This is Barry mold still getting your small business unstuck. I'm here today to stop the insanity. I'm going to show you in this video how to get more shit done. And the biggest problem where small business owners are stuck is that they confuse being busy with being productive. Remember, being busy is doing stuff being productive is getting the stuff done. That really will make a difference in your small business.

And unfortunately, we shoot ourselves in the foot we always blame everything else that's out there. We blame our smartphone. We blame social media we blame voicemail. In fact, we blame our computers and our employees for interrupting us. That's not it. I have met the Enemy, and the enemy is actually us.

This is where you're stuck. Tell me if any of these symptoms actually sound familiar. You're getting less done during your work day. Despite furious multitasking, your day is filled with constant distraction. In fact, it's gotten so bad that you look for interruptions because you think that's the way you're supposed to do business. And finally, you enter the day with no committed plan.

I'm the first to say that unlimited access to the worldwide web means an unlimited waste of time. And I'm going to give you the 10 ways that you can increase your productivity and not just be busy. Now, as always, I want you to as well watching these videos is to strive for minimal achievement, and only choose one way to change the way you're working right now. First of all, number one, how not to start your day. You can start your day by sitting down on your desk and answering your emails, answering your voicemail going on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, that totally hijacks your day. What you have to do instead is before you end business the previous day, think of the two tasks that you want to get done the next day first thing, they'll make a huge difference in your business that despite everything else, as long as you get these two things done, you're daily productive and successful.

And then do those two things. Make sure they're in the critical path of the success of your company. Pause this video for a second and no matter what time you're watching this, think about the two things that you want to get done tomorrow to make sure your day is successful. Did you do it? Let me know if you're successful in doing those two things. A lot of people ask me Barry do to do lists really work and I think they do but they have to done in a modified way.

The important part of to do list is you have to label the A's things that must get done today. And then there's everything else. I don't believe in B's and C's and DS and things like that. Whatever is not in a should not be on your list today, and then divide up those two dues in different tasks, phones, calls, email kinds of follow ups, you need to have some kind of routine, because habits, although we don't like them as entrepreneurs, they actually enable you to be productive and get more things done. Remember what Steve Jobs said, he would always get his management to get meaning together every single week, and he would encourage his managers to figure out how to do less, not more. We got to figure out what we need to cut out.

And that's one of the key ways that you become productive is to figure out not what to do, but what not to do, which is obviously more difficult. The third place that you can increase your product tivity is to make decisions and take actions. I really believe that we make all of our decisions in an instant. And then we spend the rest of the time justifying them. Remember, when you make a decision, just like Neil Armstrong said, when he landed on the moon, that you have to take small steps. Most businesses progress because they take patient iterative steps.

And the way that works is pretty much the way a sailboat makes it across a very windy lake. They don't go straight out of where they have to their destination is they go a little bit to the right, a little bit to the left, they keep tacking until they get to where they want to go. Business is about taking these small steps, deciding Was it a win, was it a loss, learning whatever you can, and then moving on and evaluating the next result. The fourth way you can improve your productivity is to deal with every email once. Answer this question, how many emails you actually have in your inbox, are you able to get to zero every single day, if you can't, then you're not doing email correctly. One of the most important things is to when you read an email, deal with it once, give it a disposition, either delete it, put it into a folder, set, some kind of reminder, this will make you much more productive.

Because what happens is, if you keep the same emails in the folders over and over again, to actually get the emails you have not yet read, you're rereading the same emails over and over again, and you're losing valuable time. That is really critical. Ensure that you have some kind of application, whether it's Outlook or Google Plus or something that enable you to follow up at a later time. And that will automatically remind you that that task is due. The next one is you've got to understand that multitasking actually causes brain damage. You think that you're actually getting more stuff done by working on this and this and this and this.

But all you're really doing is switching your brain really rapidly. Studies have shown that people are much more productive if they focus on one thing at a time. And in fact, you'll feel a whole new sense of freedom by just dedicating all your time this one task and not thinking about anything else. The sixth thing is that you have to slow down the flow of distractions. There's so many things that are coming at us all the time that we go, Whoa, we can handle it all. You know, you don't need to read everything.

If you've subscribed to a newsletter and you haven't read it in a couple of weeks or a couple of issues. Just delete it, you don't need it or you may want to rotate through different newsletters based on the time of year. This will help you cut down the number of mail you use. Also use features that are now available on smartphones, which are called Do Not Disturb. So no one actually contacts you during To focus time when you need to accomplish those two tasks. Number seven is never, ever, ever, ever enter a meeting without an agenda.

I believe in the small business world, we have way too many meetings, and it's even a little better than it is the large corporate America, you must have an agenda for any meeting, set a time limit start on time and on time. And I will tell you this, if you have meetings where you're always standing up and no one sits down, those meetings are gonna last a lot less time and make sure that everyone turns off their smartphones when they enter the meeting. So we're focused on what we're doing, and there are no interruptions, you also need to ensure that there's always an action plan that follows every single meeting. Number eight, as a small business owner and a manager, you must learn to delegate to others. A lot of managers are not very good at this, their employees come into their office, and there's some kind of to do, and in the end, the manager actually has to do they have the monkey Then the employee walks off with really nothing to do until the manager makes the decision.

The only way you're going to be successful as a small business manager is to leverage your staff to consult with them on what the citizens should be made and guide them, for them to have the monkey when they leave your office. Number nine, I think it's probably one of the most important ones is we've got to figure out how to merge our business and our personal life. 24 seven smartphones have made it nearly impossible to escape. That's why I believe as a small business owner, we need to figure out how do we merge our business and our personal life together to form one happy, passionate life and not have strict strict strict separations. However, number 10. I really do believe there's got to be a place where you go every single day where you're able to recharge your batteries.

There's got to be an oasis in your life where business and your smartphone doesn't enter. Maybe it's family dinner, maybe it's the bedroom, maybe it's vacation, maybe when you go to the health club or you go to the dojo. What's also really important is that you take at least some time, it's got to be a minimum of one week a year, where business does not enter that vacation. Now, what I do is once a year is I leave my smartphone at home, or I turn it off and just use it as a camera. If that is too drastic for you, then try to do business in the morning for an hour or two, and then leave the rest day open to really be on your vacation. What you have to understand is that it all starts with you, because all of your employees will actually mimic the productivity or the lack thereof that you actually have.

Now, if you're feeling like epically bad day, think of Ronald Wayne, Ronald Wayne, I call him the $800 man. He was the guy that sold his stock really early on to Apple for 800 bucks, that today would have been worth Billions of dollars. Remember being done in small business is much better than being perfect. Go out there and strive for minimal achievement. Think about the one thing that you're going to do to make sure that this next day is as productive as it actually can be. This is very mole still having small businesses unstuck.

Have a great day.