March 21, 2020

Working From Home With Your Spouse

A lot of us have been thrown into an unusual situation, working at home with your spouse (and your kids!). With the right preparation and approach, this can actually be a time of enjoyment and family bonding (stay with me here).

Let’s take a look at some things that you can do when working from home with your spouse.

Set Ground Rules

Don’t assume that your spouse knows what you need from them and don’t assume that they know what you need from them. Take some time and go through logistics and lay down some ground rules. What is the protocol when they are on conference calls? What about when they are working on something? Do they need undivided attention or are they good with the occasional check-in. What are their work hours? What are your work hours? Will you try to take lunch together or stagger them? If you have kids home, who should be watching them at what times?

The more that you can hash out upfront, the more friction and stress you can avoid in the future.

Treat your Spouse like a Coworker

During the workday, treat your spouse like a coworker. That means if they annoy you, don’t feel free to tell them about it (hopefully you don’t do that at work). Be courteous to each other. Clean up after yourselves and don’t leave dishes and messes around for your “coworkers” to pick up. Ask if you can help them out. See what you can do to help them when you can.

This mutual patience and respect will go far in maintaining a good working relationship.

Have Dedicated Workspaces

Try to create dedicated working spaces in your home that are separate from each other. This space will help minimize distractions and the temptation to chat between conference calls. If you are in tight spaces with your spouse, use a partition to help create the illusion of separate spaces. This is especially important if your job requires a lot of focus.

Make sure that the space is equipped with everything that you need. A must-have for a work from home set up is a wireless headset for conference calls. This will help you avoid background noise and be more clear on calls. You should also invest in a monitor and wireless mouse/keyboard if possible.

Have Alone Time

If you are like me, I am not used to spending 24 hours with my spouse. I am a fairly independent person and need some alone time each day. This is critical for my wellbeing. That doesn’t make me a bad wife or person. In fact, knowing exactly what I need enables me to be a better wife and person.

To help you get this time to recharge, take time to do something for yourself every day. It could be going down to the basement to binge a couple of your favorite shows, going for a long walk around your neighborhood, or just sitting out in your car blasting your radio. Whatever provides you with the space and time that you need works.

And make sure to provide the same thing for your spouse. Encourage them to take time for themself as well. Even if they don’t openly take you up on you offer, try to give them some space every day. Even if it’s just 30 minutes, it can work wonders for a marriage!

Embrace the Chaos

Above all else, please remember that things will not always go as planned. Embrace the chaos. This is such an unprecedented time in our lives. If your kids start screaming in the background, you are not alone. A lot of your coworkers probably enjoy the opportunity to get to see that side of your life. If your spouse walks in and loudly asks you what you want for lunch while you are giving a presentation, don’t sweat it. Right now, it’s all bets off for what is normal and acceptable in the workplace. We are all in survival mode at work and at home!

At the end of the day, we are all in this together. Just laugh it off as much as you can and embrace the chaos. Things will be normal again at some point.

What are you favorite working from home with your spouse tips? What is your biggest challenge? Leave a comment below!

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March 18, 2020

Toys to Keep Your Kids Occupied

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If a purchase is made using these links we earn a small commission.

Many folks are working from home with their kids for the first time. They are beginning to understand the struggle that is trying to get their work accomplished while being a snack gopher for their kiddos.

Take it from an experienced work from home mom, find and stock toys to keep your kids occupied. There will be times when you absolutely need them to be occupied and leave you alone (i.e. when you have a client call, need to finish a report, etc.). Having a stash of special activities/toys that you can use during these times will be a lifesaver.

This list of toys to keep your kids occupied has been proven to be effective. I have only selected toys that will give you a good ROI (time they are occupied v. investment).

Bridge Books

Bridge books and educational books are not only educational but they can keep your kids occupied for a good amount of time. There are books for every age, grade, and subject so choose one that will best match your kids level and interests. You can also find a lot of activity books at the dollar store.

Lego

Legos are excellent toys to keep your kids occupied. We keep our Legos under lock and key so we don’t have to pull them out of the bottom of our feet. When we pull them out they are quite the novelty.

You can step up the fun factor by giving your kids a challenge like “make your dream house” or “create your favorite character” using the legos. You can also find a lot of Lego activities online that your kids can complete.

Osmo

Our house LOVES our Osmo kits. Osmo turns your tablet into an interactive game. You can download games and educational activities and purchase different game kits (such as the Super Studio Disney Princess and Pizza Co. Game) There are even some free games that you can play. It has been a really great toy to keep in the house because it is fun and educational.

Skymags

Another favorite in our household is the Skymags. These are little magnetic shapes that your kiddos can use to build anything their imagine can dream up. This is also one of the toys that I don’t mind playing with as well.

Again I keep these bad boys locked up and bring them out for special occasions so the kids become engrossed when they are able to play with them. You can also pick these up at Home Goods and Marshalls sometimes for fairly cheap.

Craft & Art Supply Kit

This item may be a little more messy but it is effective in keeping your children busy. Give them some art supplies and see what masterpieces they come up with.

You can also make it more fun by giving them an artistic challenge like
“make a crown” or “make a sign for your bedroom door”.

Indoor Trampoline

Kids need to get energy out. An indoor trampoline is an excellent way for them to expend some energy and keep them busy long enough for you to knock out some work. Disclaimer, you may want to ensure that they are kids are old enough before you leave them unattended.

Snap Pop Beads

These little bead are a great toy to keep kids occupied. They are essentially little beads that you can snap together to make necklaces, rings, bracelets, and other creations. You can get at least 20-30 minutes at a time with this one.

Lulu Jr Illustory Book Making Kit

This kit lets your children write and illustrate their very own book. The included guide walks your children through the process of writing and illustrating their story. Once completed and mailed using the pre-paid envelope, your kid will receive a 7″x9″ bound hardcover book with up to 20 pages (including a dedication page, title page, and “About the Author” page). Adorable and a great way to keep the occupied so you can jump on that conference call.

Fire Tablet

Sometimes you have to do what you have to do, screen time included. If you are working from home, a device is a great way to keep kids occupied.

I feel less guilty giving my kids free reign over the Fire 7 Kids Edition. The kids edition of this tablet is loaded with Amazon Free Time which gives children access to over 20,000 apps, games, books, videos, audiobooks, and educational content. You can also easily add screen time limits and set educational goals.

What are you favorite toys to keep your kids occupied? What strategies do you use to get some work done when working from home?

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March 12, 2020

How to Work From Home

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon affiliate we earn from qualifying purchases

There are a lot of people that are working from home for the very first time due to the Coronavirus. Believe it or not, working from home can be very challenging.

There are a lot of distractions and nuances when working from home that you don’t have to deal with when you are in the office. However, with a little planning and practice you can be even more productive working from home.

Here are some tips for how to work from home…

Keep Your Morning Routine

Try your hardest to keep your morning routine. Get up at the same time, shower, get dressed, grab coffee just like you would if you were heading into the office. Now, you don’t need to get dressed as you normally would (that is one of the biggest perks of working from home), but you should get up and put yourself together a bit. This will give you a sense of normalcy and some added confidence to get your day started.

Have a Dedicated Work Area

It can be really tempting to work from your couch or your bed. Don’t give into this temptation. Find a dedicated work space and work exclusively from there. This space could be an office, guest bedroom, half of your living room room, even your dining room table. It doesn’t matter where it is as long as it is a space that is comfortable and conducive to work.

The reason that it’s important to have separate spaces is that is creates a sense of boundary. It can be very easy when you are working from home to blend working/non-working time. You tend to either work too much or too little. You either work 15 hours a day or binge watch three season of The Office without established boundaries.

Keep Standard Hours

When you are thinking of how to work from home, make a plan to keep standard working hours. You should start your day and end your day at the same time just as you would if you were in a traditional office.

Not only does this prevent you from burning out (interestingly, most people tend to OVER-work when working from home) , but it also gives you a sense of routine. Routine and structure are important and can be missing when you start to work from home. After a while, a lack of routine can start to impact your mood and confidence. Humans are creature of habit so try to stick to a regular schedule.

Set Boundaries with People

If you live with people that may be home when you are working it is important that you establish clear boundaries. Spend some time discussing when you will be working and what the expectations are. Be really honest with what you need them to do and NOT do.

If you haven’t worked from home before, it can be a big adjustment for everyone. Make sure that you are communicating early and openly in order to avoid tension or frustration on both sides.

Set Goals Each Day

Each morning, set a goal of things that you would like to accomplish that day. This serves a couple of purposes. For one, it can keep you focused on what you need to get done. Working from home means that you have your fair share of distractions.

But additionally, keeping a track of things that you accomplished will give you a much needed sense of accomplishment. Sometimes when you work from home you can feel that you didn’t really do anything because you didn’t get up and go into an office. It’s important to remind yourself that you are contributing at the same or an even greater level.

Working from home is truly a win-win for everyone. Once you get the hang of it you will find that you have a greater work/life balance, more productivity, and overall better wellness. However, have some grace with yourself as you are learning how to work from home. It may take some time, but you will get there!

What struggles do you face when working from home? Do you have any tips for how to work from home?

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March 10, 2020

How to Pay Attention on Conference Calls

How to Pay Attention to Conference Calls

This post contains affiliate links. If a purchase is made with a link we will earn a small commission.

Is it difficult for you to pay attention on conference calls? Do you find yourself listening to an entire conversation and not remembering anything that was said? Have you ever had to fake technical difficulties to avoid looking stupid when asked a question? If you answered yes, this is for you my friend.

Paying attention on conference calls has been a pretty big challenge for me recently. I am the only remote employee on my team. Therefore, I have to take all of the calls on the phone while the rest of the team are taking the meeting together in person. Boy, does that make things challenging. It has really challenged my attention to stay focused while I’m on conference calls which leads me to miss valuable information that the rest of my team is getting.

But if you, like me, get easily distracted on conference calls, you are not alone. In fact, a study by InterCall shows that 65% of do other work or are otherwise distracted when on conference calls. So to round up, if you have a call with 10 people, 7 of them are distracted. We are at the very least in good company.

So what can you do? Follow these tips to pay attention on conference calls.

Don’t Put Yourself On Mute

Did you panic just a bit there. You heard me right. If you want to make sure that you pay attention, don’t put yourself on mute. This will force you to be engaged in the conversation and participate more freely. Also, this will prevent you from partaking in distractions like eating, responding to emails, or doing a load of laundry.

Offer to Take Notes

If you know other are counting on you to take accurate notes, you will be much more likely to listen and not be distracted. So if there is a call where you know you need to pay attention, offer to take notes and send to the rest of the team. This will make you look like a team player and force your hand to pay attention.

Commit to Contributing to the Conversation

Make it a point to review the agenda and look for areas you can contribute. Doing this before the call will help you pay attention to the duration of the call because you will be looking for the opportunity to insert this knowledge/update/insight. Plus adding to the conversation will make you look good and help you be more engaged in them work itself.

Stand or Walk Around

This sounds counter-intuitive but if you need to pay attention on a conference call, get moving. Stand and moving moves your blood to flow more freely and improves attention, memory, and cognitive abilities. Plus, it’s hard to eat lunch or browse TMZ when you are on the other side of the room. Invest in a wireless headset to make this easy to do.

Give Feedback

If you regularly not engaged in a specific call, you are likely not finding any value in the call. Many times we continue to have recurring conference calls just because we have always had them. If you aren’t finding value any longer, don’t be afraid to connect with the call organizer to provide feedback. You can ask them what the intent of the call is, whether your presence is still required, or whether you can just freshen up the agenda. Sometimes a small change can get everyone engaged again. But the key here is to make sure that you are providing that feedback. There is a good chance that the meeting organizer is unaware and would welcome feedback from the group.

Do you have a hard time paying attention on conference calls? How do you pay attention on conference calls when you get distracted? Leave a comment and share your strategies.

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March 9, 2020

Affirmations for Presentations

Glassophobia is the fear of public speaking and a lot of us have it. In fact, up to 75% of us have it. Even the most successful CEO still gets nervous sometimes when presenting to a large group.

Using affirmations for presentations and public speaking is a great way to overcome the fear of public speaking. Repeating a few of these affirmations before a big presentation can help calm your nerves and improve your confidence.

Check out 30 Powerful Affirmations for Work and Affirmations for Stressful Days.

Positive Affirmations for Presentations & Public Speaking

I am a calm and confident public speaker.

I enjoy public speaking.

I am fearless when speaking to a large crowd.

I have a great voice for public speaking and come off knowledgeable and confident.

Words and thoughts come effortlessly to me.

I am fearless.

I am excited and positive about this presentation.

Giving this presentation will be fun and exciting.

I am an engaging speaker and people enjoy listening to me speak.

I can clearly communicate the vision to my audience.

I understand this material and concepts.

I can confidently answer questions that are presented.

There is not a question that I can’t answer confidently.

I am prepared for any question or piece of feedback that I will receive today.

My audience will appreciate this information that I am going to share.

The material will be well received and appreciated.

I am making a difference in my company by sharing this information.

I am the best person to share this information with my audience.

My presentation will invoke action from the audience.

My audience will feel inspired and ready to take action after my presentation.

Are you afraid of PUBLIC SPEAKING? What helps you before you give a big presentation? Leave a comment below!

How to Hold Effective Meetings

Disclaimer: As an Amazon affiliate, I will earn a small commission on purchases made from the links in this post.

Holding effective meetings is an art form. Luckily, it is a skill that you can easily develop with practice and intention. Use the following tips to ensure that you are holding effective meetings in your business or organization.

1. Don’t Have a Meeting

The first key to having an effective meetings is to only have a meeting if you truly need a meeting. If something can be accomplished with a phone call or email, don’t call a meeting. Meetings should be reserved when you need collaboration from the attendees. For example, brainstorming a new product idea definitely calls for a meeting, but an update to existing project can probably be accomplished by an email A quick rule of thumb is if there is going to be mostly two way dialogue, have a meeting. If it is mostly one way communication (you informing people of something) utilize another channel like email or audio/video recordings.

2. Start with a Clear Objective

You should start developing you meeting with the why in mind. What are you looking to accomplish? This should be indicated in the meeting invite itself, the agenda, and any supplementary information (presentations, readouts, etc.). Additionally, start your meeting off with stating what your objective is very clearly. Don’t try to bury it in a bunch of fluffy speak, a simple “our objective today is to identify a product to launch next quarter” makes it very clear to everyone what you are trying to cause.

3. Look at the Invite List

U.S. Companies lose between $73-238 BILLION dollar a year to ineffective meetings. I bet you can recount a few meetings recently (probably event today) that you didn’t need to be on. Help eliminate this waste by only inviting the people that truly need to be there. We don’t give workers enough time to actually do the work, we tend to take up much of our time TALKING about the work. By not including someone on an invite, you are freeing up much needed time on their schedule.

If you aren’t sure who is needed in a meeting, you can always include someone as “optional” so they can choose whether they should join or not. Leave that determination up to them.

I will say however that there is nothing worse than getting on a call and the right people are not on, so take some time and identify who those key players are and make sure they are on. Do a little due diligence before the meeting and ask around who should be included to maximize the use of time.

4. No Multi-Tasking

This is going to sound a little childish, but ask participants to limit multi-tasking. Now, as adults we know we should pay attention to the task at hand and minimize but we all know how that goes. I , for one, am a HORRIBLE multi-talker on conference calls. I really need to force myself to focus because my mind tends to wander if I am not in the room. However, when the meeting organizer kindly asks us to minimize our distractions, I always make a more concerted effort to pay attention. You may annoy some people in requesting this but they are likely the ones that need reminding. (Read more about How to Become More Engaged Today!)

If you are you organizing an in-person meeting, try switching up the location. If you really need your group to focus try a conference room that you haven’t tried before. Sometimes a change in scenery can snap people out of their old habits. Also, I am a big fan of standing meetings for shorter duration meetings (20 minutes or less). Standing causes efficiency because people want to get back to their seats. They are less likely to waste time and multi-task. Plus, standing causes blood to flow more freely which helps you think more clearly. Standing or walking improves attention, memory, and other cognitive skills. So standing meetings are not only more efficient, but they cause participants to be smarter!

5. Make Sure Technology Works

87% of office workers experience stress when technology doesn’t work or is difficult to use during a meeting. I have been on so many calls when the technology derails or overshadows the intent of the meeting. Spend some time familiarizing yourself with the technology that you will use during the meeting. If at all possible, do a trial run before the meeting to make sure that you know how to set up the technology and test to ensure that it works properly.

Also, you will want to take steps to ensure that your meeting participants know how to use the technology. If you are using a new technology, make sure that the instructions are sent in advance of the call and can be easily followed. If you re worried, you can always ask participants to join the meeting early to allow for time to get everything set up properly before the meeting begins. A few minutes of preparation can save a meeting from going off the rails.

6. Connect the Meeting to Mission/Vision

We already identified that if you are having a meeting in the first place, you want people to contribute and collaborate. In order for people to do so, they must understand why.

Why is the work that you are setting out to do important? How does it contribute to the overall mission and vision of the company? What is our role in that? For example, if you are having a meeting about what product to launch next year, start the meeting with a discussion around how continued innovation helps you grow and meet the needs of your customers.

For example,

“Team, thank you for joining us today. The goal of this meeting is to work together to identify a product to launch next year. Our vision is to help all of our customers improve their lives by using our technology. The work that we are about to do today will help us continue our quest for innovation and allow us to help our customers achieve their goals.”

Connecting the meeting to the overall vision and mission of your company will help underscore the meeting’s importance. It will inspire employees to be engaged and put their best selfs forward. They will be actively shaping the customers future, rather than just joining the 2 o’clock call. What mindset would you rather have your participants be in during your meeting?

7. Ensure that Everyone Talks

The meeting organizer’s role during the meeting should be that of a facilitator. Your goal should be to ensure that your meeting participants are talking most of the time. Your role is gently guiding the discussion and ensuring that everyone has a voice.

In any group, there are people that are more outspoken and people that don’t take at all. Try to get everyone in the meeting talking, even if that means that you are calling out people to share their thoughts or answers questions. On meetings that I run, I keep a list of participants handy and look at who is contributing. If I notice someone not talking, I ask them a question or ask them to share their thoughts. This gets them engaged in the conversation at a level that they weren’t before.

Another main benefit to having the group do the talking, not the meeting organizer, is that they will feel much more connected to the outcome of the meeting. If they had an active say in what was developed and they were involved, they are much more committed and excited about the final product rather than just being an inactive bystander. The output of the meeting will be much more likely to stick if the group came up with it, rather than a few.

8. Establish Clear Next Steps

At the end of the meeting, recap what you discussed and provide clear next steps. I’ve seen some really great meetings go awry when the group leaves without a clear path forward. It can be really disappointing after you spend your time and energy discussing a topic to only have it lost with inaction.

Even if you don’t have a clear path forward, what is your strategy to identify a path forward? This could be as simple as everyone taking back a question to ponder or provide feedback on. Something, anything ,to keep the ball rolling!

9. Send a Written Recap/Notes

And finally, take a few minutes and send out a quick summary of what was discussed and a written confirmation of the next steps. This will help keep the topic and next steps fresh and top of mind and remove any chance for someone to miss what they need to do. This is also a tip to help with any team members that are neuro-divergent and respond well to written notes.

Do you have any tips for effective meetings? What has been the most ineffective meeting that you have ever participated in? What made it ineffective? Leave a comment!

Grow Your Business by Focusing on Customer Experience

Course: Grow Your Business by Focusing on Customer Experience

According to a study conducted by American Express, 33% of customers say that they will never do business with a company again based on one poor experience. That is nearly one of out of three customers! Just imagine if you lost a third of your customers today, your business would be significantly damaged.

Customer experience is a critical area for a business because our customer’s expectations are increasing at a dramatic pace. Every time they have a great experience with a company like Zappos or Apple, their expections increase for all companies that they interact with.

Luckily, small businesses have an advantage over these customer experience giants. Small businesses have proximity to the customer and the agility to quickly and easily make enhancements to the experience.

This course will walk you through how to do that quickly and easily. We will walk you through and provide you resources to effectively develop and start executing an effective customer experience strategy. This approach will work whether you are a solopreneur or have a large team of people working with you.

The goal is to help you grow your revenue and increase customer loyalty by easily developing a customer experience strategy for your business.

What you will learn:

Why customer service matters to you and your organization
How to create a positive experience for you customers
How to use language to improve the customer experience
How to improve your digital experience for your customers
How appearance matters to your customers and how to improve appearance to improve the experience
How to manage your online reputation
Learn how to develop a customer complaint system
Learn where and how to effectively respond to customer complaints
Learn to identify coaching and recognition opportunities to help improve your team’s performance

Who is perfect for this course:

Managers or business owners that are looking to improve their customer experience and develop a customer experience strategy
Those that are interested in learning more about customer experience
Any employee that wants to improve the customer experience and deliver a better experience

What will I receive?

Over 20 Lessons with over 2 hours of video
9 downloadable worksheets/resources

How do I sign up?

Sign up using this link –> Grow Your Business by Improving Your Customer Experience

February 17, 2020

5 Ways to Improve Your Website Customer Experience

Your website is a major part of how your customer’s experience your business. As more and more customers prefer to do business digitally, businesses need to pay close attention to the journey that your customers go through with your website.

Below are 5 ways that you can improve your website customer experience.

Check out the Customer Experience for Small Businesses course for customer experience tips, strategies, and resources.

Unclutter Your Site

Have you ever been to a business that was completely cluttered with products, signage, and marketing material? How did that experience make you feel? If you are like me, you were probably anxious to get out of that environment. Your website is no different. It should be free from clutter and unnecessary components. Customers should be able to quickly identify that they are looking for in an aesthetically appealing way.

One way that you can unclutter your website is to increase the use of white space. White space is essentially just empty space on your page. White space allows you to direct your customers attention to exactly where you would like them to focus. They don’t have to wade through a bunch of irrelevant information to find what they need which greatly improves their customer experience. A perfect example of this is Google’s homepage. Their homepage is about as uncluttered as possible and their search (which is what customers are looking to find) is right in the middle of the screen.

Ensure Your Site Matches Your Brand

Branding is so important for your business because it builds trust with your customer. It helps your customers identify your business and feel comfortable doing business with you. Everything that you put out in the universe should work to build your brand identify. However, you would be surprised at the amount of businesses that have websites that don’t match their brand. They don’t work to incorporate their brand elements into their website at the detriment of the website customer experience.

Luckily, you can easily ensure that your website is “on brand“. For starters, your website should contain your logo, brand colors, and fonts. It should also match the tone of your business. For example, if you have a fun and lively floral shop, your website should be fun and lively. If you own a funeral home, your website should be more subdued and professional. The more that your website matches your brand, the better their experience will be and the more they will trust the information provided.

Responsive

Quick poll, are you reading this article on a mobile device or a computer? Consider this, mobile internet usage has grown 504% in daily media consumption since 2011. Furthermore, almost three quarters (72.6 percent) of internet users will access the web solely via their smartphones by 2025. So the moral of the story is that you need to ensure that your website is responsive to all screen sizes and orientations.

Having a mobile responsive website ensures that your website is easily readable without requiring zoom, there is adequate space for links and buttons (no fat finger issues allowed!), and there is no horizontal scrolling. Not only does having a mobile responsive website improve you website customer experience, but it also ensures that your website is found in the first place. Mobile responsiveness is one of the factors that Google uses to rank searches. Meaning if you don’t have a mobile responsive site, you will likely be pushed down in the search results.

Speed

Another important factor that Google uses is website speed. The reason that they weigh site speed so heavy is because it can make or break the website customer experience. Humans are incredibly impatient. In fact, 40% of users will abandon a site if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load. You have THREE seconds.

Google has a free site speed checker that you can see how your site is doing. Google will then provide you with specific things you can do to improve your site speed. You should take some time to use this speed and incorporate some of their recommendations. You should also reach out to your hosting service to see if they have any recommendations to improve your site speed.

Intuitive

Another thing you can do to improve your website customer experience is to make it as simple and intuitive as possible. Having an intuitive website means that your customers know exactly what to do on your site. They know exactly where to go to get the information that they need or achieve whatever they are trying to achieve.

The first and most critical step in making your website intuitive is to really understand your customer. What are they are looking for? What knowledge do they have? What is their experience level? The more detail that you get here the better. Next, ask yourself what type of websites is your customer interacting with? For example, if you are an online clothing boutique your customers are likely using sites like Amazon and Target. Try to ensure that your website is mirroring those sites as much as possible. If you are still wondering how to make your website more intuitive, do some usability testing. Ask to watch a friend or family member (hopefully someone that matches your ideal customer’s demographics) navigate your website. You can even give them a list of tasks that yo would like them to accomplish. Watch where they click, have them describe their experience, and see how quickly they can accomplish the task. Try to take that feedback and make your website easier to navigate.

What questions do you have? How steps have you taken to make your website easier to navigate?

February 1, 2020

5 Super Simple Ways to Make Your Habits Stick

5 Super Simple Ways to Make your Habits Stick

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

“Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.”- Jim Ryun

We all start the new year with dreams of starting new healthy and productive habits. However, life happens and many of those commitments that we made to ourselves… well they don’t stick very long.

How we do ensure that our habits DO stick? Luckily, there are some super simple tricks to ensure that we keep our promises to ourselves and ensure that our habits stick!

Here are some tips if you need habit tuneup:

#1- Start small

One of the easiest ways to make sure that are our habits stick is to start with small habits. Don’t set out to exercise 60 minutes a day unless you are absolutely certain without hesitation that you can commit to that. Setting yourself up for failure will only end in you getting frustrated, burnt out, and not believing in yourself.

Rather, you should start out with a more realistic goal such as “I will exercise for 15 minutes a day”. This is attainable. Anyone can find 15 minutes in their day to get some exercise in (even if it is just walking around the block). Setting a smaller goal will ensure that you can actually do it. These small early wins are powerful. Success breeds success so meeting these smaller goals gives you fuel to tackle larger ones as you go.

Having a lofty goal is great, but having a realistic plan to achieve your goal is even better.

#2- Habit Stack

Attach your habit to an existing habit. For example, if you want to learn Spanish, review your Spanish words every morning while you are drinking you cup of coffee. Attaching your Spanish work to an existing habit will make it much easier to remember. I’ve started putting my gratitude journal in my bathroom. While I am drying my hair each morning, I fill out my daily gratitude journal. It’s really easy to remember since I’m already there to dry my hair anyways. If you have been struggling with a habit, try to attach it to a habit that is already well established.

#3- Make it Pleasurable

Another very effective way to make sure that habits stick is to attach your habit to something that you enjoy doing. It will be like a mini-reward for doing the habit. For example, if you love Grey’s Anatomy, tell yourself that you can ONLY watch Grey’s Anatomy while you are walking on the treadmill. You will find yourself actually looking forward to exercising because you get to watch your favorite show. If you need to do some computer work, sit down and do it while you are enjoying your morning cup of coffee. Making the habit as fun and enjoyable as possible will go far in ensuring it sticks.

#4 Commit to 30 Days

You can do just about anything for 30 days. Promise yourself that you will stick to the habit for 30 days.That’s it, just 30 days. After the 30 days you have full permission to reevaluate. Chances are once you hit the 30 day mark you will keep going as it has already become a habit at this point.

Consider this example- It’s a cold and rainy day. You really don’t want to leave the house to go the gym but you tell yourself that you just need to workout for 20 minutes. That’s it. Only 20 minutes. But once you get there and you start working out you feel really good. You end up staying for two hours, well past your original commitment. Same concept applied here. Once you start making progress and seeing success, you will likely keep at it and extend your commitment.

#5 Make It Insanely Easy to Follow Through

Another hack to make sure that your habits stick is to remove any potential barrier to completing your habit and make it as easy as possible to complete your habit. If your goal is to exercise every day after work, make sure that your workout bag is packed and in the car before you leave everyday. If you want to read 20 books this year, make sure that you have a book with you everywhere you go.

Invest in things that make your habit easier. Remove physical and digital barriers to completing your habit. Look for any possible way to make it easier to complete your habit.

Those are a few tips that I have found to really help in making my habits stick. If you want to learn more about habits, I highly recommend that you read Atomic Habits by James Clear. This book was an absolute game changer for me and made me rethink how I approach goals and habits. It’s on my must read list for anyone that I work with. Right now, if you sign up for an Audible free trial you can read the audiobook version for free!

Let’s hear from you! What have you done to ensure your habits stick?

Why You Must Focus on Customer Experience

If you have at least ONE customer, you should be focusing on customer experience. Customer experience matters whether you are a small micro-business or a Fortune 500 corporation.

Let’s take a look at the reasons why you should focus on customer experience.

Check out the Customer Experience for Small Businesses course for tips, strategies, and resources on how to improve your customer experience.

Customer Expect a Great Experience

One of the main reasons that you should focus on customer experience is, simply put, customers expect it. Your customer’s expectations are being shaped by all of the experiences they encounter. You are competing with companies like Apple and Starbucks, whether you realize it or not. The more you focus on customer experience, the more likely you will be in meeting your customers expectations.

Happy Customers Stay Longer

Customers that are satisfied with you, stay longer. Makes sense, right? As a customer you are likely very committed to companies that provide a consistently positive experience. This is called customer loyalty. Customer loyalty is beneficial for companies because it greatly reduces costs. For example, it costs companies 6-7 times more money to attract a new customer rather than to retain an existing customer. So often we focus on attracting new customers, when sometimes it pays to focus on the ones that we have.

Happy Customers Buy More

Not only do happy customers stay longer, but they buy more. Companies with superior customer experience bring in 5.7 times more revenue than competitors that lag in customer experience. I don’t know about you but I would take a 5.7 times increased in revenue!

Happy Customers Refer More.

Happy customers not only buy more themselves but they refer more. I’m sure you can recall a time when you were really happy with a company. You likely sang from the rooftops and encouraged your friends and family to also do business with them. With social media, more and more customers are basing their purchasing decisions off of recommendations from friends and family. By focusing on customer experience you are encouraging your customers to do your marketing for you.

Engaged Employees

Companies that focus on customer experience don’t just see an increase in happy customers but they also see an increase in happy employees. Research from the Temkin group shows that companies that excel at customer experience have 1.5 times as many engaged employees as do customer experience laggards. Generally, if you are doing the right thing for your customers and get to have pride in what you are doing, that will naturally lead to higher levels of job satisfaction and engagement.

There are many reasons why you must focus on customer experience. What is nice about doing so, is it doesn’t always require a big budget or investments in technology. There are always things that you can do to improve the customer experience by reducing the customers effort, making it easy for them, and providing them with options.

If you look to improve a little every day, over time you will notice that you are much better off than where you started.

Why do you feel you should focus on customer experience? What challenges are you facing as a business owner or employee?

Are you a blogger? Check out how you can improve your blog customer experience.

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