This time last year I hosted a Q1 reflective stock taking session that became very popular. Given how valuable people found it, I didn’t want to reinvent the wheel. Here is a link to that webinar so you can follow along. 
 
Quarterly reviews are an invaluable tool to see how things are going with your business. It’s an opportunity to take stock of:

• Your accomplishments
• Your learning
• Your focus
• Your relationships
• Your goals
• Your projects

​And also your numbers - - what have you been tracking? What do your Monthly Daily Trackers say?

If you are using the Coaching Business Builder there are 4 quarterly planners built into the guide. You will want to make sure that you review the monthly stock taking pages and carry your major learning over so you have a cumulative summary in one place.

Quarterly reviews are also an opportunity to look ahead. What do you notice about:

• Your annual goals and milestones for this quarter?
• The key activities you have earmarked?
• The one-off activities and tasks you have – i.e. renewals etc?
• Relationships which need attention?

The activities you want to do on a consistent basis (Note: One of my favorite quarterly events which got me into the flow of posting on Instagram was a 90-day commitment around daily posts). What are the tasks and activities you want to focus on, on a daily basis this quarter? Have you got your trackers ready? Now’s the time to pull them out.

I hope that you’ll take 10 – 15 minutes today to get yourself organized for the new quarter. Is there anything you want to keep visible -i.e. writing out your goals and commitments in a place that is visible so you can review it. Perhaps you put it on your phone or on a whiteboard or on a list by your computer. Remember the old project management adage: 15 minutes of planning saves up to 60 minutes of unfocused effort.

Enjoy your reflection and planning!
Jennifer

Jennifer Britton - GroupCoachingEssentials | Potentials Realized 
Instagram @CoachingBizBuilder
Join us for an upcoming ICF-CCE approved program including Group Coaching Essentials (8.75 CCEs), Advanced Group and Team Coaching Practicum (10 CCEs), or the PlanDoTrack Facilitator Training (24 CCEs). 
What's possible if you take daily steps on your business for 60 Days? Join our 60 Day Coaching Business Builder Accelerator program here!
Author of Effective Group Coaching (2010), Coaching Business Builder (2018), Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013). Check out my author page on Amazon for all publications.
Email: info@potentialsrealized.com
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​​Metrics are the heart of any business. Numbers and data provide patterns and insight for those who take time to explore what metrics are available to them.
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As a solopreneur, or small business owner, it can be useful to take time on a regular basis to track what your numbers are saying.

Here’s a quick list of some of the metrics you may want to track:

• Sales
• Website visits
• Downloads
• Revenue
• Reads
• Sample sessions
• Products developed
• Speaking engagements
• Likes
• Numbers of clients
• Hours billed
• Net profit
• Social visits
• # of books sold
• Operating revenue

What else do you have metrics around? What else might you want to note?
Questions to consider:

• As you look at the list, what’s important?
• What are the metrics you have easy access to?
  • Pull those out – what patterns do you notice? What trends do you see over time? How does it stack up to what you had planned or envisioned?

Enjoy!
Jennifer

PS - Don't forget to join us today - Monday November 18th from 11 -1145 am ET for a special 2020 Planning Hack. Bring your pen and planner and join me in zoom room 270-302-0415. We'll start promptly at 11 am ET.

One of my favorite activities over the last few years has been to create a summer project list of small, and larger tasks, to complete in what some find to be a quieter time. There always are lots of project possibilities in the summer months. Have you considered:

• Updating your website
• Incorporating a new system
• Catching up on the reading you have piled around your office (or bed)
• Taking time to plan for a new program
• Writing some blog posts (and getting ahead of the curve)
• Creating a content calendar for your business
• Writing your newsletters for the next few months
• Starting a new series on Instagram

Some useful questions to consider as you go to decide what projects you want to put attention around:

• What have your clients been asking for?
• What are your key goals this year?
• What new activities would support your action and achievement of these?
• What projects would you like to move off of your “TO DO” List?
• What milestones would you create for yourself so that this is completed before the end of the month, or the end of the summer?
• What resources do you need in order to be successful with this?

For some more inspiration around this topic, listen into this 20 minute video I did last year on 2018 project ideas – check it out on my YouTube channel.

Best wishes,
​Jennifer

Building in regular pause points is invaluable in supporting focus, action and reflection. Kolb’s cycle of learning is commonly referred to as a four-step process known as ERGA – Experience, Reflection, Generalization and Application.
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Key to learning, according to this model, is that we take a “pause” to build in reflection after having an experience. It is this pause that allows us to cull learning and insights which we can then apply to other areas of our life and work.
There are many different ways to reflect including:

• Retreat programs
• Short writing activities – 2-5 minutes where people MindMap or note their learning
• Mid-point evaluations with clients
• Quarterly Reviews (see the article below)

 
Last month at the Learning Lab and Design Studio I was reminded of a great book called the Women’s Retreat Book by Jennifer Louden which is chock-full of great resources for creating and leading your own retreats. You’ll want to check it out.

Other resources you might want to explore:
Create a Pause Via Quarterly Retreats Using these questions (Coaching Tools Company Article)

Undertake a quarterly review process with me (30 minutes - VIDEO). Be sure to grab your pen and journal for this one!

Wishing you all the best,
​Jennifer

PS - For those of you who want to bring some of this into your work, consider joining me on July 9th for the Coaching Business Builder and PlanDoTrack Facilitator Training. I'll be leading a group of professionals through 6 x 3 hour facilitator virtual training sessions in July so you can lead this work with your own clients. More here.

​Jennifer Britton, PCC, CPCC
Author multiple books including the Coaching Business Builder Workbook and Planner (2018), Effective Group Coaching (2010)
Potentials Realized
Phone: 416-996-8326
Check out the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series of daily prompts for your work and business over on  Instagram @CoachingBizBuilder.

In both the Coaching Business Builder and PlanDoTrack, I include four business philosophies which are critical to all types of virtual and remote professionals, and business owners today – Focus, Experimentation, Momentum and Reflective Pause.

In my work with teams, and individuals, over the last fifteen years in my business I’ve seen that these make the difference between good and exceptional.

With this in mind, over the next few weeks I’ll be taking a deeper dive into the realm of these four areas looking at:

• What it means in today’s business context
• Why it’s important
• Ideas for putting it into practice
• And resources you may want to follow up around

​A reminder that if you like these topics you may want to check out my weekly Facebook Live, where I put into voice quick planning ideas and activities. You will find it over at the PlanDoTrack Facebook page.

Let’s turn our attention to the first topic of FOCUS.

We live and operate today in what is often considered an era of distraction. Our ability to focus and keep our eye on what is important to us, and to our work, is key.
Did you know that:

• The average worker receives 90 emails in the span of a day?
• It takes 22 minutes to get back on track after an interruption?

It’s not uncommon for workers (not just managers) to be spending 5-10 hours a week in meetings? I’ve met managers who wear the badge of
Focused work and attention are critical, and essential in order to create foundations, and grow a business.

How To- Creating Focus:

• Consider building in focused blocks of work – turn off email, move into a conference room, or take your work mobile. What will give you the space and time to do the focused work you need in your job/business?
• Leverage the circadian rhythm. Science continues to show that we have different times of day when we are at our best. What are those times for you? What can you do to ensure you have focused work times within those blocks.
• Create your to-do list of Top 5. With change being the norm for many workplaces, having a top five list each day is important. It’s interesting as the writing of James Clear has pointed to the early 1900s productivity hack from Ivy who asserted that a focus on a top 6 list every day would lead to productivity advances. Whether it’s five or six, being able to check core items off the list can help with efficiency and also motivation.
• Know your priorities – and your teams. Priorities also keep us grounded. They will help us shape our top five as well as discern where our time needs to go. What are your priorities for the week? The month? The quarter?

 
Refer To - Focus
When: The Science of Perfect Timing – Daniel Pink
Atomic Habits – James Clear
Outer Order and Inner Calm – Gretchen Rubin
Deep Work and Digital Minimalism – Cal Newport

Check out my April 3, 2019 Facebook Live 

Wishing you all the best,
Jennifer

Happy Spring! As we step into a new season, I hope that you will take a few minutes to take stock of the winter – your accomplishments, learning and achievement. Take a look at the Quarterly Review questions I shared a few months ago here. 

Today I wanted to remind you of the resource available to you here - the Weekly Sweep for Your Business. This is a one-page document you can use on a weekly basis to undertake a sweep of your work or business.
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The “Why” behind this document is that regular actions clear things out. As we move into a new season, there may be more energy to get things organized.

If you haven’t downloaded a copy of the Weekly Sweep for your Business document, download it here.
​
As you will note at top of the Sweep for your Business, get you to outline your key priorities for the week around:

• Planning,
• Doing,
• Tracking

As well as key goals in the areas of

• Business
• Your Environment (home, office, etc)
• Yourself

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The next section gets you to outline your goals for the next seven days, with prompts for possible tasks scattered across the week. These include things such as – administrative tasks, outreach to clients/prospects, content creation, and taking 15 minutes to clear some clutter.

On that note, it doesn’t need to take a lot of time to get things into order. 15 minutes at a time can make a big difference to a cupboard, a table, a filing cabinet or your email. Set the timer and see what you get done in 15 minutes!

This is a document you can refer to week after week! Be sure to download it now.

Enjoy!
Jennifer