:

1. People may not…
2. I have a right to ask for…
3. To protect my time and energy…

Here’s to setting healthy boundaries!

© 2006-2007 Marcia Francois

Want to use this article in your ezine or on your blog? You may, as long as you include this complete blurb.

Marcia Francois is a time management and business organising coach who helps small business owners break out of overwhelm, make the most of their time and get important projects done. Visit http://organiseyourbusiness.com for your free 7-part audio series, 7 tips for time-strapped business owners.

So many people write to me with this question: Marcia, how do I deal with overwhelm?

I’ll answer that in a moment but let me share a personal example first.

A few weeks ago, I was dealing with my own overwhelm.

I had many meetings day after day after day (which means you get behind on the office stuff), my normal business activities plus I had to re-write a LOT of the copy for the website. All on deadline!

Add to that the things of life like cooking and cleaning and gym and you can see why I felt overwhelmed.

Doesn’t it feel good to know you’re not alone?!

We all have our own stories but the FEELINGS are exactly the same – a sense of being out of control and a to-do list a mile long!

So what did I do to cope?

1. Make a list

I printed out 10 of my master to-do lists because it felt like I had hundreds of things to do.

I used one page for each project – website, clients, etc…

The amazing thing was my imagination was much worse than reality because in the end, I only needed 4 of those 10 pages Honestly, it does help to see how bad it really is, or isn’t.

2. Ask yourself a key question

When you feel overwhelmed, it’s important to realise that “this too shall pass” and to CONTINUALLY ask yourself this question:

What is the MOST important use of my time right now?

Remember, it’s not about being busy, but about being effective!

3. Cut out all non-essentials

Once you have the answer to the question in number 2, it’s easier to cut out the non-essentials.

For example, let go of the minor website changes and the email responses to your blog comments. Rather answer only client emails.

When the busy period is over, re-look at those non-essentials and REALLY question whether you even need to add them back into your life.

4. Focus and eat your frog

Now that you know what is MOST important, switch off cell phones, email, etc. and get it done.

If you have to do a proposal for a company, do nothing else until it’s done. That’s so that even when your day is done and the to-do list is still half a mile long, at least you have a sense of accomplishment because you completed the most important tasks.

5. Categorise and batch

If you’ve eaten your frog, and you still have energy, then categorise whatever’s left and tackle those items in batches.

Take your to-do list and use letters in the margin, like P for phone, E for email, etc. Then pick up the phone and make all your phone calls in one go. You save energy because you prepare once instead of 5 different times in the day.

And THAT is how I dealt with my overwhelm.

Want to use this article in your ezine or on your blog? You may, as long as you include this complete blurb.

Marcia Francois is a time management and business organising coach who helps small business owners break out of overwhelm, make the most of their time and get important projects done. Visit http://organiseyourbusiness.com for your free 7-part audio series, 7 tips for time-strapped business owners.

Small business owners have so much to do every day – the business of your business (or what you’re actually paid to do), marketing, administration (emails, voicemails, etc.), bookkeeping. The list goes on and on…

And that’s only one part of your life!

In order to have a balanced life, you need to manage your time correctly otherwise you’ll be stressed out, burnt out and frazzled!

Here are the top 3 things I do to make sure my small business runs smoothly:

1. Eat your frogs every day

Every day decide on a maximum of 6 things to do. Before you even put them on your list, ask yourself if they bring you closer to your business goals or not.

Then do the most important task first. It often seems like that one is also the most difficult task. Once that is out of the way, your day gets better and the rest is a breeze.

This way, even if you don’t finish your 6 items, the most important tasks will always be done. I use this method for responding to emails too.

2. Remember Parkinson’s Law

Parkinson’s Law states that work expands to fill the time available for its completion.

Many times we don’t know how long something will take so we allow hours and hours for simple tasks. If you genuinely don’t know, then start keeping a time log for tasks you do routinely, like writing a weekly Ezine, daily blogging or posting to forums.

Once you have an idea of how long regular tasks take, set a timer when you do them in the future and aim to complete in that set time or less, every time.

3. Have monthly, weekly and daily checklists

For anything you do more than once (or plan to delegate to a virtual assistant), make a list as you go along.

My monthly checklists have accounting and computer back-up, my weekly checklists have article submission and blog planning, and my daily checklists have checking web stats.

This is so that you don’t waste time having to rethink your steps of action every day, week or month, or worse still, you forget to do something important. I have a whole system for automating your business (Business Control Journal) as part of my Organise your Business system that is definitely part of my arsenal for business success.

I suggest that you also have some self-care items on your lists. I read every day for pleasure and aside from a 20-minute planning session for the week ahead, I take the weekends off.

If you start implementing these 3 tips on a consistent basis, I guarantee that you’ll free up at least two hours a day.

I’d rather spend an extra two hours with my family; wouldn’t you?

Want to use this article in your ezine or on your blog? You may, as long as you include this complete blurb.

Marcia Francois is a time management and business organising coach who helps small business owners break out of overwhelm, make the most of their time and get important projects done. Visit http://organiseyourbusiness.com for your free 7-part audio series, 7 tips for time-strapped business owners.

I’m paranoid about forgetting anything. I once forgot something very dear to my heart and immediately put in a system to make sure it never happened again.

I suppose you want to know what happened?

I do some volunteer work at the church so I’d made an appointment to see someone on a public holiday and train another person at the same time. So I’m at home, pottering around the house and I get a phone call. “Ps Marcia, are you on your way?”

I immediately realised what happened, apologised while pulling on jacket and gloves, and raced out of the house. I might even have broken a few speed limits getting to the church.

However, I hated the embarrassment. I arrived to find the two of them having some coffee and chit-chat, and we all had a lovely time the rest of the evening.

I then vowed to never let that happen to me ever again.

So here’s what I now do and how you can also remember ALL your appointments:

1. Write everything down in your daily planner.

Everything! Even if I set up the meeting in Outlook, I still make a note of it on paper. (I’m a paper gal and make no apologies for it). You never know when you’ll have a power outage and you can’t access your electronic diary. Or when there’s a public holiday and you don’t look at your email

2. Make it a habit

If a meeting is recurring, I follow the exact same steps until it’s ingrained in me that it’s a habit. Like joining a new class at gym. Or scheduling a new coaching client. Or putting a new system into place, like a weekly back-up instead of monthly.

3. Set multiple reminders

If I need to leave at a specific time to get somewhere, I set reminders in Outlook and sync to my phone. Because sometimes you do get carried away, especially when you’re working hard and you’re “in the zone”. The phone’s my back-up if I’m not working in Outlook.

4. Work your system

A system will only work if you work the system.

That means checking your paper planner every day. Or reading and actioning your reminders on Outlook instead of just clicking “snooze” or even “dismiss” by accident.

I check my daily planner as part of my evening routine so that I can mentally prepare for the day ahead and of course, choose appropriate clothes

Your action challenge
Decide on your back-up system – whether phone, Outlook or paper – and try it out for the next two weeks.

Want to use this article in your ezine or on your blog? You may, as long as you include this complete blurb.

Marcia Francois is a time management and business organising coach who helps small business owners break out of overwhelm, make the most of their time and get important projects done. Visit http://organiseyourbusiness.com for your free 7-part audio series, 7 tips for time-strapped business owners.

Since we’ve been revisiting time principles, I thought it would be a good idea to talk about urgent and important.

Urgent refers to a time deadline.

Important means it is high value.

Every day things come across our path that are of low or high importance, and low and high urgency.

Grab a piece of paper and draw a big square. Now draw a line down and another across. You should now have 4 smaller squares.

Along the top, write High Value and Low Value. And along the left-hand side, write Deadline and No Deadline.

Basically, you want to always focus your time in the blocks on the left.

The top block is high value and high urgency, which means it must get done now and it is very important. I like to think of client work in this block. Clients are why most of us are in business and there are usually deadlines attached to your client work.

If you’ve ever bought a product of mine, you’ll know that you’re redirected to a page telling you I have a 24-hour turnaround time. Private 1:1 clients know that I’ve committed to always respond to emails within 24 – 48 hours.

The block below that is high value but low urgency and it is here that you need to focus if you’re ever going to move towards your goals. Why?

Nobody is standing over my head saying “you need to work on an email teleseminar” but I know that if I want to reach my goal of running x number of live teleseminars this year, I need to make time to do that.

And it’s exactly the same for you.

Whether your goal is to improve your fitness levels, get your home organised or have 3 hours of free time every week, you’re going to have to put some work into that quadrant.

That’s if you want to reach your goals.

I don’t even like to bother with the other two quadrants but I know that’s going to drive some of you crazy so let me just give you some email examples -

Low value tasks with a deadline are things like “send this email to 10 people within the next hour”. They have absolutely no value and the deadline is usually imposed by other people. Most interruptions also fall into this block.

Low value tasks with no deadline are emails with jokes, funny pictures and the like. My suggestion is to get these out of your inbox permanently as they disrupt your focus and waste your time!

This week’s challenge is to focus on the top two quadrants and only do tasks that fit into those blocks.

* Bonus – really step it up by making sure that you definitely get at least one task in the “goals” quadrant done every day.

Want to use this article in your ezine or on your blog? You may, as long as you include this complete blurb.

Marcia Francois is a time management and business organising coach who helps small business owners break out of overwhelm, make the most of their time and get important projects done. Visit http://organiseyourbusiness.com for your free 7-part audio series, 7 tips for time-strapped business owners.

As we approach the end of the year, it seems to get more and more hectic. I thought I’d share some strategies with you that I start off using with my time management coaching clients.

In fact, recently one of them told me, “I can’t believe it; I actually have a life again” This was after we started incorporating some of the principles I’m sharing with you below.

1. Block out any appointments

Don’t only block out the actual time of the appointment; add getting ready time and travel time before and after the appointment.

I used to find myself constantly rushing to a regular morning meeting until I realised I wasn’t factoring in the 5 minutes I had to walk from my car all the way to the meeting venue. Since I added this time, I’m always the first one there, waiting

2. Do high priority items first

I call this the “Eat the frog” principle. These high priority items are also commonly called big rocks. Big rocks are items of high value and importance.

For a business owner, it could mean working on an inc.ome-producing activity and for a stay-at-home mom, it could mean planning your menus for the week.

3. Add in your routines

Do you have an evening routine and a morning routine? We talk in detail about these routines on the Simplify your Life e-course. Routines help your day run smoothly because they’re done on auto-pilot.

Some people do a load of laundry every day. This is part of their routine. If they don’t do this for a couple of days, life can get out of control very quickly.

4. Don’t forget buffer time

Buffer time helps when an appointment runs over or the traffic is bad. Or when something just takes longer to do than you anticipated!

Depending on the situation, you might want to leave 15 – 30 minutes after each appointment or activity so that you’re not frazzled when things inevitably don’t work out exactly as you planned.

5. Add in some fun

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy

Fun means different things for each of us. Whether it’s time to exercise, do some crafts or read, add some fun into your day. Fun also means rewarding yourself appropriately when you are disciplined with those BIG ROCKS I mentioned in number (2).

Print today’s article, start with point 1 and keep adding another point every week until you can breathe again

Want to use this article in your ezine or on your blog? You may, as long as you include this complete blurb.

Marcia Francois is a time management and business organising coach who helps small business owners break out of overwhelm, make the most of their time and get important projects done. Visit http://organiseyourbusiness.com for your free 7-part audio series, 7 tips for time-strapped business owners.

It’s such a small word but so difficult to use sometimes. We seem to use this word so easily with our spouse and children but have a hard time saying it to other people. So the trick is to figure out how and when to say no.

I’m not saying that you should be selfish and never help anybody out. However, most people are running around stressed because they’re saying yes to everybody but themselves.

You should only be saying yes when you genuinely want to do something, you feel excitement at the thought of doing it or it ties in with your life goals or definition of success.

1. You don’t have to have another appointment first in order to say no

If you’ve planned to have an evening in (bubble bath, reading, TV, whatever…) and you get invited out, this does not automatically mean you have to accept. An appointment with yourself is just as important as one with other people. Value your time!

2. Realise that when you say yes to one thing, you ALWAYS say no to something else

When this happens, you usually say no to the more important parts of your life – God, family, yourself. For example, you’re asked to help out on a committee at your child’s school. You could end up so busy with committee work that you deprive your child of quality time. Another example is saying yes to everybody at work collecting money for birthdays, leaving presents, etc, and no to your own financial future.

3. Don’t instinctively say yes. Buy time to think about it first.

Always check your diary first before committing to plans. Or just take a deep breath. Otherwise you end up saying yes to everything and at the end of a hectic period, you’re virtually burnt out.

4. It becomes easier to say yes the more you practise

At first when you have to say no to something or someone, it feels terrible. But it is incredibly empowering when you realise that you made the correct decision in saying no. It is an acquired skill and the more you use your “no” muscle, the stronger it’ll get. I promise.

5. When you say yes and you feel resentment, it means that you should have said no

Learn to listen to your heart. The Bible says that we mustn’t give grudgingly or under compulsion, and yet, so many of us do. We say yes, and harbour deep feelings of resentment and bitterness. Nothing good comes from a resentful attitude.

6. Saying no comes easier when you are confident in your own capabilities

When you say no firmly and without a grovelling apology, it affirms your self-worth and it’s a way to stand up for yourself. Men seem to do really well at this but women seem to want to explain everything and apologise while they’re saying no.

7. You don’t have to be rude or ugly about it – there are many ways to say no

No can be “I can’t help you this time”, “I can only do it next month”, “that’s not my strong suit” or simply “no, thanks”.

Make a quality decision this month to look at your schedule and see where you’re saying yes to activities or commitments that don’t support your goals. Then, work at saying no to them so you can say yes to more important things.

Want to use this article in your ezine or on your blog? You may, as long as you include this complete blurb.

Marcia Francois is a time management and business organising coach who helps small business owners break out of overwhelm, make the most of their time and get important projects done. Visit http://organiseyourbusiness.com for your free 7-part audio series, 7 tips for time-strapped business owners.