Version 1.0 … 2.0 … 3.0 …

Exciting times this week as we launch our first newsletter! Working on the newsletter as well as updates to the website have been so much fun. I have wanted for a while to share more tools on this site that have shown time and time again to be helpful for the business owners I work with. And I’ve wanted to share other resources, like articles, videos, podcasts and ideas more too. It’s been one of those things that I’ve been so eager to share yet holding back.

As the saying goes ‘Sorry for the long letter, I would have written you a short one if I had more time’. I don’t want to do that. I want the newsletter to be intentional, just like the templates, tools and all the work that I create. It has been so rewarding over the past few years to bring concise, practical, thoughtful templates to business owners as they take on new opportunities for their business. My goal with sharing more here, in the newsletter and other forms is to share out tools to help business owners AND entrepreneurs-to-be go from ideas to action. And really to have more time for the things that light them up and where they can truly make a difference in the world.

The big obstacle in getting work out there has been in being concise. I do a lot of work concisely and I pride myself on that. Moving to new mediums, like a newsletter (or even this weekly note), presents its own challenges. A helpful thought : this is newsletter 1.0. The really great newsletter might be version 3.0 and in order to get there, I need to go through the process of making 1.0. It’s not about sending out sub-par work. It’s about excellent work that still has room to improve THAT you need to put it out there in the world to find those improvements. We learn by doing. We grow by doing. I hope people enjoy newsletter 1.0. I look forward to improving and trying new things with it to deliver more and more value. Stay tuned!

‘Yet’

Life isn’t back to normal YET ;)

It has been so helpful and energizing to have an assistant. When catching up with friends, it is easily an exciting thing to share because it has and continues to make a difference. Given everything going on in the world right now, there are very really parts of life that are on hold or slowly in transition.

On bad days, those hold/transition areas can take the focus and drag everything down and make the day worse. It’s so easy for us to make all-or-nothing statements that reinforce and multiply frustrating feelings. I’ve slid in ‘yet’ when talking with others and they are struggling, AND I am thankful for when others have done it for me too.

Adding ‘yet’ interrupts the feeling from building and takes it down a notch. Like “That project hasn’t started…YET. It will start in another month or so.” or “I can’t move to that city…YET. I will when conditions are right again.” or for my parents “We haven’t found our new house…YET. We are ok until then and it will happen soon enough.” or for clients “I haven’t found someone for that role…YET. This role is important so I’m ok taking my time to get it right”. It can sound silly but language makes a huge difference. It is too easy to keep something feeling big and heavy and frustrating by repeating all-or-nothing statements, like something hasn’t/can’t happened.

An assistant has influenced my energy throughout the day, throughout tasks. It has made work easier and kept me in my zone of genius for more of the day. Whether it’s when catching up with other people or in my own self-talk statements throughout the rest of the day, adding yet has nipped energy drains in the bud. Instead of frustration, it has felt like persistence and optimism for what is coming.

Chatty and concise

I am both chatty and concise. I enjoy discussions and working through ideas to solutions. I also really really like conciseness, being intentional and focusing on the most important.

To be concise (like in 1-pagers mentioned last week), there needs to be focus and less details. Sometimes it happens quickly and other times, it is longer because it’s messy. I like to think of it as a muscle that you practice to be intentional and concise. You get better at it with practice and through learning new methods. But you also pick and choose when you use it. Tim Ferriss, known for being smart with managing work and time, has said he appears so disorganized when his videographer comes over to film videos. He’s ok with that. He is efficient in many parts of his day which gives him the freedom to be messy and creative for part of his day. Whether it’s with time, with speech or something else, it can be freeing to know you don’t need to be efficient all of the time. To be good at a skill does not mean never being the other end of that skill.

When I am chatty, it’s because I’m excited, creative and engaged. When I’m concise, it’s focused action time. I enjoy being both and enjoy learning and growing which enables me to be agile in which one I am at any given moment.

1-pagers

‘1-pager’s create focus and action. Earlier in my career, I had a couple managers that each gave a piece of related advice that changed how I approached work and when combined propelled me. Today, I love using 1-pagers to keep things moving with a lot of intention.

A 1-pager can be used for strategy to implementation. It can be used to showcase the key points of a decision or even to gather information that is exhaustive yet focused. The idea is to be clear at the start on what is most important before doing the work, making the decision or communicating to the team. I have a number of go-to 1-pagers. Others, for newer or different work, are in progress. I still approach the work each time by asking myself either: ‘what is important to making a decision (that would be shown on a 1-pager to explain the decision)?’ or ‘what information is important for making a decision (that I need to focus my research/collection/etc on)?’ I ask the question THEN I make the 1-pager skeleton THEN I start the work. I’ve loved introducing this approach to clients and I’m excited to share a few here on this site. AND I’m looking forward to sharing those currently being tested in the future!

Complexity makes decisions messy, overwhelming, going in circles and take longer than they need to. When we have moments of clarity, it is because in a moment we got clear on the few most important details to our decision. Finding, creating and getting in the habit of using 1-pagers builds the mental muscle of getting to the most important faster. 1-pagers get out of our ‘overthinking-in-our-head’ time and move to the ‘doing’ time faster and for more of the time.

Complexity is the enemy of execution

Ideas become weighed down with details. I think often when we delay deciding or hold off on implementing or struggle to stay consistent because we make it too complex.

When I think back to times of big change in my life, it was possible because I focused. I focused on what was most important. I may have got there on my own, with someone’s help, a good book, a new approach or a combination of these things that stacked to together one after another. The same holds true when your mission becomes clear and you go after it ferociously. I remember I did that when I started a gymnastics business in my undergrad. It became clear in a moment what I needed to do then I worked on one detail after another to make it happen before the next school year. I was focused on the important few to make it happen. Some 10+ years later, I did the same thing when I wanted to move from the Toronto area to Vancouver. And be clear the messy middle is different than letting things be too complex. Both are clutter. Too complex is letting in too many factors to your decision/action. I had that happen before the first time I launched my website then it all became clear in one day. Since then I’ve refreshed my website and added to it. I hope you enjoy today ;) …and I hope you enjoy it tomorrow when it may change with what’s important then.

The point is that when something is taking longer than we want, it could be because we’re letting too many details in. We’re letting it be more complex than it needs to be. That’s why we value those things that cut to the most important. I am EXCITED to share tools and resources that I have developed with clients that cut through the the clutter. I hope that this brings simplicity and progress to you and your work :)