Time Management

Guest Post:3 Things to Remember As You Build A Successful Business

Posted on by Zinga H

Hey all!

It’s been a journey since I’ve written my last article! Getting an MBA has been the major focus of my writing free-time. Articles coming back and a special summer series for my small business owners sisters is already in the works. For now, I am sharing a special guest post from one of my readers: Chelsea Lamb, author at, https://www.businesspop.net/

Photo by fauxels from Pexels

Are you considering starting a new business or branching out with your current venture? Ready to take that next step into small-business ownership or looking to hire more people for the business you have already forged and made successful? As we come out of the pandemic and consumers are looking to spend some of the savings they accumulated over the last year, you may be considering (or reconsidering) a foray into entrepreneurship.

Let’s take a look at a few things you should remember as you build a successful company following the COVID-19 pandemic:

1. The numbers are on your side

Now could be the best time to start a business thanks to the assistance and incentives being provided by the U.S. government to small-business owners across the country. For instance, there are programs that will help companies maintain their payroll so that they can continue to pay their people throughout the crisis. Around six weeks into the pandemic, U.S. economists were shocked to see a boom in the numbers of new business applications. 

In fact, the third quarter of 2020 is the quarter with the highest recorded number of applications since 2004. New businesses are springing up from the old ones that had closed during the pandemic — more now than ever before. So it may just be that now is the time to start a new venture.

2. Consult the experts

Talk to people who know how to build a successful business. That includes social media and marketing experts, networking specialists, and business success coaches. Keeping a metaphoric rolodex of people who you can consult when you have questions or concerns about the business is a huge way to set yourself up for success in the long term. It’s hard to do this alone — and if you’re a solopreneur and doing everything on your own, it is still essential to have a group of folks you can turn to in times of need.

For instance, business coaching provides you with guidance for every step of the way as you’re ideating, planning, strategizing, launching, and building your business. There are a lot of moving parts in entrepreneurship — and if you’re doing it all yourself, it can be overwhelming. A business coach can provide a critical objective perspective on the work you’re doing and the clientele you’re attracting, not to mention they can help you identify weaknesses in your current strategy and help you strengthen these areas for long-term goal achievement.

3. Don’t forget the importance of organization

Running — and maintaining — a successful business is all about keeping a tight ship. Part of that is making sure your organization is on point. Being able to deliver statistics on your customer lifecycle, developing a marketing persona, and paying your people on time are all artifacts of an effective organization system.

For instance, you may find yourself having trouble maintaining accurate and effective payroll records. Investing in a system that can help you keep things straight and that offers direct depositing payroll for employees can improve your ability to pay them on time and accurately. The right payroll platform allows employers to enter hours and send timely payments directly to employees’ bank accounts without worrying about paper checks.

Take the leap

Is it time for you to finally realize your dreams and start your business? As we come out of the COVID-19 pandemic and move toward the “new normal” in terms of the impact the pandemic has left, we can safely say that the new-business boom is here to stay, especially if you’re in it for the long haul. Now’s the time!

For more information about consulting services offered by business coach Zinga Hart, contact her today!

— Thanks for the tips Chelsea!

Fueling Success Over the Long Haul

Posted on by Zinga H

man sitting facing fire in pot during night

Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Pexels.com

 
January was a longggg month wasn’t it? 
 
At the end of it, how did you feel? Accomplished? Like every goal will be attained in 2020?
 
Or, did you feel drained? Lost and stuck in a swirl of wanting to achieve something and perfectly productive-less procrastination? 
 
Many of us have experienced both sides of this coin. Yet, the more experienced of us know that we can choose to strive for either accomplishment or ignore it. If you want success over the long term, you should definitely aim to choose the former over the latter. 
 
But how?
 
How can you maintain the long journey to finally arrive at your place of success? 
 
Here are some simple, yet critical ways to to do this. 
 
Give yourself some grace 
 
The analogy of a baby learning to walk is a prime example of the success journey. Babies start out with no concept, desire, and acknowledgement of their power to walk. Yet, overtime they begin to realize the power within them to achieve the thing their parents do with ease. There is a natural unfolding of their journey of discovery that they can and should try to walk, and then that they should master it. From there, they allow the process of trying, testing, failing, and trying again to take place. There is not fail once and give up until the next year. It is a natural part of doing something you had no idea how to do before. Ever fail, comes with knowledge of what to do or not do next.
 
Like a baby learning to walk, your big goals for your self must unfold. You will try, test, fail, and try again, but each time you take action toward your goal you will be one step closet to mastery. For this tip, hold the mantra “Failure is but a step on my journey to success.” If you are failing more often, it means you are taking more actions to reach the pinnacle point that is on your path. 
 
Have a “Trigger”
 
Ever have a goal that you’re consistent with and then BAM! Something happens and you completely fall into the cycle of procrastination again? A possible solution for this is to have a trigger. Pre-plan an action, a date, and word that gets you back on track with your main goal. Example, your goal is to write more for your blog (writing to myself lol), then craft a trigger that gets you to focus on it. Like on the first Monday of the month, I will write a draft no matter what! Or on pay day, I will check my next blog idea for writing, or before I enter the gym I will write a blog draft in the car. Diving into specific triggers that work for you will require deep thought and authenticity about your time, schedule, needs, and motivators. With time you will know exactly what to do/say/feel to get yourself back on track. 
 
Take 15!
 
If you’ve read this blog. You know I am a fan of the 15-minute timer. If it is all you have to do is overwhelming to the point of procrastination paralysis. Set a time for 15 minutes and do what you can within that time frame. Then STOP and reward yourself for getting things done. 

Reset

Posted on by Zinga H

Writing is a calling, not a choice.

-Isabelle Allende

I’ve written less since spring season.

New job, new challenges, and a big focus on the day-to-day of my passions pulled me into my introverted nature to sit back and take in my new surroundings.

So I made a decision, to give myself space from writing, while I adjusted to these rapid, yet pivotal, life changes.

After a while, though, the yearning returned. My true passion, writing to draw out your success. To make you, us, the world feel the inspiration and magnitude of pleasure from doing our greatest good.

These words do not come out, they escape, as if they were always there, a kyuubi, waiting for me to tap into its infinite power.  No matter how far I push it away from my deepest desire to write it pummels back to me.

What is a calling that you can not ignore?

Finding your calling may not always be easy, but following your calling is twice as hard, but you HAVE to do it for it to be realized in your life. So what do you do as an alternative to putting-it-off forever?

Take a break.

Find time to walk away in a calm, controlled, and consenting manner.

You may think …now Zinga…how could you suggest putting-it-off as a remedy to putting-it-off?

At first the idea does seem like a contradictory, but taking a break, involves some key factors to keep it from falling on the dark side of the procrastination line.

Here are some quick factors to taking a break:

Have a reset time. The main difference between taking a break and procrastinating forever is that you get back to doing what you were doing. Maybe you use an exact date and time, maybe you use an event in your life, or maybe you have a season in mind. Just know, visualize, and even write down when you will return to your original activity. Please note, the length of your timeline should be set realistically to how important it is that you get back to what you’re doing. For instance, if it’s your goal to get an A on a test in two weeks, but you need to take a break, then a two week break wouldn’t make sense.

Choose honor over guilt. Find the admirable reasons for making your choice instead of reasons that make you feel guilty. If you are in a state of rest then respect your wish to let your body restore itself. If you need to reshift your priorities for pressing matters, then appreciate your ability to adapt to new situations and see things through. Whatever narrative you build,  it should be one that is from a positive perspective.

Use what you learned. During your break, try to find one-to-two learning nuggets you can implement once you reset. Maybe it’s a shift in your schedule or reaching out to form new partnerships. This sets up two bonuses to your break:

1) You can be assured your break fits into your larger master plan

2) Your break serves an immediate purpose of helping to improve your your path to success.

So…this is how am I making an honest reset with writing for this page. I allowed myself to adjust to the pace my new situation before getting back to get back to writing. I committed to a goal to write again before the year was over. During my break, I learned that given the new responsibilities to be consistent, I will give myself time to ease into it, starting with twice a week! 

Are you ready to hit the reset button on something in your life, what is it?

Til the next time,

Zinga

The Simplest Way to Build a Discipline Map

Posted on by Zinga H

Zinga Hart Success Quote (2)

Let’s say you’re starting from scratch.

Sure you’ve gotten things done in the past, but your reliability is 50/50 on your good days. You know you need to get more done to get somewhere, but life — ever-distracting life — draws you away from your personal bigger picture. It happens to the best of us, as we make room for new family responsibilities, changes in professions, a call to civic duty, or the gamut of things we have to deal with as we paint our life vision into reality.

What keeps you going? 

For me, my biggest skill to develop has been the habit of discipline, which I see as doing something even though the thought of doing it brings one discomfort. Putting off that 50-page thesis or skipping a morning run all stem from the ideas that come into our heads when we think about doing them…

…ugh so many pages to write…

…but I’ll get all sweaty…

Whatever the situation or thoughts may be…it is the sensation of discomfort the forces us to choose whether to stay with the discomfort and do what is important anyway or find a way to escape the sensation by another binge session of Shameless on Netflix.

Discipline is the act of going forward anyway.

How does one use discipline?

While we can be sporadic about the ways we are disciplined (you should see me buy the whole town on Sims…), if you are interested in creating your authentic vision of success you exercise discipline in meaningful ways otherwise, you run the risk of life molding your discipline muscles for you. Creating a routine for yourself allows you to apply your discipline to your personal mission.

 So here goes, here’s the simple way to create that routine:

  1. Figure out what you want to do with your life (i.e. write your vision)
  2. Write out what you want to achieve in the next 10, 5,  and 3 years
  3. Develop goals to get done within 1 year
  4. Figure out what you need within 1 month
  5. Write down what you need by the end of the week
  6. Jot 3 things to get done by the end of your day
  7. Check 1-2 (once a year), 3 (once a month), 4-5 (once a week) and update 6 every day.

And we’re done. Sure there are tons of tools you can use, and please remember, you have to actually do the things on these lists for them to be real, but if all you had were a pencil and paper, this list is all you would need.

Build your routines around finding time to achieve what is on these lists and let life fill in the blanks.

Here’s a great article from ZenHabits on mastering discipline.

PS Posting are switching from Tuesday Mornings to Thursday mornings.

one more move reset on zingahart.com

One More Move: Reset

Posted on by Zinga H

Hi everyone!

It’s been a while as I like to step back and observe during major life transitions.

What’s the big change?

Well, I managed to land a new role in higher education! Working with the College of Communication and Information to help serve our graduate student community. A dream opportunity, I am thrilled, excited, and pumped to embrace the new waves of change.

Working with the College of Communication and Information to help serve our graduate student community. A dream opportunity, I am thrilled, excited, and pumped to embrace the new waves of change.

A dream opportunity, I am thrilled, excited, and pumped to embrace the new waves of change.

Yet, at the same time, being an INTP (and a Taurus) I find sudden instances of change to take a lot of energy from my spirit. As an act of self-care, I go into Reflection & Rest mode.

I find ways to delegate projects, streamline tasks, and lighten up on meetings and events. I use the time to connect fully with family and take in the situations as they come.

we can't be afraid of change. you may feel very secure in the pond that you are in, but if you never venture out of it you will never know that there is such a thing as an ocean a sea joy bell c quote found on zingahart.com

How do you approach big changes?

 

Before this Rest & Relax phase, I do one critical task:

Set a deadline for when your “rest” phase ends. Eventually, you should get back up to your full speed.

Rest is a beautiful gift, but it is best balanced with the energy of creation. Creating your future, your business, your brand or whatever drives you forward towards your goals.

So…here we are…

Building back up to full speed for me means taking the time to build on my mission to draw out your authentic success. To remind you of the hunger your ambitions ignite and give you the tools that satisfy your desires.

So I share one more move that gets you a step closer to where you want to be.

So my one more move is a review of how to reset after an extended period of rest. Disclaimer:  This is the method I’ve observed over time and I fully encourage your customize a process that works for you.  With that here are some actions to take.

How to Reset

Brain Dump

Set aside 5-10 minutes to free write or map all of the things important to you and what you want to achieve.

Organize and Prioritize 

Group what you wrote in the first part into major domains and then order the importance of what you should achieve first.

Review Your Vision

Does your latest brain dump align with your ten-year vision? Use your long-term look to further refine your current priorities or re-strategize the long-term goals as needed.

Get to it.

Things won’t get done unless you do them. If after the first three steps, you’re still frozen in the act, let’s chat about it.

one more move reset on zingahart.com

 

Free Up Your Time on Your Path to Success

Posted on by Zinga H

There was probably a point in your life when you had more time than you do now.

Time and freedom to buy the entire Simsⓣ town or spend all day with friends at the mall, but then something shifted. You emerged hungry for the fulfillment of your true purpose…whatever it may be. And as you claimed it, soon the encounters and opportunities for you to will blossom before you…and soon…you may find yourself busier than usual. Then while you grow in experience your life pivots too, you may find yourself married, with greater family/community responsibilities, or just committed to what some may think is a full plate.

You know better, you’ve got this, but you also get the fact that there are so many hours in a day. If you had more time, you could do more and still build healthy relationships with yourself and others. While time is only a figment of the human imagination, it is still a valuable tool for measuring our movement through the day. If you find yourself searching for more time to focus on your higher-order priorities then you’ve found the right post.

You can find more time in your day, some ways are easier than others, but we’ll go over some that have worked for me in the past decade or so. Check out below for ways, by challenge level, to free up more time so you can continue seeking your authentic success.

Know Where Your Time is Going

The simplest of all is to first analyze and assess your typical week. Try your hardest not to change anything you would normally do and just keep track of your activities by the hour or half/hour. This honest assessment will help you understand the flow of your day and potentially identify some time sinks.

Do you come home after work and hop on Facebook for 3 hours? Is the first thing you do in the morning is play a couple of rounds of Call-of-Duty? Find gaps in your time, and places where you spend time doing low-priority activities. Next, make the decision to shorten or replace these slots with your top priorities.

Commit to Smaller Increments

Switching from the broad view to the specific. What is your main goal for freeing up time? Just how much time do you need to achieve this goal and by how soon? Set realistic numbers for the goal you want to accomplish. For instance, if you’re studying to become a real estate agent, but can’t find the space to study for 2 hours in the day, switch to 30 or 40 minutes to start. Set a timer and then congratulate yourself for sticking to it. Have your bare minimum amount of time to spend on an activity and commit. As you grow comfortable focusing on your passion regularly you will find your time will expand.

zinga hart a quote the river swells from the little streams

Set your priority boundaries

A lot of time can feel pulled away when you begin to commit to something you are not truly interested in doing. While some things may have to be done, you need to consider what brings you joy and pleasure, and what you really are not committed to doing. If someone is requesting something of you that goes outside of your priorities then consider letting it go. This can be more challenging because if you’re used to saying yes to everyone, they may be taken aback by a no, but be honest with yourself and others and you will save even more time in the long run.

Freeing up time in your schedule may or may not be an easy feat, but if it is to find more time for your greater search for success then it is a worthy challenge. While there are many other ways to free up time, these are some of the small adjustments you can make. What challenges do you have freeing up time in your schedule?

If you’re interested ask me about the time discovery worksheet I created to help analyze where your time is going.

Looking to the future and other writings.

Posted on by Zinga H

Last week, I wrote about small moves you can take to plan for 2017. I hope you get to read it. This week, I’m just put some free-thought in response to what I wrote.

Why?

Well, I took this week to publish on the Pulse. I do that sometimes for my small business owners and community leaders. [Find my other writings from 2016 there 🙂 ]

So here we go:

Building off of 2016

2016 was a tough year.

Firstly, America’s existential crisis, was definitely a point of concern. I do hope we can find unity again.

Personally, this year I stepped up my presentation as a leader. As an INTP, I am super comfortable hiding behind my work. Look at the good work I do and let’s move forward to do more. As an employee or an assistant that makes me ideal, but as a leader of a budding non-profit, it is completely ineffective.

A leader listens to their community and responds in-kind. While I was always strong at the listening part, this year I really boosted the response part. They asked for more presence I created a monthly newsletter; more engagement – we added meeting activities and in-between events; more communication – we revamped our meetings, developed workshops, and gave even more details reports! All of this I would have never found the energy to do, if it wasn’t for their need.

A leader listens to their community and responds in-kind.

Yet, learning the balance between being present as a leader and finding energy as an introvert, was no simple feat. I learned to say no to wasteful-time sinks, yet so no to work during my agreed-upon free time. I listened to my body and gave it rest when required, and I never over-loaded my day, making sure to be aware of my meeting availability over the course of a month.

In 2017, I hope to be more present in the world of higher education. While, I love writing to help us all find our personal success, and running local and online economic empowerment initiatives, my true passion is higher education. Shifting how we draw out the success of adults from a systemic level will truly help achieve my vision of showing the world the trillion-dollar value of education. I hope to find time to meet with people during my professional career at the university, and eventually present myself on a person that likes to build communities that form a culture around the love of  self-development.

That long conversation…

When I meditated on my self and my higher purpose, I found that I finally feel as if I shifted into the groove of being passionate about what I produce. Now it’s a matter of producing consistently and intelligently.

So, I want to be even more efficient with my time in 2017 and to find ways more meaningful ways to connect with the people I care about more often.

Strive for More…

My greatest dream for 2017 is to grow Limitless Ambition’s (the non-profit) and Empower NOW’s (the network) community and to find better ways to serve their success.

On the blog, I hope to hone in and help you take meaningful moves to build your authentic success.

My fantasy is to head to an international beach for a week, something blue and sandy.

mpfiyu__1ba-joe-cooke

A week will do.

Honing in…

To review, serving others,  is going to be a key focus for 2017. I will shift from putting the work first to putting the heart first and instilling it into my intents and actions. Should be an interesting shift for a get-it-done girl like me.

Action Steps 

  • Call at least one friend and one family member per week.
  • Provide high-quality help to least two small businesses a quarter.
  • Give away highly valuable resources that I know others would find help on a weekly or monthly basis.
  • Offer one highly-useful workshop, webinar, or tool per month to help people grow the authentic [small business/nonprofit] success.
  • Set a budget for a beach trip and save 🙂
  • Have lunch with one new or familiar colleague at least twice a month.

So there’s the quick personal plan for 2017. What are some action steps you want to take during the next year? Comment below!

Strategies for Saving Time and Staying Social Online

Posted on by Zinga H

Confession, I am not an early adopter to new social media platforms. It took me a year to install SnapChat, and even it took longer before I started using Facebook actively. I much preferred to read blogs, forums, and random websites on StumbleUpon. I found the depths of the internet far more important than the early Facebook feed of lunches and cats.

Now, the advancements of social media has truly created a thriving system of communicating with other human beings across the globe. Facebook has become more than the clunky content of the early days, we share news, safety check in, voting reminders, and even our cat and food pics come with an air of providing value to others. Just like letters and telephones, Facebook has provided another sophisticated lane for human connection.

This is why Facebook or other types of social media are adopted by businesses, both small and large,  and leaders hoping to extend their presence. Connecting with people through this tool gives us a great space to listen to what  is happening, share something important, and help others from anywhere there is an internet connection.

Yet, social media is a tool that could easily spin out of control into a level of deterring you from living, laughing, and loving to your fullest. According to this recent  New York Times article, users spent roughly 50 mins per day on social media, which shadows the one-minute spent on Twitter or 2-minutes on LinkedIn. We can easily slip into the endless scroll of latest news, family developments, and friend achievements.

So how do we balance building our authentic brand while staying active on social media?

Here are a few strategies that have helped me tremendously so far.

Have a Plan

If you are using social media for a purpose, keep track of the purpose and goals you have in mind when it comes to engaging on social media. Whether it’s sharing success tools or tips on baking the trendiest cookies, have a core reason for doing what you do.

Schedule Ahead of Time

Once you have a plan, figure out what you want to post and use a scheduling tool. Spend 1-2 hours per month scheduling some consistent pieces of content that you are sure you want to share regularly. I personally use Hootsuite, which offers a great free option and an even more useful paid option.

Have a Minimum and Maximum Use Time Budget

A lot a set amount of time per day to use social media, then at +/- 10 minutes to give your self space to engage more or less. Giving yourself a range allows for the flexibility of life and provides a safe space of time for you to work with

Try this Tool 

Once you’ve decided on your minimum and maximum time, choose a tool that blocks social media sites so you can’t access them for certain times of the day. StayFocusd is a simple app that allows you to block sites after a certain amount of time, on certain days and times, and even requires a challenge to turn the feature back on if you want.Set it for the maximum time budget you set in the strategy above.

While personalizing your strategy depends on you, these are steps easy enough to incorporate and use right away. How do you use social media, while still investing your time in your important priorities.

quote created by zinga hart success quotes the can be no peace without understanding

 

What are some of your time saving strategies? I’d love to know! 

audit your success journey

Audit Your Success Path with these 5 Questions

Posted on by Zinga H

 

audit your success journey

Your success is the purpose of this blog.

Those who have been on their own success path for a while know there is a point where stopping to review, assess, and align is key to re-clearing the path that leads to  your final vision.

How do you know when it is time to audit your success path?

While sometimes there may be huge red flags, like falling into deep addiction or burning out on a project you really cared about, most of the time there will only be subtle clues like debilitating procrastination, overbooking yourself with priorities, and a feeling overall stress.

Whatever the signals will be for you, the outcome will be clear you are not moving forward in ways that matter.

While there are many audits we can perform, financial, social media, productivity, etc. the one for our personal success will only take connecting with our inner selves and openly reflecting and receiving on the answers we bring out. These five questions will help you dissect what points in your success path could use some focus and where you are doing well already.

1. What are my current priorities?

2. How do they align with my larger purpose?

3. What ways am I dividing my time on a daily and weekly basis? How do that support my larger purpose?

4. How consistent am I towards working on my success?

5. What is draining my energy and how  would I rather invest this energy?

While audits can be a deep exploration of your current status, you can use these questions as a way to begin to unfold what might be holding you back, which in turn gives you a place to find solutions. It is absolutely imperative that you listen to your honest answer, whatever it may be. I’m not reading your answers and no one else is, so there’s no need to be polished/pretty/etc. If you do want to discuss your answers  know I’m always here 🙂

 

Comment or Contact Me Anytime.

3 Time Saving Tools for Entrepreneurial Parents

Posted on by Zinga H

Kids definitely have their future cut out for them. I, as a young Millennial parent, still have hope for them. Sure there is strong evidence of deep flaws in our systems of civilization, there is still hope that the human spirit will overcome, create, and innovate in response to the needs of the world. The spirit of the entrepreneur lives strong.

But what happens when the entrepreneurial spirit collides with the child spirit? Suddenly the burning obsessiveness that Napoleon Hill says we need to focus on to truly transmute our thoughts into reality, is interrupted, by tiny hands that want to type like Mommy on her keyboard. Those tiny hands love to explore, to help, and to just be, and as someone who doesn’t want to suppress her inner spirit, I have to find ways to fit in time for goal work and family time. Luckily, there are some tricks of the trade to help balance nurturing her and my purpose.

Tool 1 # Baby Gates

One big tool has been using baby gates, not to wrap her up, but to wrap up our stuff. us the baby gate to place around the entertainment systems and other places where she prefers to reach and grab. This way what is freely available she is okay to play with and the glowy electronic buttons are off limits.

Tool #2 Timer

One great quality about a good entrepreneur is we could just do stuff all day. When focused, we do and do and do and the effects are amazing. Yet, balancing our time takes an accounting of our time. When feeling pressed for time, set a time limit and focus happily and completely on what you want to do. For instance, when I get home from work spending time with my daughter is a key source of happiness, but I also have signed up for responsibilities that require me to respond to people, so I set a timer for getting things done. Whether it’s 40-minute session for story time or 20-minute email crafting for my team, by setting timers I am freed from time. One of my favorites is the Pomodoro timer, which sets the time to 25 minutes.

Tool #3 YouTube

Yup, I said it, YouTube has some pretty useful educational videos for toddlers and children. One thing I like to focus on Baby Einsteins. As a double benefit, a lot of the music could double as white noise, which has a minimal distraction for a parent who needs to focus. Just check out one of the episodes below:


Of course, there are plenty of other ways to use tools to help with raising kids while living up the entrepreneurial lifestyle.  What do you use? How do you balance? Like, I’d really love to know…I’ve spent 1.5 decades raising kids and have yet to find the perfect formula.