strategic consultant to:  

Clarisse was a jazz dancer from New York, built short and rounded in the right places, not with a dancer’s narrow body.  Rarely did anyone see her dance.  But once at a party she stepped onto the floor and it was like watching mercury move with intention.  Fluid melting butter, smiling, nothing to prove.

Next day she was taking her students through their pre-dress rehearsal.  It was an adult beginners’ amateur class, two days before their first recital in front of their friends and families.

She began the music and watched.  Sixteen bars into the piece, she stopped the music abruptly.  The students stopped.  Hand on hip, but benign, she said quietly:

“So, when do you think you’re going to dance?”  They stared.  “Tomorrow at dress rehearsal?  At the performance on Saturday? “  They were silent.  “I mean, is there any reason you are going through the motions today … When *are* you going to *dance*?”

No Zen monk could have put them into the moment so well.

I love it.  “Life is short and then you die.”  Not.  Life is long and full of changes, most of which we cannot predict.  We cannot even anticipate what we will want in the next stage of our lives, or even when that stage will emerge.  We cannot know what might restrict us tomorrow from the dreams we have today.  Certainly it shouldn’t be fear.

When Clarisse spoke to her class that morning, I saw a vision of Snoopy, arms outstretched, feet flying… dancing.  Really – when *are* you going to dance?  Tomorrow?  You are an entrepreneur.  You have much in common with creative artists – you follow your own path, you want to create something new in your work, you are self-motivated.  You are not fearless, but you overcome your fear.  You go for it.  You are, like the artists, the people folks admire most – those who *live* their lives with courage and passion.  You are our heroes — self-directed, focused people who live life to the fullest.  So, wanna dance?

One of my favorite, sweet hearted entrepreneurs once said, “The family is coming home from holiday next week – then the pressure will begin.”  And  she was one of my kinder clients!

Another (years ago) told me he was spending 4 nights out of 7 sleeping on his techie’s couch directing the code he couldn’t write – while his wife was supporting him and his business!  I explained that he could not afford a divorce, that it would wreck the business, and gave him a little talk about “date night.”

I’m an entrepreneur – always have been.  And yes, I’ve abused those closest to me when I was in the height of the next new thing.  The 1^st time, the Power Dragon ate me and I couldn’t find any balance, despite pleas from all around me.  I was lucky.  That venture cost me nearly everything, but the Power Dragon spit me out and my ego never went to that place again.  Others are not so lucky.

The 2^nd time, with my ego more in check (and I was older, of course—that sometimes helps), despite a belief in balance, the pressure was so high I probably wasn’t terribly attentive at home then either. 

So, I understand. I do.  Gender isn’t the issue.  The entrepreneur’s life partner takes the same risk as the entrepreneur, with almost no control over the outcome, and gets isolated from the person and the daily drama as well.  No wonder many first-time entrepreneurs lose their families.

Let’s spend a moment with that life partner.  He or she generally knows little about The Business in any depth, and so is excluded from any real understanding of its pressures and priorities.  All the commonplace responsibilities that are dropped in the name of The Business fall to the partner at home (or at work, but not in The Business).  If there are children at home, they get no good explanation for their parent’s absence – whether absent in person or absent in mind.  You know, listening and nodding, but not really there, and sneaking little peeks at the Blackberry while nodding yes.

I caution my clients to pay attention.  I assume they will be mostly out of control for the first three years… and that can cost them their family.  It is often difficult to get this message through to them, as they have often stopped participating at home in the first few months and cannot hear.

So listen.  Life is long. You can learn to pace yourself and the business.  You can learn to work smart and not so hard and so long.  Yes, the competition is fierce, and technology ventures bring more time-to-market pressure than other industries (or at least we believe they do).  Check it out – how much of your pressure is your need to be the centerpiece, and always in control?  Are you playing a bigger risk than you need to?  Are you forgetting to focus on profitability and not gross revenue?  Have you given into terms from larger partner-companies, when you could have set some reasonable boundaries on your deliverables?  Are you running the business, and making clear choices, or is it running you?  Are you addicted to the adrenaline yet?

I tell you, a disintegrating personal life will hurt your business, and hurt you and your ability to lead, more than you can imagine — in time and money and chaos and in your heart. There is a reading in the iChing about being like a clock in the thunderstorm.  Take a minute, just one minute, and think about that.

As Fall approaches, I want to get all the administrivia done and put away before the Calvinist work ethic hits after Labor Day, and all our focus goes into work until the holidays at the end of the year.  I can feel the momentum building even as folks disappear on their late-Summer holidays. 

So, I thought to share a tactic in time management that has worked for me for decades.  It is a low-tech way of tracking what you actually spend your time on, so you can prioritize, and then re-focus your discipline on what needs to get done to move your business forward. 

Our goal here is to get most of our time committed to revenue or capital-generating efforts, followed by efforts in visibility and awareness for our companies.  We want to minimize administration, putting out of fires, and wasted managerial efforts and interruptions.

This is written for consulting practices, but if you are an entrepreneur running a business, simply substitute “project” or “deal” or “capital raising” or some other appropriate categories for “clients” under “Billable Time.”  Your job in driving the vision and visibility of your company is Marketing and Networking.   “Administration” includes managing others and “putting out fires.”

This simple system takes only a few minutes each day, and a review once a month (another few minutes).  Of course you can use any high-tech tools you like, or you can scribble on your (paper/electronic) calendar.  Here it is: 

Do the numbers; you can’t begin to manage your time if you don’t know precisely how you are spending your time.  Begin tracking & tallying your time.  Every day, track the time spent on these categories:

• Total time spent working.
• Billable time for clients.
• Marketing and networking time: speaking, writing, going to networking events to meet prospects; prospecting; proposal writing, negotiating, etc. This is everything that goes into finding, closing and upselling a client.
• Administration:  bookkeeping; insurance hassles; banking issues; directing your staff or assistant; cleaning the desk; filing; and so on.
• Even though you are sitting at your desk, do not count as total time: phone calls to your girlfriend/boyfriend/wife/husband/kids/best friend/cousin/mother; staring at the wall; wandering aimlessly; blogging and social networking (unless it is part of Marketing); online shopping/websurfing/video watching; instant messaging, throwing the iChing, downloading your music, watching television; planning your social life, etc.
• Tally the time every week and every month:  Add up the total time, then each category time. Divide the total time by the category time to get a percentage.
• Let’s say you spent 50 total hours this week on Billable time + Marketing + Administration.  What percentage of the total was committed for each category?  Let’s say you spent 15 hours on Administration (30%) and 15 hours on Billable time (30%) and 20 hours on Marketing (40%). 
• Not bad.  Is your score so good?  Did you commit 70% of your time to client work and prospecting? Did you spend 50 hours working? If you spent 50 hours working and 15 hours in non-billable pursuits at your desk – no wonder you feel as if you work all the time!

Set these goals:

• Set actual total working hours to at least 40 hours per week, or whatever is appropriate to your work and life.
• Get Administration to less than 10%.  This may take an investment in time, training and technology, but it will pay off over the years (later, get it to less than 5%).  Do this by simplifying your processes, updating your email clients and data bases, learning to use software that saves time; hiring help if you can afford it; outsourcing web updates, transcriptions, etc.; consolidating all business expenses to a single credit card and having bills automatically paid to this credit card (preferably the one with airline miles). 
• Commit that all working hours not on billable time will be spent on marketing and networking, except for the 5-10% of unavoidable Administration.
• Minimize interruptions of your time . Set brief, frequent staff meetings,  Try daily for 15-30 minutes, with a 15 minute check-in time near the end of the day, if this suits your schedule. Conference calls can suffice. Train your staff to hold all non-urgent issues and communication until these times.
• Set aside 2-4 hours to focus on Administration, at the most appropriate time (Friday afternoons? End of week?  End of month?  When bills are due?)  Turn off the phone as if you are in a meeting, and focus.  Have your assistant available if that helps.  The Administration will get done more quickly this way, and it will not haphazardly interfere with the flow of your work for clients, capital, and marketing.

You may be surprised at how little you actually work on Billable time, and how your other time disappears.  You may be surprised at how little you actually work.  The only way to know is to track it.  And be honest — lying doesn’t help this system.  If you try it, let me know how it worked for you.

Now, I mean watching your money, not counting it.  Counting it is for pleasure.  Watching it is for vigilance. 

This task is right up there with brushing your teeth and making your bed, and it happens in the morning before the rush of business begins.  You don’t brush your teeth or make your bed?  O.k., we all had different mothers, but watch your money every morning even if you don’t make your bed.

Here’s what to do:

Go online to your credit card accounts, one by one.  If you don’t have online access to your money, get it now.  Review all transactions since yesterday.  It takes 20 seconds to see if there are any unknown charges.  If you don’t recognize a transaction, check your calendar to remind you of your activities that day – where you were, what you did, and what you might have charged.  If you still don’t know, call the 800 number immediately and ask customer service to identify the source of the charge.  If it is real, that’s enough.  If it is not real, report the transaction and have your account frozen before you look for your card to see if it is missing.  Some banks will hold a temporary freeze for a few days; others will cancel your account and immediately send you a new card.  A new card is a nuisance insofar as many of your online accounts that are set up on “auto-pay” list your now-gone number and each will have to be replaced with the new number.  By the way, except for recurring auto-pay that pays your bills to your credit card each month, do not leave any of your credit card information on any ecommerce website.  You know it is only a matter of time before someone gets it.

Next:  go online to your bank account(s).  Review each one for transactions which you don’t remember.  These should be glaring.  Again, check your calendar about what you did that day and what check you might have written, or what electronic funds transfer you initiated.  Examine your checkbook – can you find it?  Are any checks missing?  If you suspect the checkbook has been stolen, report the theft and follow bank procedures to cancel any missing checks. The bank may insist on closing your account and issuing you new checks.

Finally, review your online accounts – phone and cable companies’ statements, especially if the amount is not what you usually pay.  Review the charges, ask questions, speak with customer support.

On the first day of every quarter, change your passwords on every financial and ecommerce account on which the online user can make a transaction.  The longer you have them, the less secure they are.  There are consequences:  someone can ultimately hack in to your account and access your passwords and bank account numbers and set up a new identity and password and function as if he were you.  The consequences of identity theft in time, effort and money are overwhelming in comparison to spending two whole minutes each morning asking: “ It’s 9:00 a.m. – do I know where my money is?”

Too much trouble, you say?  I mean, really, you spend two whole minutes brushing your teeth every morning, don’t you?

Don’t you?

One of the secrets of successful presentations and public speaking is to gain your ease right at the beginning of the presentation – or beforehand.  One of the best ways to gain your ease is to settle into your own authentic self, and speak from there. Try these strategies.

Arrive early.  Greet your hosts, then excuse yourself.  Have a few minutes in private before you approach the crowd.  Calm yourself there, even if you are not nervous presenting in public.  If you are nervous, create a meditative zone, take deep breaths, picture beautiful places, whatever works for you.  Do not rehearse or plan.  Just stop for a few minutes.  A bit of time out of the eyes of others will always help.

If the gathering is set up to allow you to circulate among the audience easily, spend the time while folks are settling in to speak to some of them, one on one.  Leave the microphone at the front, go into the crowd, and smile.  Offer your hand – this opens your body which then opens your receptiveness and emotion. Welcome each person, introduce yourself simply (“Hi, I’m Joey, I’m the speaker today” or “Hi, I’m Joey, I’m the CEO, thanks for your interest in my company”) and ask them who they are and what they’d like to specially know about.  Make direct contact.  Shake hands. Look them in the eye with interest in what each one might want.

This accomplishes several things.  It allows the folks in the audience to become your acquaintances.  And this allows you to adjust your internal position that a) they are there to judge you or deny you, and/or b) you know more than they do and are superior to them.  Both positions will interfere with your ease in speaking to them.

Just moments before you begin, during the host’s introduction, relax deeply.  Go to your internal place and become calm, then… open yourself up.  Actually, physically and emotionally, open up as if you are surrounded by people who care about you.  If you do this, they will, because you allow them to see your authentic self.

Then, as you begin to speak, smile.  Really smile to be in this place at this time.  Access your simple gratitude that these folks want to spend some time listening to you.  If you are speaking to a group, be generous in giving them your information.  If you are pitching, which is asking not giving, be generous with your genuine interest in their partnering with you in your company and vision.

Identify a person in the room who seems open and friendly, and focus there.  Make direct eye contact with that friendly person, and smile at him or her.  From your position at the front of the room, reach out with your hand in a gesture of welcome, to open your body again, which will relax you and reassure your listeners at a primitive level.  Then move on to make direct eye contact with another person in the room, and so on.

Then, in simple language, with clear short sentences (do not put in extraneous asides or too many extra clauses between your subject and verb and object, like this sentence does)…. Ahem…. Then, in simple language, say what you have come to say. 

Begin by telling them who you are and why you care about sharing this information.  If you are speaking, this gives a context to your authentic desire to share what you know.  If you are pitching, this offers your potential partners an insight into the real person speaking to them, not just the pitch, the product, the ROI, the “what you want them to give you.”  (How tired investors must be of that!).

This direct connection – your calm, your seeking out a few of the audience, your openness, your direct eye contact, your extending your hand and opening your physical and personal self to them – this is more important than the subject or subtext of your message and information. 

People come together to be witnessed, to share, to learn, to know something or someone they didn’t know yesterday.  Otherwise they would stay home.  In this moment, they have come together to know you – your real self, your valuable information or offer, a new part of the world they hadn’t seen before.  They come out of their caves with hope.  It is only polite, and kind, to welcome that hope with your genuine self.  From that place of connection, your presentation cannot fail.

There is always talk about what the electronic world gets to know about our most private behaviors, like what we read or buy or do.  Some say it is an invasion of privacy.   Some say it is an advantage that companies will send us offers for stuff we really want.  But since the launch of the Internet, there have been privacy issues in debate.

Get over it.  It is way too late.  The Internet didn’t invade our privacy.  That began long ago, with electronic money, ATMs, and mass marketing like mail order through paper catalogs.  Credit card companies have done it best – the analytics of our behavior through our purchases on credit cards are thorough to the point of scary.

One of my espionage friends (the one who twice fell out of the sky in his military helicopters and wouldn’t fly) never had credit and always carried a wad of cash next to his .44.  He knew how not to have an identity!

To this point, I link you here to an amazing article I found on Marketplace’s site, compiled with help from Robert Manning, author of Credit Card Nation.  It tells us the 10 purchases not to put on credit cards, so Big Brother will not remove your card for your less-than-stable behavior.  Tires, tickets, toys and taxes – the list is fascinating until you think about it.  Then it is just creepy.

Here it is.  Let me know what you think.   http://tinyurl.com/ncdo8h