The sink is full of dishes; the kitchen is a mess,

Emails keep buzzing; the phone won’t take a rest,

The kids won’t behave and hubby is having a moody day

Sitting at my desk but feel the need to sway!

My desk is overloaded with nothing I need,

I’m trying to keep up with tasks at speed,

This one, that one, which one first,

I don’t even get time to quench my thirst,

There’s a knock at the door, who can that be?

Doesn’t working from home mean WORKING from home?

I don’t have time for a cup of tea,

Please let me be, please let me be

Overwhelm is an emotion, it comes in many forms,

Anger, frustration and causes a storm,

Don’t blame others for the missing link,

Completing the work will get you back in sync.

Give yourself care and allow your brain to rest,

Sometimes we forget we need to refresh,

Break it all down to smaller chunks,

Learn serenity as do the monks,

Let me give you a little tip, just sway to the right and walk out the door!

Even if you create a very clear outcome for a project, you can’t know for sure that you’ll achieve the particular outcome until the project is complete.

Don’t give up or throw up your hands in despair at the uncertainty. It’s the reason that many people don’t attempt to do big things. They’re too afraid to take on something big when they can’t determine an exact outcome. It’s a classic catch-22.

Often the very people who are perfectionists, control freaks we might also call them, and who therefore think that the projects they complete will be perfect can’t actually complete projects, much less get started, in many cases.

However, you can create circumstances that will help you navigate a project to its intended result. You might not end up exactly where you intended, but if you follow a few simple rules then you may end up with a far better result than you originally envisioned.

I know this is a long post. Important lessons don’t always lend themselves to sound bites. If you are working with others or have colleagues that are struggling to finish their projects, please share it with them and then talk about how you can implement these rules.

Note: these rules are expanded upon in Beyond Booked Solid, my follow up to Book Yourself Solid. I learned them from Hal Macomber to whom I owe a debt of gratitude.

Collaborate.

Work with others. At the earliest possible moment, bring people into a project, even as it is just developing. If you work with others, you should accomplish greater things than you could alone. If this is a tough rule to follow or if you are hesitant to involve other people, ask yourself whether you are committed to having something truly great or just to getting it done your way—it’s not the same thing.

Coordinate meticulously.

A project is an ever-evolving network of commitments. Keep that network activated by tending to the critical conversations. Be sure to integrate events. See that people make clear requests, undertake commitments that have completion dates, and share opinions that advance the purpose of the project. Without attention to those critical conversations, the project will drift. When you’re doing a project with one person, maybe you can coordinate effectively via e-mail—but I doubt it. Trying to manage a project via e-mail results in hours of time and energy wasted. You need a better way to coordinate and manage all of the project’s activities.

I use Basecamp to manage all of my projects and recommend it fully. Disclosure: I DON’T receive commissions but they recently gave me a Macbook Air to thank me for my support.) FYI – this link will give you $10 off. I love Basecamp because it’s simple and effective. If offers what you need and nothing more so you stay focused on what’s important.

Adopt practices for exploring a variety of perspectives.

We think we see what’s there, but we don’t. We see what we expect to see. We see what we already think or believe exists. Instead, make it your habit to inquire as to what others see, how other people view a situation. Your single perspective is not the ultimate or only truth. It’s your job (if you want to produce something great) to see from others’ perspectives.

Listen generously.

It’s not often that people feel like they’re able to say what they want in the moment, either because they don’t feel like they’re invited to speak or because, even if they may speak, sometimes it’s hard to articulate, in the moment, just what they think or want. For the most part, people are well-intended. Give them the benefit of the doubt. Take the time to listen. Ask questions. Seek others’ opinions. And while you’re at it, don’t be so harsh on yourself.

Build relationships intentionally.

Often project teams come together as relative strangers or at least strangers to working closely together. Some might even say that projects work better this way because there is more opportunity to learn from one another. However, to do great work—innovating, learning, collaborating—it takes a group of people who like and care for each other. Don’t leave that to chance. Start your projects by building relationships among team members. A shared understanding is key.

Have clear project intentions.

As the saying goes, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.” The same thing applies to doing projects. In order to have clear outcomes, you need to have clear intentions about what you want to accomplish. Your intention is made up of your passions, your talents, your contributions, the commitments you undertake, and the promises you fulfill. Define your project in as much detail as possible. But, as with all creative pursuits, flexibility is essential. Leave room for change, expansion, and possibly a new direction. This will create the most collaborative and exciting environment within which you can create.

Develop habits of commitment making and fulfilling.

This is my favorite rule and I implore you . . . plead with you . . . beg you to take it to heart. Progress depends on the successful fulfillment of promises. Create a routine that is appropriate for the project, which requires the team to come together and to undertake promises to one another. The work that I promise to complete today allows you to start your task tomorrow. The downfall of not fulfilling my obligation is one breakdown after another. In fact, our reputations are built on our ability, or lack thereof, to make commitments and fulfill them, as is the future success of our businesses.

There are people who are great at making commitments but not great at fulfilling them. When that happens, not much gets done, and they don’t get picked to participate on a project team again. Others don’t make commitments. Yet, without commitments in the first place, not much gets done, and they don’t get asked to participate again either.

The good news is that projects are a perfect venue to develop and improve habits of commitment making and fulfilling. I should note that commitments can, and sometimes should, be re-negotiated. That’s perfectly natural. Things change. But if renegotiating promises becomes the norm, then not much gets done, at least not in a timely fashion. And, you guessed it, you don’t get asked to participate again.

Tightly couple learning with action.

One of the things that keep people from getting on with their projects is that they think they need to know everything before they start, instead of learning in action. As Eric Hoffer, an American philosopher, says, “In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.” The future belongs to the learner, not the learned. Projects are wonderful opportunities to learn.

Call on your talents.

Working on a project of any sort is the perfect venue for showcasing your talents. Talents are those gifts that are innate to the person you are, whereas skills are things that are learned. When you use your talent, you do better work. Avoid taking on responsibilities and tasks that fall outside the scope of your natural talents. And don’t let your project team do it either. As the project manager, it’s your responsibility to make sure that no one on the project takes on responsibilities in areas outside their talents. It’s okay to learn a new skill while working on a project—in fact, it’s how you learn new skills—but you’ll learn much faster if you are hardwired with the talent to excel at that skill.

Bring your passion to the project.

Passion is a requisite for producing remarkable projects. You are not likely to do a project that others are going to remark on if you don’t engage your passion. As with anything, when we’re creating something new, we’re faced with problems, seemingly insurmountable barriers, and circumstances that are out of our control. During these times, it is our passion and personal investment in the project that carries us through to completion.

Embrace uncertainty.

Expect the unexpected. There is far more that we don’t know and can’t know than what we can anticipate. Be resilient to what your project throws at you. Anticipate that your team will learn something along the way that can and should change what you have promised and how you can deliver on your promises. And when you face a setback—we all do sometime or another—review the other rules for how you can work your way out of it.

Have a compelling story for your project.

Since projects never go the way you expect them to go keeping your passion and your focus depends on telling and retelling the story of your project. Your story is about why this project matters to you and why it is important for others. On a grander scale, it is your vision and purpose rolled into one. It will become increasingly important as you face problems, setbacks, or any type of project breakdown. You can always go back to your story—the underlying reason why you undertook the project in the first place. Storytelling is a tool of leadership and the way you engage others in your project. It’s the way you maintain your mood when things go wrong. Being able to articulate and re-articulate the story of the project is essential.

Try it for yourself.

List three projects you are working on right now. Why are you doing them? Why does each project matter to you? Why should it matter to others working with you or in your life? Who else cares about the outcome of the project, etc?

As a result, projects get done and businesses grow.

Is it as simple as that? Yes.

The success of a business like yours is made up of the successful completion of one project after another.

Simple.

Nonetheless, many folks don’t work with a project mindset. So, instead of plans and actionable items, they work with ideas.

That’s a problem because ideas don’t get done.

What does get done? Projects, if you successfully fulfill one commitment after another, that is.

You can either keep your ideas in your head or documented in ad hoc way, or you can turn your ideas into projects by:

1. Setting a due date for completion of a deliverable.
2. Identifying and scheduling the completion of milestones that, in-total, produce the deliverable.
3. Identifying and scheduling the tasks (To-Do’s) needed to reach each milestone.

In order to do this you’ll need to develop the habit of managing your commitments through project management.

Where do you start? With project plans.

There are many theories, practices, and platforms that support project management.

Frankly, the only practice I care about is the practice of making commitments and fulfilling them.

The tools you use for managing your projects aren’t important to me. What’s important is that you choose a tool and use it.

To that end, here are three SIMPLE options, including templates, to manage your projects:

1. Basecamphq.com (this link gets you a $10 discount), my favorite project management software for small business.
2. The World’s Easiest Project Planner (in Word) DOWNLOAD THIS TEMPLATE
3. The World’s Easiest Project Planner (in Excel) DOWNLOAD THIS TEMPLATE

Different people choose different platforms depending on their experience and the way they process information.

I can’t make heads or tails of Excel spreadsheets, so I use basecamphq.com. However, the best virtual assistant team I know, uses only Excel spreadsheets to manage the work of scores of client projects. And many of my clients, when managing small projects, feel more comfortable using a simple Word document.

A word to the wise: Don’t obsess on form. Rather focus on completion. Choose what’s most comfortable today and get going.

If I may, let me close with a short story.

Four months ago, I advised a company on how to begin using project management tools. They called me last week to ask which of three project management software programs they should use.

I nearly had a heart attack.

It took all the self-control I could muster to not yell, “Are you f-ing kidding me!”

Fortunately, I got it together and went with a more professional approach:

They’re all virtually the same. Choose one. Commit. Carry on with the important work of getting things done. To do otherwise, demonstrates a lack of commitment. If that’s the case, close up now before you spend any more of your investors’ money.

Have something to say about producing projects? Comment below.

Perhaps you think that your service may not be as easily defined as a packaged product or program, and necessarily has a high barrier for entry. You might be underestimating what you have to offer.

Let’s take a quick look at the benefits that you get from producing information products:

• Products create opportunities for multiple streams of passive or leveraged income.
• Having a product enhances your credibility with your prospects, your peers, meeting planners, and the media because it establishes you as a category expert and sets you apart from your competitors.
• Products can help you book more clients because they speed up the sales cycle. Since your services have a high barrier to entry, your potential clients may need to jump a few high hurdles to persuade themselves they need to hire you. Having a product to offer based on your services gives potential clients the opportunity to test you out without having to take a big risk. Then if they connect with you and are well served by your product, they will upgrade from the lower-priced product to the higher-priced service.
• If you use public speaking as one of your marketing strategies, having a product at the back of the room when you speak gives you credibility, and you also have a relatively low-cost way to introduce prospects into your business and generate ancillary revenue at the same time.
• Products leverage your time. One of the biggest problems service professionals face is the paradigm of trading time for money. If all you ever do is trade your time for money, your revenues are limited by how much you charge per hour.

Start with the End in Mind

You may be in the beginning phase of building your business and just be setting out on the course to book yourself solid, but as Dr. Stephen Covey says, “Start with the end in mind.” If you want to seriously build a long-lasting career as a service professional, you’ll want to start thinking just as seriously about creating information products.

Don’t let the idea of creating products intimidate you:

• Keep it simple.
• Don’t overwork it or feel that it needs to be perfect.
• Don’t worry about being wildly original.
• Tips, guides, or resource manuals are great formats.
• Continually strive to add value to your clients’ lives in any way you can.

When considering how to create an information product, start by examining the different possibilities and ask yourself, “How can I leverage my existing knowledge and experience to create a quality product that I can produce and launch in the shortest amount of time possible?”

Be sure you don’t overlook any content you may already have created.

For example, if you’ve written an article, you have content that you can leverage into multiple product formats. You can quickly and easily turn your article into an e-course, use it as the foundation for an e-book, print book, or program, or present it as an introductory presentation or teleclass.

A single article can be leveraged into any or all of these formats, making it possible to create an entire sales cycle from a single source of content.

Case in point: this blog post is based on a chapter in Book Yourself Solid.

Define Your Product or Program

Choose the one product idea that you’re most passionate or excited about right now—and most important, one that is in line with your current business needs. If you’re starting out and need to build your subscriber or follower base, you’ll need to create a lead-generating product first, a product that you give away to create connection with a potential client.

You will then leverage that free lead-generating information product into other monetized information products over time. If you already have a lead-generating product and you’re ready to produce higher-priced information products like an video program or a book, then go for it!

As you define your product, you will need to consider not only the type of product you will create but to whom you’re selling it, the promises it makes, the benefits and solutions it offers, the look and feel you want your product to convey, and the ways in which you can leverage the content.

It’s important to be clear about your intentions for your product or program, and it’s critical that your product or program meet the needs of your target market. No matter how much you might love to create something, if your target market doesn’t need it you’ll be defeating your purpose.

A Written Exercise to Get You Started

For now, keep it simple. Just get your ideas out of your head and onto paper.

1. What type of product or program would you most like to create? What would you be most passionate about creating and offering to your target market?
2. To whom would you be offering this product? (target market.)
3. What benefits will your target market experience as a result of your product?
4. How do you want your product to look and feel? What image or emotion do you want it to convey?
5. How might you leverage the same content into a variety of different formats and price points for your sales cycle?

Five Steps to Developing Your Product

I have identified five simple steps to developing your product.

Step 1: Choose the role you are playing

Step 2: Choose your product framework

Step 3: Choose a title that sells

Step 4: Build your table of contents

Step 5: Create your content

While teaching my process for creating information products to my clients, Jamie McKean, recorded a mind map of the lesson. It outlines the five steps and their many component parts.

DOWNLOAD THE TEMPLATE, follow the process and you’ll be well on your way to hearing the beautiful, melodic ka-ching, ka-ching sound of your web-site-turned-cash-register as the orders come rolling in.

If you found this helpful, please share it with others that will also find it helpful. Keep thinking big about who you are and what you offer the world.

UPDATE: Here’s another worksheet just created by another one of my clients, Lauchlan Mackinnon, to give you a more linear perspective on the process.

I promise, even if you hate wasting time, within minutes of learning my best-kept secrets, you’ll be wasting more time than ever before.

In fact, even if you multi-task all the way through my unfocused presentation, you’ll still master my best time wasting secrets.

You’ll discover how to:

• Blow a minimum of 3 hours per day on unproductive social media meandering.
• Miss valuable time by gossiping and complaining with other time killing (un)professionals.
• Do time-consuming busy work under the guise of “perfecting” your product so that you never actually get it to market.
• Plus 100′s of more advanced time killing strategies.

With my easy-to-follow roadmap for doing nothing, you’ll know how to miss the best years of your life and be one step closer to letting your dreams pass you by all the while making the least of your potential.

Join me for this non-event and I will help you become a master of wasting time. When you do… you’ll have even fewer clients than you do now.

Start today! Wait, what am I thinking? Start tomorrow! Wait! Why start tomorrow when you can put of starting even more? Start next week or next year or, better yet, never!

Bottom line! Don’t act ever. Right now decide to never go for it!

See you nowhere.

(You get the point. Now, get to work.)

When should you form a partnership with someone outside your business? When 1+1 = 3 or more.

You only want to create a profit-sharing relationship when you can build something bigger together than you can alone.

The partnership should end when the math no longer adds up, when 1+1 = 2 or less.

Resource: if you want to learn more about creating profitable partnerships, check Pam Slim’s, Partnership Playbook (affiliate link). I was interviewed for it along with Guy Kawasaki, John Jantsch, and others. It’s really an impressive product.

The same thing is true when someone asks if you will complete a task. If you don’t respond with a “Yes, I will by this date,” and they don’t respond with, “That’s great, thanks,” then it’s not in the plan.

Think of it like this…”If a tree falls in the forest does it make a sound?” Yes, of course, it does, but no one knows it fell so no wood will be chopped and no fire lit.

Open ended work and unconfirmed completed tasks are a recipe for project breakdown.

A framework helps you organize and present your content. A framework will make it easier not only for you to develop your content but also for your potential client to understand it and get the greatest possible value from it.

You may find that your content is ideally suited to a particular framework. If, for example, you’re developing content for a product on pregnancy, the chronological framework may be the logical choice.  When you first discover you’re pregnant, you’re not really ready for what’s going to happen in week 36.

Your content, however, may work well in more than one framework. An information product or program often uses a combination of frameworks. Here are six of the most common (there certainly may be variations on the themes below):

1. Problem/Solution. State a problem and then present solutions to the problem. The Magic of Conflict: Turning Your Life of Work into a Work of Art by Thomas F. Crum is written in this framework. He presents a number of problems that people face in their life and at work and presents solutions to those problems using the philosophical principles of the martial art of aikido.
2. Numerical. Create your product as a series of keys or lessons. A well-known example of this would be Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
   
3. Chronological. Some products need to be presented in a particular order because that is the only way it would make sense. As I mentioned above, Step A must come before Step B, as in Your Pregnancy Week by Week by Glade B. Curtis and Judith Schuler.
4. Modular. Book Yourself Solid is a good example. The book consists of four modules: Your Foundation, Building Trust and Credibility, Perfect Pricing and Simple Selling, and the Book Yourself Solid 7 Core Self-Promotion Strategies. Within each module are additional tracks presented in a chronological framework. So you see that the book has both a main framework (modular) and a secondary framework (chronological).
5. Compare/Contrast. Showcase your creation in terms of presenting several scenarios or options and then compare and contrast them. Jim Collins, in his book Good to Great, compares and contrasts successful and not-so-successful companies.
6. Reference. Reference is just as it sounds. You may be creating a product that becomes a valuable resource to members of your target market—a compilation of information is best showcased in a reference format like that in Words that Sell by Richard Bayan. It’s a reference guide of good words and phrases that help sell.

Which framework(s) would you choose for the information product you’re creating?

Two eggs with a touch of milk, so much spinach that you’d think you’ve ruined it, a massive medley of grape and cherry tomatoes, fresh basil, if it’s in season, dry, if out of season, cracked pepper, and mozzarella cheese; all on top of one piece of whole grain toast.

I know, how cliché—men and their eggs. Sometimes, I even have it for dinner. But, here’s the thing—it turns out much better in the morning.

Producing a masterpiece for breakfast, every morning no less, requires unshakable focus, perfect timing and a desire to do my best work (because I’m hungry). However, if I make the omelet in the evening, it’s less than perfect.

In the morning, I do my best work—not just when fixing breakfast. It’s when I write, think, plan, organize, strategize, and more. In the evening, my work is not as productive or creative because my attention is also focused on my son, my girlfriend, the day’s events and more.

So, if I attempt to prepare the “Omelette de Port” for dinner, my timing is off and I make mistakes. I forget to add the cheese or I burn the toast or, worse yet, cut my finger while slicing the tomatoes.

The same thing happens when I try to do focused, detailed, and creative work in the evening. It’s often a mess. My timing is off. I miss important details and my thinking is cloudy.

Some of us are more productive in the morning, some in the evening, and then there are those (annoying) people who are perfect all the time—I’m not one of them.

The point is—yes, there is a point—to choose what you work on and when you work on it—very carefully. If you write, what time of the day will you do your best work? If you need to do detailed work, say on a process for a promo event that includes emails, conference call set up, landing pages, and more, what time of the day will you get the most done while making the fewest errors?

To beat (pun intended) this metaphor to death… scrambled brains don’t do big things in the world.

And, finally, no matter what time of day I write, I will always make gramatical errors and typos that drive the Word Police mad.

A successful business is made up of the completion of one successful project after another. If you don’t know how to do projects you won’t be successful. Project progress (or any kind of professional progress, for that matter) depends on the successful fulfillment of promises.

Promises bring people together.

When working on projects, create a routine that is appropriate for the project, which requires the team to come together to undertake promises to one another. The work that I promise to complete today allows you to start your task tomorrow.

The downfall of not fulfilling my obligation is one breakdown after another. In fact, our reputations are built on our ability, or lack thereof, to make commitments and fulfill them, as is the future of our business. There are people who are great at making commitments but not great at fulfilling them. When that happens, not much gets done and they aren’t chosen to participate on a project team again.

Diminished expectations; I can’t but I’ll try.

Others don’t make commitments fearing the accountability, preferring to hide under a cloak of diminished expectations. How often have you heard (or said) the words, “I can’t promise you that I’ll do it, but I’ll try.” Certainly, that’s ok on small things that are not important to your plans, goals and dreams. If someone asks me to promote something that I’m not highly invested in I might say, “I’ll try, but I can’t promise.” But, for the big stuff that is important to you, why would you want to live in the half-light of such a soft engagement with others and the world? Yet, without commitments in the first place not much gets done. Moreover, the non-committer doesn’t get picked again.

Develop habits of commitment making and fulfilling.

The good news is that projects are a perfect venue to develop and improve habits of commitment making and fulfilling.

I should note that commitments can, and sometimes should, be renegotiated. That’s perfectly natural. Things change. But if renegotiating promises becomes the norm, then not much gets done, at least not in a timely fashion. And, you guessed it, we don’t get asked to participate again.

Coordinating commitments.

When working with others, nothing works better than a ten to fifteen minute daily coordination and commitment management conversation; each team member assesses how they are doing fulfilling promises. They report “complete” when done or make revised promises when needed. They also make new promises at the appropriate time. They finish the meeting by asking for help or offering help to others. A four- to seven-person team can have this conversation in less than fifteen minutes—and should.

Be the doer of deeds rather than the critic.

To promise and fulfill is to be the doer of deeds, not the critic. Of course, destroy, blow up, tear town what is mean, exploitative, abusive, and criminal. But, when it comes to doing big things, be fully engaged in the world, not standing apart or hovering above. Get in the ring, on the stage, make things that matter, build stuff that lasts.