We’ve reached the end of March, which means that we’ve reached the end of the first quarter of 2019 (or the end of the 3rd quarter for the Australian Financial Year depending on which one you are counting)
Time flies when you are having fun… right?
Quarter 1 seems to have vanished quickly, and has left a lot of people wondering where the first part of the year even went.
With long school summer holidays, huge floods in the North of Queensland, and personally, being heavily pregnant… it seemed like there was always something going on, and I was waiting for a “normal” week.
Funnily enough though, there is no such thing as “normal” it seems.
So, let’s look at the Quarter that was, and what’s to come.
What went well:
Setting clear goals
Each month this year, I’ve taken the time to sit down and work out what I want to achieve.
I make a clear list of goals, each as specific as they can be, and where possible give it a specific deadline.
Eg, rather than just “Write more blogs” I would state that I wanted to write 8 blog posts. One for each week, and then 4 ready for the next month.
Or, where I had projects that needed finishing, I’d set a specific date in the month to have it finished by (otherwise I know I’d be scrambling to finish it on the 30th)
Having a really clear list of goals for each month kept me focused, especially when time was short or I had my hands full (most days)
Being clear about my finances
As well as a specific task list, I set a clear financial goal for money I wanted to bank that month.
I personally like track income when it lands in the account, irrelevant of what has been invoiced or is still outstanding. I like to keep track of what has arrived.
Having a clear financial goal for each month made me stop and think about where the money was coming from or the strategies that I could use to generate it.
I didn’t quite hit some of my goals, but I’m not upset by that. March was my biggest month of the year to date, and I was 9 months pregnant, so I’m taking that as a win.
What didn’t go so well:
I over estimate
I’m a shocker for doing this… I’m very self aware, but it’s still a bad habit that I haven’t managed to break yet.
I regularly over estimate how much I can get done in a day, a week or a month. I am getting much better at working out what can be done over the month, but I still set myself huge lists for a day, and it’s just not going to happen.
So, rather than a huge list each day, I’m trialing just creating a rough to do list for the week, and ticking a little bit off each day.
This helps me allow for the fact that there are some days when I get nothing done (and that’s ok) and that there are other days where I can tick off quite a few things in a row.
Focusing on my own stuff
I have no issues meeting client deadlines, but I still struggle to give my own work the same sort of priority.
I have a long list of things I want to do for my business. Updating some opt-ins, trialing some new strategies, a complete overhaul of my website etc… but I often find that it gets pushed to the bottom of the list, and often pushed to the next day/week/month.
To improve on this, I’ve started setting deadlines for individual projects. Rather than just saying that I will complete a task in March, I set a date, and aim to finish it by then.
Then I make sure that I am accountable to my mastermind group, to get stuff done.
What comes next?
I rounded out the last days of the quarter by giving birth to Hamish. I’m technically on maternity leave for the next 18 weeks.
What does this mean? I’m not taking on any new client work for the next quarter, and instead, I’m taking the time to focus on me, my family and my direction.
This time to review and reassess is a vital part of making my business sustainable in the future, especially as I have just welcomed child number 4. I need to make sure I have the systems and processes in place to make my goals achievable.
How about you?
What does the next quarter hold for you?
What are your plans?
Leave a comment below and share them with us 🙂 It’s a great way to hold yourself accountable to actually getting it done.