How To Create Your Boundary Matrix. Work To Live NOT Live To Work

Sunday

Sep262010

Sunday, September 26, 2010 at 6:30PM

Sundays are the most special days of the week. Over at WhenToZen.com we discuss how to find balance amongst an online entrepreneurial work style. So today I am going to share with you how I manage my Sundays so my week is not eaten up by boundary breaking activities.

My week can easily get absorbed by phone calls, e-mails, twitter addiction, and the continual onslaught of new information and links on Facebook. These all have the same result; they steal away from my client's time and my productivity. They also at the same time decrease the quality of my work especially during a busy week. Distraction cause a drpo in quality. A powerful social presence online can be positive at the same time it can be detrimental to your own company's goals. The beginning of the summer I created and follow a self-made priority matrix to organize my projects for my clients, myself, my contractors, and partners that establishes time boundaries for everyone. My opinion is that one quantifiable item in life thats easy to waste is TIME. Online social networks can be exciting, educational and add value they also can steal time which is your only valuable quantity when you're trying to accomplish your goals. It is almost how quickly little activities very secretly steal your time when you're not looking.

Of course, within my boundary matrix my set boundaries only exist Monday to Friday 6 AM to 6 PM. The rest of time I use as I please to accomplish larger goals and travel. Presently, I stick to my routine to balance my online activities as well as outdoor activities off-line. In four monthes the results have been quantifiable.

Like a kid in a candy store, I love new technologies, beta testing, strategy design, ways to make businesses better and more user-friendly. Doesn't matter if it's an article, video and guaranteed them under percentage that for the length it takes me to consume it. So, I know I need boundaries contain with in a calendar matched up with a goal chart so I'm not easily distracted.

You as a user, marketer, consumer need to figure out your own time boundaries. It different for everyone because your objectives are different than mine. I will note that it took me two months to lock down my personal boundaries on paper.

The Issue That Was Reoccurring
A smörgåsbord of my weekly activities related to my career were getting out of control rolling over each other, stealing time from one event for another, staying up way too late online to complete tasks, missing appointments and so on. My life off-line was becoming unbalanced and specifically and (in a very vain way) I was losing my boardroom babe figure.

As my father would say You are spinning you're wheels and getting nowhere. Where is the traction?

How To Make Your Sunday Profitable

There is plenty of room for sharing with others during set hours of the day. Sunday's are my day to get ahead of everyone else. I play with new projects, and do deep dives into those new technologies I looked briefly during the week. Clients and my communities are the most important to me so Sunday as I send out communications to my team to make sure we are on track with current projects and they send follow-up e-mails to touch base with individuals that are not quite clients just yet. I pool reports for Blue Blazing Media to see if we could adapt a different online marketing strategy to better benefit the client in the long run.

I blog, create videos, work on my book and study closely all the accomplishments of others in news that's happened in the past week. This industry moves fast it takes a certain level of commitment to keep up with your competition to keep even more of a commitment to keep ahead of the curve when you're developing cutting-edge strategies. Careful examination goes to brands I've been following your my Social -- SEO search results. Proactively, I talk to strangers; we exchange dialects with these brands and individuals. We demonstrate how we can amplify their lead generation, sales and awareness. Taking a well researched calculated risk generates... you can fill in the blank :-)

Finally, I get off-line and enjoy a healthy balanced life. In 14 years in the online marketing industry I can tell you from first-hand experience if you are overworked, unbalanced, if you feel like crap on the inside them I can guarantee your products and services you're pushing out to your clients is subpar and is noticeable by the client.

How To Develop Your Boundary Matrix
(This is designed for the entrepreneur and the person looking to expand their personal brand and productivity).

Put on some of your favorite music in the background that makes you happy.
You can do this online or off-line but get a clean sheet of paper great five columns for five days of the week.
Write down the total number of hours you spend on the computer working Monday through Friday. Each day can be a different amount of hours per task.
Break your tasks into actionable items. In my own boundary matrix I broke down time blocks into segments for outward facing tasks, inward facing tasks and housekeeping items but the key was all tasks had to align with my goal chart.
Then I color coded accordingly for each. For example, proactively responding to client e-mails his outward facing, Speaker requests I consider outward facing lead generation, responding to twitter/Facebook conversation is housekeeping and so on. Finally, you end up cutting some tasks or delegating some tasks that still need to be addressed.
Set task blocks to your calendar for a reminder.

Last Step
Overly communicate your new time management structure to everyone. Give them solid times when you can really deep dive into the issues at hand and offer solutions then proactively.

What was the end result?
I alerted everyone around me in my organization as well as current clients could now reach me or my assistant during set business hours at a moments notice. In off hours we are always watching activity online related to those clients but barring any emergency solid contact is turn set hours Monday through Friday in addition to weekly meetings. Everyone now knew the structure and had less resistance as they knew it was in place. The process does not take-away from your clients and tasks but makes you accountable for your own goals and the road map to achieve them.

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Elizabeth Hannan |

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References (11)

References allow you to track sources for this article, as well as articles that were written in response to this article.

Source: Photo Credit
Source: When To Zen
Source: Blue Blazing Media
Source: Chris Brogan
Source: 8 Simple Online Time Management Tools for Freelancers
Source: Manage Your Life with Free Online Time Management Tools
Source: Elizabeth Speaks To You
Source: Convince and Convert
Source: Time management means not getting distracted by social networking
Source: Best Social Media Stats and Market Research of 2009
Source: Toilet Paper Entrenpeneur - Why Libraries Have The Fix To Office Distractions

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