This week’s Flashback Friday focuses on Back to Fall Routines and takes us back to post a couple years ago -  Five Areas to Consider with Back to Work 

I thought it would be very apropos for this week’s Back to Fall Routines
In the next few weeks and month, many of us are getting back to our regular work routines. Whether our children are back to school, or our team at work is back to running at full speed, August and September often signal a “new working year”.

Earlier this month I launched a new business workbook and planner – the Coaching Business Builder Workbook and Planner. While it’s geared for coaches, I am working on another edition for virtual and remote professionals in addition to leaders which should be out later this year.

As you step into your new routine this September there are five areas you may want to consider:

1. What are the key activities you need to direct attention around?

What are the core initiatives you need to keep your eyes on? Steven Covey made famous the phrase “big rocks” years ago. The notion is, if you fit these in first, there's more space to do what we now term "work in the margins". What are your "big rocks" this fall?

2. Keeping the home fires rolling.

Having stepped away from city life for a few months this past summer and working out of a much smaller cottage, I recognize the cost and time invested in some of the more mundane, but essential tasks, it requires to keep an almost 3,000 square foot home in order. From groceries, to meal prep, to home maintenance, what are the tasks that are needed to keep things rolling at home while you work at full-tilt? From online grocery ordering, to meals in a box, or one of our favorite – family meal prep at Supperworks – keeping the home fires burning is essential to many of us.

What are the core elements which are important to you?
 
3. Scheduling in time for your own self-care.

Whether it’s working out, or building in time to renew, we only have one body, and keeping it in top condition is essential. What are the key activities you want to leave time for this year?

4. Clearing the clutter.

While some say that a disheveled office is often seen as part of a creative mind, clearing the clutter can be essential for high performance. Can you take some time before September rolls around to do a purge of items, or clearing of an area which has been growing in size?
 
5. Reviewing, or making your plan, for the fall.

Earlier this week I hosted the first of a series of "back to fall" virtual planning workshops, in a condensed 45 minute hack format. I brought in several of the resources and planning tools from my latest book, Coaching Business Builder: Workbook and Planner.

An older project management adage asserts that 10 minutes of planning can save 20 minutes of unfocused effort. What are your plans for fall? Each month? Each week? Are you taking 5-10 minutes daily, or on a regular basis, to make a list of all the important items?
 
Enjoy your back to work routines this week,
Jennifer

Today’s Team Building Tip is a systems check. It is geared to get you thinking about what needs attention in your systems. Systems are a valuable component of business, which allow us to streamline, and also ensure consistency. This is key is different people are working on the team.
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In PlanDoTrack, and Coaching Business Builder, I share systems in 5 key areas -- these are important whether we are a solopreneur or running a 1,000-person operation. Consider here you are in each of these and what could use attention:

• Financial systems
• Client Systems
• Marketing
• Content
• Sales

Questions you might consider are:

1. Financial systems – How are you doing with things including invoicing, accounts payable, receivable? What makes it easy for people to do business with you? What do you find challenging? Is it time to get some advice in this area, or renegotiate your terms?
2. Client systems – What are the things clients receive as they become a client of yours? What message does it send? Is there anything you’ve been wanting to create for your clients which doesn’t yet exist? Consider welcome letters, questionnaires, agreements etc.
3. Marketing – Marketing is at the heart of a coaching business. Whether we are marketing via relationship building, content marketing, in-person or via social media, what are you doing to let people know about what you have to offer, what coaching is and how you provide support? What could use an update? A refresh? Look at your metrics? What’s working? What’s not?
4. Content – Content marketing may be a tangential part of a coaching business, however, over time, it’s likely that you may find yourself blogging, podcasting or creating content for reading lists and TED talks you recommend around the topics you coach around. For those that are going offer more than coaching services, this may be a significant part of your work. If you have a copy of the Coaching Business Builder, check out the Content Development Tools, including the Content Daily Trackers. Note what content you have created this year, OR spend time thinking about the top 3 areas you would like to develop content around for the new year.
5. Sales – What do you have in place around sales? Is it time for a web update? How clear is your call to action? What do you want people to do on each of your webpages?

What are the areas you want to focus on, or revisit as you step into September?

Best wishes,
Jennifer

Welcome back to September.  I’m excited to step into another month of blog posts with you. This start of September may be a little different than past years AND for many it still signals the start of a new year and new routines.

As we start this month, what are you excited about? What are you looking forward to? What do you want to make sure you focus on?

We’re going to start the month with our typical monthly review and stock taking. If you haven’t participated in one of these before, I hope you will take 5-10 minutes today to work on it. What’s important to note and pay attention to?

Looking back to the month of August (and/or the summer):

1. What were your achievements?
2. What didn’t get completed but is going to be carried forward?
3. What learning did you undertake?
4. What strengths did you leverage?
5. What got in the way of your plans/achievements?
6. What helped to MAGNIFY or AMPLIFY things?
7. What helped you FOCUS?
8. What helped you SIMPLIFY or streamline?
9. What else is important to note about your past month? (metrics, lessons learned, other…)
10. What did you do to renew?
11. What habits did you lean into?

 
Looking ahead to the month ahead:

1. What are your major goals for September?
2. What do you want to focus on?
3. What needs to be completed by the end of the quarter/end of this month?
4. What is the one routine you want to make sure you develop or maintain?
5. What’s important to let go of?
6. What will help you streamline or systematize?
7. What will help you MAGNIFY or AMPLIFY?
8. What habits do you want to focus on?
9. What relationships do you want to pay attention to?
10. What actions/projects do you want to complete, not matter what?
11. What else is important to note?

Enjoy your reflections!
Jennifer

Many professionals are now 6 months into the global Work From Home “real time experiment” since countries stated locking down months ago. In my work as a coach, consultant and author around remote work, productivity and high performance, I have had a LOT of conversations in the last six months about what’s working and what’s not. When it comes to remote work, there are several core areas and pitfalls professionals can find themselves in. Are you experiencing, or creating, any of these remote working mistakes?

Not creating firm enough boundaries - Working from home, and remote work in general, can be very fluid at times. Without some of the social and practical cues of office work, it can be easy to flow from one task to another, without firm boundaries. While this may work for some, it can lead to overwork, and work-life friction, particularly for those of us who are not only workers and bosses but also parents.

For many, the routine of life and work may be changing again as some schools reopen – What are the boundaries you want to create around work and life this fall (or spring)?

Not communicating enough or in the way people need - Whether we are communicating with our team members, or our customers, it’s likely that you may not be communicating enough, or in the best way. Just because an email is sent, doesn’t mean that is it read, or interpreted as it was intended, let alone actioned!

Consider the key messages you want to communicate this week. What ways do they need to be sent, on what channels, and what follow up is needed?

Not renewing by working around the clock – Related to boundaries is a major pitfall of not renewing. While our traditional ways of relaxation and winding down may not be possible, renewal is key.

Before you get back into the regular routine of fall, what’s important to build time in for? As you step back to the office, what are the habits and routines which are important to foster?

Not planning – With many feeling that the disruption we’ve experienced due to a pandemic is uncontrollable, it doesn’t mean not planning. Having a clear vision of where you want to be at the 30,000-foot view is still important. Operational plans are likely to have shifted, and contingency planning may have become a way of life. Instead of having one plan you may have a cubed plan – A3.

What are your contingency plans for the next week?

As you consider the way you are working right now - What’s important to note about your planning? Your productivity?
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All the best,
Jennifer

It’s Monday which means that it’s another Effective Virtual Conversations Tip day. This week the invitation is for you to build your toolkit. If you joined me last week for the Stand Out Virtually 5 day Challenge, it’s likely that you spent time building your toolkit.

We covered visuals (and you got to built up some of your visual library). We also talked about backgrounds, along with engagement toolkits.

A quick note that I’ll be hosting the next one-day Virtual Facilitation Essentials program tomorrow, Tuesday August 25th from 9-4:30pm ET. The day is geared to get you building out your toolkit.

What do you notice about your toolkit for exceptional virtual conversations?

Whether you are an individual leading calls or an organization, it’s important that we build out our tools and practices. Consider building tools in these areas:

• Planning
• Opening a Program
• Decision Making
• Problem Solving
• Consensus Generation

I’ve been spending even more time this year than usual working with organizations to build out their repertoire of virtual tools and practices. If you, or your organization, could benefit from some support and focus in this area, give me a call.

Be sure to take a look at the 163 Effective Virtual Conversations Tips I’ve written here at the blog. 

With best wishes,
Jennifer

It’s the beginning of August which means that it’s time to stop and take a pause to check in around your plans and goals.

How did July go? What progress are you making on your Q3 goals? What’s your focus going to be this month?

What did you notice about your metrics last month?

My hope is that today you will take a few minutes to stop and pause and do some planning for the month of August and beyond, while also taking some time to reflect on July.

It’s been 2 years since I launched the Coaching Business Builder Workbook and Planner, and about 18 months since PlanDoTrack was released. Since that time, many of you have gone through one planner, moved to the other. Did you know that this spring I also made the planners available at our site for digital download? While they are intended for analog use (ie. hardcopy) you can now order a digital copy and print it off for personal use.

Pick up a copy of the PlanDoTrack Workbook and Planner (for virtual and remote professionals) here at our Potentials Realized site here.

Pick up a copy of the Coaching Business Builder Workbook and Planner for coaches at our Potentials Realized site here.

If you have a copy of either one of these, you will want to explore:
#1 – The Month in Review
#2 – The Monthly Daily Trackers
#3 – One Line a Day

And for now, here are some reflection and planning questions (I’ve gone back to July 2019’s post for these!):

Looking back to the month of July:

1. What are you pleased with achieving?
2. What didn’t get completed but is going to be carried forward?
3. What strengths did you leverage this month?
4. What got in the way of your plans/achievements?
5. What helped to MAGNIFY or AMPLIFY things?
6. What helped you FOCUS?
7. What helped you SIMPLIFY?
8. What else is important to note about your month? (metrics, lessons learned, other…)
9. What did you do to renew?
10. What habits did you lean into?

 
Looking ahead to the month ahead:

1. What are your major goals?
2. What do you want to focus on?
3. What do you want to let go of?
4. What will help you simplify?
5. What will help you MAGNIFY or AMPLIFY?
6. What habits do you want to focus on?
7. What relationships do you want to pay attention to?
8. What actions/projects do you want to complete, not matter what?
9. What else is important to note?

Enjoy your planning!
Jennifer

This week’s Weekly Journaling Prompt is #108 in the series. The prompt is TRACK – What I notice is…
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As some of you may know, my 2019 planner for Virtual and Remote Professionals is PlanDoTrack. As along time program manger and also entrepreneur, I’ve been fascinated by the importance of tracking metrics and results.

Tracking can be a key part of busines success, especially when things are not always clear. In fact, one of my favorite busines activities are the virtual planning sessions I host, as well as the VIP working sessions. Usually we get clear on the different areas people want to track in their work and/or marketing. Here’s a quick list of things you may want to track with different hats on –

For those that are entrepreneurs:

• Revenue
• Sales
• New contacts
• Social media numbers
• Speaking engagements or presentation
• What else?

As a remote worker you may want to track things like:

• Time spent on projects
• Time spent on emails
• Time spent on administrative tasks (reporting, filing)
• Time spent in networking
• Time spent connecting with peers
• Time spent learning
• Best time to work on projects
• Focused elements
• What are the things that are going to help you as a remote worker?

As a leader you might track:

• One on ones
• Time spent in meetings
• Time spent on administrative tasks
• Time spent learning
• What else?

You can pick up a digital copy of the first 52 of them over at the Potentials Realized Store. Take a look at them here at the website and pick up an immediate download.

Best,
Jennifer

Welcome back to Teams365 #150 – TRACK IT!

As many have seen in recent months, digital retention is different than analog retention. What we remember about what’s on the screen, may be very different than what we remember from what we write down. Noticing patterns and seeing trends is also really important in today’s world of disruption and change. Our memory does not always remember things as they are.

With that in mind, today’s Effective Virtual Conversations Tip (which is #150 in the series – where has time gone!?), is all about TRACK IT!

Questions to consider as you think about TRACKING:

• What are the things you are tracking in your work?
• What are the tools and systems you are using to track things? Are you using a tracker? A dashboard or other?
• What are the elements which would be useful to track as an individual? On your team?

One of the tools I use consistently as a professional are the trackers I developed for my two workbook planners – PlanDoTrack (for virtual and remote professionals) and Coaching Business Builder (for coaches wanting to grow their businesses).

If you take a look at Section 5 check out these different trackers:

• The 31 Day Challenge: Really useful if you are tracking 31 days of consistent action
• The Monthly Content Journal: I usually use two of these each month. One to capture key activities from each day (looking back now in mid-June 2020 and having done this since January, I can see that in fact I have accomplished A LOT!). The second one I use to capture any new ideas I have during the day. This can include ideas around blog posts, program ideas, marketing and things to do with teams. What do you want to track?
• Daily Tracker Around Categories: The final type of tracker you might want to consider is a daily tracker, like the multicolored one you see in the graphic. This is useful for tracking activities and tasks. Maybe you have a goal of writing every day, or marketing, or outreach. Each one of these could have be tracked on a daily basis.

What do you want to track?

Best wishes, 
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders | Remote Pathways Podcast
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Everything DiSC
Phone (416)996-8326

Get your Q2 planning on with the PlanDoTrack Workbook and Planner or Coaching Business Builder

Looking to enhance your virtual conversations? Webinars? Pick up a copy of Effective Virtual Conversations at Amazon, or join me for the Virtual Facilitation Essentials program

Contact us to discuss how we can support you and your teams and organization with remote work.

Check out upcoming virtual programs on our calendar
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PDF copies of PlanDoTrack now available! Get yours here. ​

This week’s Friday Flashback takes a look back at a recent post focusing on building out your remote team toolbox. This has become an even more important topic than ever!

Here’s what I wrote:

Area A: Activities/Resources to help the team to get to know each other
What’s outside your window? – As I wrote in Effective Virtual Conversations, we often only see people in their screen but aren’t able to see what’s beyond the screen. Have people share what’s outside their window or call in from a different location so you can learn more about their context.

Earmark 3-5 minutes to a fun opener/icebreaker in your next team meeting so people can get to know each other better.

Area B: Tools to help with focus
Minimizing the impact of digital distraction is a key issue for teams today. See what I had to say about reducing digital distractions a short while ago here at the Teams365 blog. 

Several different tools which help team members focus in the virtual space include the:

• Urgent/Important Matrix
• Strategic Issues Mapping 
• SWOT: The trusty strategic planning tool 

Area C: Helping teams connect
Helping teams connect with who is who and who is working on what is of critical importance to a remote team. IT’s an area we often don’t think about on the surface, sometimes given the diversity of roles and locations. IT can be very useful in the medium and long term to facilitate regular conversations with the team around who is doing what, and to also earmark time for the team to regularly connect and get to know each other. Discussion in this area might include:

• Undertaking inventory of projects people are working on so that lessons learned can be shared.
• Identifying key strengths and experience bases which exist in the team – there may even be a “go to” team resource person around different areas – i.e. technology questions, resource around different themes/focus areas you work on etc.
• Short team openers and closers such as BINGO. (with team members asked to find someone who – insert different categories like – has visited 3 different continents, speaks multiple languages, is a twin etc.)

For more on this topic check out the 20 Focus Areas for Virtual and Remote Team Development ebook which is available at the Potentials Realized site and provides you with facilitated instructions of 20 different activities you can facilitate with your team. Pick up a copy here.

If you have a copy of the Effective Virtual Conversations book, check out chapter 7 on Tools and Resources.

Best wishes, 
​Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders | Remote Pathways Podcast
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Everything DiSC
Phone (416)996-8326

Get your Q2 planning on with the PlanDoTrack Workbook and Planner or Coaching Business Builder

Looking to enhance your virtual conversations? Webinars? Pick up a copy of Effective Virtual Conversations at Amazon, or join me for the Virtual Facilitation Essentials program

Contact us to discuss how we can support you and your teams and organization with remote work.

Check out upcoming virtual programs on our calendar
​
PDF copies of PlanDoTrack now available! Get yours here. ​

As teams have settled into how to work best, it’s likely that while some tasks are getting completed, there may still be many areas which are not as effective. These may be tasks that aren’t getting completed as planned, things that are getting backlogged on a regular basis, or tasks where there is confusion as to who needs to do what.

One area which can be of benefit for teams to explore is the topic of process mapping. Process mapping is a visual way of mapping out what needs to get done, when, and by who.

If you were to meet in person, process mapping would have us map out the different tasks and activities, who needed to do them and when. An easy way to do this is by using post-its and having people identify what the activities are, then listing them out, and assigning task responsibilities and also timelines.

If you are doing this in the virtual space, you can also make sure that you share a whiteboard and have the team discuss and complete the different steps needed. I’ve taken a screenshot here of a task that was created around a report.

Note who needs to do what as well as the timelines required, plus the flow. This was made on zoom whiteboard using annotation.

While this may not be comprehensive it does help to identify resourcing, timelines, and where there may be gaps.
 
What do you notice?

How might this support you and your work and projects right now?
 
Enjoy!
​Jennifer

Jennifer Britton
Potentials Realized | Coaching Team Leaders | Remote Pathways Podcast
Team and Leadership Development | Coaching | Everything DiSC
Phone (416)996-8326

Get your Q2 planning on with the PlanDoTrack Workbook and Planner or Coaching Business Builder

Looking to enhance your virtual conversations? Webinars? Pick up a copy of Effective Virtual Conversations at Amazon, or join me for the Virtual Facilitation Essentials program

Contact us to discuss how we can support you and your teams and organization with remote work.

Check out upcoming virtual programs on our calendar
​
PDF copies of PlanDoTrack now available! Get yours here. ​