Michigan VAs

The It's a Smart Decision!™ Online Community is expressly for geographically dispersed teams, telecommuters, work at home entreprenuers -- or soloprenuers, as I call them -- and other "virtuals" who want to share all the ways you find balance and stave off insanity in your home office. It's just getting started, but you can bet people like you will make it well worth the two minutes it might take you to sign up.

For work at home professionals, the nature of our "workplace" can be . . . well, a barrier. Traditional work relationships are based on manning a desk or cubicle in an office. Colleagues pool resources to produce, sell and maintain a product or service. When you work at home or on the go, "out of sight, out of mind" can easily prevail. Whether you are a home-based entrepreneur or a telecommuter, you don't want to be forgotten by clients or colleagues.

The work day is crazy. We book a meeting and all of a sudden the date and time is looming, and we’re not prepared. So much time is wasted in meetings!

Whether your meeting location is across the conference table, over the phone or on the web, here are some quick tips to make your meetings more effective:

1. Plan, plan, plan! Book the meeting and jot down your agenda ideas. Keep the document on your desktop so you can add to the points of discussion/consideration between scheduling and the meeting day. Planning includes determining whether a meeting is required in the first place; consider whether the same results can be achieved via email.
2. Send an agenda out to all participants 24 hours to a week ahead of time. Request their feedback in advance or ask them to be prepared to present their input during the meeting. Give/ask for a time frame to complete their presentation.
3. Create the schedule and final agenda prior to the start of the meeting.
4. Stick to the agenda and to the task at hand. There’s nothing more frustrating than late start because social time between participants delays it.
5. Keep attendees on task throughout meeting so the pace is maintained by ensuring all are actively participating.
6. Finish with an effective follow up plan. Be clear on who is responsible for what. Document decisions and email a summary to each attendee with necessary deadlines.

Following these 6 meeting recommendations will create more effective meetings while freeing time for you and your attendees to accomplish other important tasks.

“Do not let the pursuit of perfection get in the way of progress.”

I had a client who wanted me to build a temporary three page site to use as a business calling card. It was temporary because she was planning to replace it with a larger site once she determined the content she wanted included.

This temporary site has never been published.

Why? Because it will never be perfect. The graphics and layout have been completely redesigned three times, the content has been rewritten several times as she’d find new ways of describing her business… and then she’d require new colors. The money she spent on this “temporary” site could have easily purchased her final site had she been able to determine what she wanted. I wonder how many clients she’s missed because of her inability to make a decision and move forward?

We’re raised to believe that mistakes are costly. Inaction costs us more.

“You cannot afford to wait for perfect conditions. Goal setting is often a matter of balancing timing against available resources. Opportunities are easily lost while waiting for perfect conditions.”
~Gary Ryan Blair