Phone calls to make, e-mails to answers, quotations to get out, outstanding invoices to chase etc etc!! This is the life of a small business owner. Your day is typically filled with all this ‘routine’ and mundane stuff.
Where is the time to think of new ideas or creative ways of tackling your problems? And yet the benefits of coming up with new ideas or ways of solving problems are numerous, it’s just a case of finding the time. I am a great believer in scheduling some ‘thinking time’ into your day. Here’s what to do.
During the day, on a ‘thinking time’ pad, write down some issues or questions you need to find answers to. Don’t attempt to find solutions now, just park the question and carry on with your work. Take your diary or mentally decide what time you are going to start, and mark out 15 to 20 minutes. You may find you are better first thing in the morning, or you may prefer the afternoon when you find things quieter. It doesn’t matter when as along as you commit yourself.
When the allotted time comes, take the phone off the hook and tell everyone you don’t wish to be disturbed. Once you are relaxed let your mind wander and capture all the great ideas and solutions which will flood your mind. Write your thoughts down as a mindmap, using lots of different colours to really stimulate your brain!
When you get into the habit of taking some thinking time you’ll be amazed at not only the number of new ideas and solutions to problems you’ll come up with, but also how relaxed you’ll feel afterwards.
Go on, don’t just think about it, do it!
Thanks to Rob Warlow, Small Business Success, http://www.smallbusinesssuccess.biz
I am really pleasedto see that you are putting so much of effort for encouraging the readers with valueable posts like this, I have sent this post to my twitter accounts.