Chaos Buster Resources
COVID-19 Week Three in the US East Coast
What a difference three weeks can make in a business! Three weeks ago, I was returning from South Carolina. I arrived home on a Saturday afternoon, fully expecting to start my normal routine of going to church on Sunday morning. Instead, COVID-19 became a business and personal reality.
COVID-19 Impact Business
COVID-19 broadsided me. I had a sudden shift in my time, schedule, and the natural consequences to my business and my client’s business. My clients had repercussions in their business. I work with a lot of Non-Profit organizations. They suddenly had meetings canceled, and fund-raising events postponed indefinitely.
Offsite meetings were suddenly banned, and we had to find resources for them to implement meaningful virtual conference calls.
COVID-19 Impact Personal
In my personal life, I had concern for my adult children and their families. I love my routine, so imagine my angst when my husband started to work from home.
I recorded a video with how I shifted my mindset from overwhelm—some steps I am taking to reduce my chaos and move forward in my business with confidence.
Hopefully, my goofy splash screen will make you smile, even if you don’t have time to watch this three-minute video.
Calendar
Use your calendar! It will help you keep focused and determine priorities.
Respect Boundaries
I know for me, respecting MY boundaries is hard. My first response is to accommodate and help people. Monday, I sent an email to reschedule the meeting that was not urgent. The meeting was scheduled during my creative time and I was self-sabotaging my efforts to grow my business.
It is easy for me to prioritize my client’s to-dos over my tasks. I accepted the meeting to please a client, but I knew I would resent the intrusion. As I said, the meeting was not urgent. I emailed them, and they graciously accepted the shift in time.
Execute Your Plan
All of the planning in the world will not get you out of the pit of overwhelm and past the chaos. You have to execute your plan.
Act
Now get to it, choose your priorities for the day, write them down, and execute your plan.
You’ve got this!
Video Transcript
Hi, my name is Lisa Olinda, owner of Olinda Services, the Chaos Whisperer, bringing you some chaos busting resources for today. I know that it is difficult right now with the COVID-19 lockdowns, businesses closing, meetings getting canceled, to run your business and to run it well. There seems to be shifting sand. Everything seems to change every day. It is a time when we’ are emotionally sometimes on a roller coaster.
I know for me for the past two weeks it’s been difficult. I spent some time in South Carolina with my mom helping her get set up to weather this storm. As soon as I came home, we went into lockdown here in Delaware and my husband started working from home. So the past two weeks have been just a series of squirrel moments for me. Clients have had emergencies, we’ve been having to shift how we do things and you know, in some ways I feel like I’ve taken my eye off the ball of growing my own business.
So, over the weekend I did some study. I took some time to reflect and determine I needed a mindset shift. I needed to own my time. I’m determined that this week I was going to get back to the basics.
My resource tip for you for today is getting back to your calendar, using your calendar. I needed to respect my boundaries and not let client emergencies constantly shift me from what I was doing. I am using my project management tool, which is where I keep all of my client work and my own work. I’m looking at my priorities, what are my priorities for the day? I’m putting them in my daily calendar and then I’m going into my online, my digital calendar and I’m blocking the time so that I can concentrate on what needs to be done during that time.
And I would say, you know, we have the resource of our calendar. We have the resource of respecting our boundaries. And then I would say thirdly we have the resource of executing the plan. If we, we can plan and plan and plan and plan and plan. But we must execute the plan.
So, my resource tips recap for today is to use your calendar, respect your boundaries, and execute your plan.
If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment in the box below. You can email me at lisa@olindaservices.com or please visit my website at olindaservices.com and schedule a 15-minute call with me.
Have a great day. I’m here for you.