This week’s Weekly Planning Hack is all about “Making things Visual”.
How often do you find you:

• Lose items
• Forget things
• Let non-important tasks usurp the more important tasks?

One of the reasons why I was passionate about creating an analog workbook and planner for Coaches (Coaching Business Builder) as well as Virtual and Remote Professionals (PlanDoTrack), was to create a place where what’s in our minds, could find a home on paper.

Paper planners are great for some, but even then, things can get lost.
What’s another layer to make those important things stand out? Have you considered:

• Using a post-it to highlight the things that are REALLY important?
• Using a chalk pencil to leave yourself a note on the mirror or the fridge?
• Linking a photo you love to your vision of your business, and placing it as a screen saver?

Where the visual cues that will keep what’s important to you visible and in front of you?

Best,
​Jennifer

Week 26 Focus – Mid-point Check In
Focus Question: What have you achieved so far this year? 

Description
Wow! Here we are in week 26, mid-point of the 52 weeks, and of the year.
This week you are encouraged to block off time to take stock of your achievements. First, review your annual plan. You may want to include some information around these questions:

• What have you achieved so far?
• What new items do you want to add?
• What can you check off your list?
• What have been key lessons since the start of the year (or the 52 weeks)?
• What’s different about you/your business?
• What’s really important for you to focus on in this last half of the year?
• By the end of the 52 weeks, I want to be sure I….

Research/Story
Creating intentional pause points is an important part of any coaching and learning process. Being able to stop and reflect is also critical for business success.
 
While we can keep on doing, are we doing the right things which have impact? What is working and what is not?
 
This is the premise of the Virtual Retreats I host throughout the year in the PlanDoTrack series, as well as the month end reflection and monthly planning hacks.

Download a one-page copy of this week's 52 Weeks of Plan, Do and Track here.

Best wishes, 
Jennifer

Read and download the initial weeks of the 52 weeks of Plan, Do and Track.

​Jennifer Britton - Potentials Realized
Author of PlanDoTrack (2019),  Coaching Business Builder (2018), Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013). Pick up a copy of any of her books at Amazon
Book Jennifer for a coaching session to explore productivity, teamwork and business issues.
Contact her by phone at (416)996-8326
Follow the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series on Instagram

​As we move from one season to another, we have the opportunity to undertake a “clean sweep”. Having lived and worked in the tropics for the first 15 years of my career, and now having been back in Canada for 15 years where the seasons are so distinct, I have come to (re) appreciate, how significant seasonal change provides an impetus for change and review. Have you done a clean sweep of your surroundings lately? Is it time to clean up your files? Your desk? Your contacts?

There is a lot written on clearing and creating order – from the work and writing of Marie Kondo to Gretchen Rubin’s new book – Outer Order, Inner Calm.

Last fall, I offered up a weekly planning tool (separate from the Coaching Business Builder and PlanDoTrack) called the Clean Sweep. Structured as a five-day planning tool, it also offers some prompts and reminders for business owners or virtual workers to take action on some of the more overlooked aspects of our work. For example, outreach and building of relationships. Taking these small steps continue to “add up”. Download a copy of the Weekly  Sweep  for your business document here.

Where could you benefit from a "clean sweep"?

Best wishes,
​Jennifer 

Week 25 Focus – Building Connection & Community While Strengthening Your Personal Brand on Social Media
Focus Question: What does building connection and community mean for you? Why is this important?

Description
Connection and community are yearned for by many operating in the virtual and small business space. What are the ways you want to build stronger connection with others, and create more community? This week’s focus is on using social media as an avenue to build more connection and community.

As a virtual business it’s likely that many of your days are spent operating solo, bouncing in and out of virtual calls with people who might be hours, and time zones, away from you. Isolation is often seen as a downside to virtual work. Virtual and remote professionals may be more proactive in exploring various avenues for creating community and connection.

In building community consider these questions:

• Who is important to connect with?
• What topics or focus areas do I want to be in regular dialogue around?
• What can I contribute to others?
• Needs I have in order to do my work most effectively are…. I might be able to find them ____________.

In building connection within the virtual space, it may be a mix of:

• Push versus Pull: Here’s what I have to offer (PUSH) VS. Tell me what you need (PULL)
• Social Media vs. In-person Environments: Social media often gets a bad wrap for the time involved, yet it may be the communication flow for many virtual professionals. Different platforms can serve different purposes and historically have attracted different audiences. For example, consider LinkedIn’s focus on professional issues vs. Instagram’s visual story telling. We’ll be exploring tips for leveraging these two platforms in the coming weeks so stay tuned.
• Building time for meaningful connection: On a regular basis, consider having an offline conversation with people you are meeting. This might involve having a virtual coffee for 15 minutes or connecting around a shared interest to swap resource tips.
• Social media community involvement: What’s the purpose of joining different groups? What can you contribute? What time do you want to offer?

Six Questions

1. How much time do you want to dedicate to social media?
2. Which platforms do you want to be present on? (Consider your strengths, passions, clients etc)
3. What’s the message you want to share?
4. What do you want to track?
5. What does value add and engagement look like?
6. What is important to keep in mind?

Activity
Review or create your strategy around social media. What’s the purpose? What are you doing to do, WHEN?

What can you do to magnify your message? Consider how you can magnify and repurpose. What can you share different spins on the same item across platforms? For example, if you have written an article on something, could you pull out a couple of quotes to make it a tweet, or serve as a quote graphic?  Could that same article become the seeds of a presentation?
Review visibility tips.
Consider what your strengths are and what your key message is.

Connection to the Workbook and Planner
The Monthly and Daily Trackers in the planner section of the Coaching Business Builder and PlanDoTrack can be used to track how much time you are spending on promotion, the different channels, as well as what impact you are getting.
Use the Content Planner to make a plan you can execute on.
Check out the Don’t Just Do it Once! Tool in the content section so you can think about magnifying your message.

Download a one-page copy of this week's 52 Weeks of Plan, Do and Track here.

Best wishes, 
Jennifer

Read and download the initial weeks of the 52 weeks of Plan, Do and Track

​Jennifer Britton - Potentials Realized
Check out the Weekly Planning Hack Facebook Live each Wednesday or Thursday here. Be sure to like our page to be updated each week!
Author of PlanDoTrack (2019), Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013)

Week 24 Focus – 9 Different Promotional Vehicles
Focus Question: How do you want to get the word out?

Description
Whether we are representing our organization, building our personal brand, or marketing a product or service, becoming savvier with different promotional vehicles can be of importance when building a business case, communicating it or marketing a product or service. Section 3 of both the Coaching Business Builder and Plan Do Track explores 9 different promotional vehicles.
​
Now that you have your message, what are the key ways you want to get your message out? Let’s explore the 9 Promotional Vehicles a little more in-depth.

Research/Story 

Activity
Identify 2-4 different strategies to help you “get the word out” this quarter. Complete the following chart:

Connection to the Workbook and Planner
Section 3 explores the different marketing approaches more in depth. Review these and the associated questions to gain further insight.

Download a one-page copy of this week's 52 Weeks of Plan, Do and Track here.

Best wishes, 
Jennifer

Read and download the initial weeks of the 52 weeks of Plan, Do and Track

​Jennifer Britton - Potentials Realized
Check out the Weekly Planning Hack Facebook Live each Wednesday or Thursday here. Be sure to like our page to be updated each week!
Author of PlanDoTrack (2019), Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013)

This week's Weekly Planning Hack is about Time Tracking. Where does your time really go? On a Personal and Professional level, time tracking can be a significant issue. One study noted in the Harvard Business Review found that "not filling out time sheets properly costs the U.S. economy $7.4 billion a day in productivity".
​
One of the first Weekly Planning Hacks here was around the Pomdoro Technique, a time management function where you use alarms and focus in on 25-50 minute bursts of work.
Last week we explored different apps for time management. Note what you have available to you through your phone and dedicated apps to track your time through bursts of focus.

This week, consider focusing in on tracking your time. In the 19 Productivity Tips course I share a time tracking template so you can note on a 15-30 minute basis throughout the day where your time is actually being spent. This can be very instructive over the course of a week or month to note where your time is actually going.  Create your own time tracker using a blank page of paper, segmenting it into 15 minute blocks, or refer to the lecture in the 19 Productivity Course I released earlier this year.

Best wishes,
​Jennifer

Week 23 Focus – What’s your message?
Focus Question: What are you doing to create a message that is clear, crisp and consistent? What is important to consider?

Description
We have spent the last few weeks exploring different marketing approaches which will have been of interest to virtual professionals and entrepreneurs. For those that are leaders and professionals internal to an organization, a reminder that positioning your message internally, and building a business case, draws on many of the marketing principles we have been talking about.

This week’s focus on “What’s your message?” is important to all virtual professionals and business owners. Being clear with your message, and its delivery is key to business success.

Across the span of a week we are constantly communicating. From formal presentations to meetings with your boss, to connecting with peers, communication happens formally and informally throughout the day.

This week’s focus is what’s your message? We’ll explore it in the light of making a presentation.

It’s often said that you have 7 seconds to make a good first impression. What’s going to capture the attention of others with your message?

Consider the following:

• Distilling your message down to 3 bullet points. Take a look at this week’s quote.
• Starting your presentation/communication with a factoid, photo or graphic to capture their attention.
• Asking a question to get people thinking about how the topic relates to them.

What’s going to make the impression you want? In today’s business context, being heard and being understood is critical.

Activity
Think about an upcoming presentation or message you need to deliver. It could the announcement of a new program or offering. Work through these questions:
What’s your core message? What is it that you really want to say? Distill it down to 3 bullet points. What’s your intent? What do you want others to do as a result of the presentation?
​
Key to creating memorable messages is that it is:

• Memorable – What will make this stand out? Is there a story or image you can share?
• Clear – Review your message. What’s unclear?
• Understood – what are the terms or issues people are looking for? What are people listening for?

Connection to the Workbook and Planner
Using the content planners and brainstorming space found towards the back of the planner can support you with your messaging. Also consider referring to some of the tips in Section 3 (Marketing and Promotion Essentials) as well.

Download a one-page copy of this week's 52 Weeks of Plan, Do and Track here.

Best wishes, 
Jennifer

Read and download the initial weeks of the 52 weeks of Plan, Do and Track

​Jennifer Britton - Potentials Realized
Check out the Weekly Planning Hack Facebook Live each Wednesday or Thursday here. Be sure to like our page to be updated each week!
Author of PlanDoTrack (2019), Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013)

In this week’s Weekly Planning Hack, I’m exploring some of the varied apps that are available to support you in time management. Many of us have periods where everything is digital. This may be your daily practice OR it may be the way you do things while traveling or on the road for work.

Apps around time management can support many functions including:

• Project Management
• Time Tracking – where your time is going
• Calendaring
• Scheduling
• Contents
• Invoicing
• Learning

Let’s take a look at some of the options under these umbrellas:

Project Management – Two of my favorite project management apps are Trello and Asana. While a little different in focus and look, they are both mobile and desk top friendly. I find I use Trello more for writing and creative projects like program design, while turning to Asana for projects that require collaboration.

Time Tracking – One of the first Weekly Planning Hacks here was around the Pomdoro Technique, a time management function where you use alarms and burst of work. Note what you have available to you through your phone and dedicated apps to track your time through bursts of focus.
There is also an opportunity to track your time through a multitude of apps such as Toggl, Timeline, Tsheets and many others. What do you use? Let us know in the comments below what you use and what you like about it?
 
Learning Apps – As an educator in both formal and informal contexts for many years, there are so many great ways to take “learning with you”. From podcasts to on-demand video-based courses. 

One of the applications I use with my clients is Teachable. You’ll note the Teams365 series of programming continues to grow in scope. The Teams365 Teamwork Foundations course has been joined this year by the 19 Productivity Tips and Time Management program. Having been involved in creating both corporate and public programming for many years I know how valuable it is for students to be able to learn in this flexible format. While it’s not for everyone, when there ‘s an urgent need, nothing beats taking a quick on-demand program.

Invoicing – for those involved in running a business, invoicing and financial apps are critical to keeping a business running and doors open. From PayPal to Quick books, along with other tracking systems, it makes it easy to receive and send money at the press of a button.
 
As you may have noticed, I did not touch on all of these and will be covering some of them in future posts. Stay tuned next week for Time Tracking and Time Tracker Apps.

Best wishes,
Jennifer

​Jennifer Britton - Potentials Realized
Check out the Weekly Planning Hack Facebook Live each Wednesday  here.
Author of PlanDoTrack (2019), Coaching Business Builder (2018), Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013)
Just announced - July's Facilitator Training for PlanDoTrack and the Coaching Business Builder. Are you interested incorporating these resources into your own work. Help me bring the resource out to 20,000 virtual entrepreneurs, remote workers and team leaders by 2020! Early bird rate on to June 21st.

Week 22 Focus:
Marketing–Creating Continuous Content
Focus Question: If you were to create content around different themes, what would those themes be? 

Description
Marketing can take a variety of different forms. It can be useful to look at it from different time frames including:

• Short-term
• Medium term
• Long term

What are the different types of vehicles you would use to generate buzz about your work and offering in each of these different ways?

Ongoing marketing is critical for business success. It’s easy to run out of ideas. This week’s Tip gets you thinking about Creating Continuous Content.
​
Whether it’s Facebook or a blog, Instagram or Pinterest, here are some of the varying ways to get your ideas out:
1. Create a series – i.e. 31-day series around the topics of your choice;
2. Create an A- Z series (take a look at my A-Z for Virtual and Remote Team Members);
3. Do an infographic about the different steps in the process;
4. Do a 60 second sound byte around the most important topics in your area;
5. Do an in-depth step by step guide with a series of different posts for the different areas of focus;
6. Create a Top 10 list of books
7. Prepare a top 10 list of videos to check out
8. Make a list of 10 Websites to check out
9. Create a go-to guide
10. Produce a user’s guide to (insert main questions or how tos)
11. Create a Top 10 trends from the year
12. Make a list of Ted talks to explore on the topic
 
What will help to make your message more strategic and targeted?
What is of interest to your clients? What will help to focus the conversation for people?

Activity
Get in to action around one of your key priorities in marketing. Use the list of 10 series above to create a series of marketing tasks. You might:

• Host a Facebook live, or Instagram call around a topic of your choice.
• Do a podcast around your topics
• Write an
• White post
• Linked in Article on Pulse
• Create an assessment or self assessment. For example, if you are working with leaders, have them identify what are the key skills they need to be successful.

What is the one that you have not explored AT ALL?
Who can help you expand your marketing reach? We talked about use of the Top 20 list in an earlier marketing post. Who could help you expand your message?

Connection to the Workbook and Planner
Section 3 is dedicated to Marketing Essentials. What are your key priorities around marketing?
Use the One Page Plan (page 275/277) to create a focused plan around marketing
Use the trackers to track the outcome or impact of this activity – note visits, likes, what gets traction.
specific activities or results for each of the activities.

Download a one-page copy of this week's 52 Weeks of Plan, Do and Track here.

Best wishes, 
Jennifer

Read and download the initial weeks of the 52 weeks of Plan, Do and Track

Taking time to stop and pause is critical for success.
​
"Big thinking precedes great achievement."— Wilferd Peterson

As I wrote in the 19 for 2019, review is critical for success.
Part of productivity is about building in pause points to reflect and think about what’s working and what’s not.
Building in time for regular review helps to:

• Identify where we are getting our results
• Observe the patterns that are occurring
• Think about where we want to go
• Identify what is important to be able to move forward

What are the blocks of time you want to set aside for review?

Best wishes,
​Jennifer