Make the Most of Monthly Transitions
 

If you're not careful, June will become July and you will have no sense of transition from one month to the next. There’s a danger that you’ll miss opportunities and not spot any problems until they become too big. If you have monthly targets, if you don’t check your progress on a monthly basis, you could get to the end of the year before you realise that you’re way off target!

The best way to avoid this is to get into the habit of making a ‘transition with intent’. At the end of each month, make a point of closing out the month. Schedule time in your diary – for instance on the last Friday of the month. You could do this at the end of each week if you prefer - if you can remember to do things 52 times a year rather than just 12 times.

Use this transition time to carry out some monthly activities, such as invoicing (if you're self employed) or reviewing all your client related activity. Check your inbox to make sure that you've taken action for everything that needs to be done this month. Look at your diary to review the meetings that you've attended – are there any outstanding actions that need your attention?
You can also review your social media activity and ask yourself what has worked well this month. Think about the proposals that you've sent out and the presentations that you've given. What results did you get? Did you take on as many new clients as you’d intended?
If you work for yourself, or you have responsibility for a budget, this is the time to check your sales pipeline and review where the work came from, to measure the success of different marketing activities and campaigns.

Perhaps you set yourself the goal of finding a new job this year. How are you getting on with that? Use your monthly transition to review the applications that you've made, the interviews that you've attended and what you need to do next.

As you review all the month’s activities, create a list of the outstanding actions that you need to carry out. As you move from one month to the next, make sure anything that needs to be carried over doesn't get missed out or forgotten.

If you fade from one month to the next, you can get half way through the year and not be anywhere near where you’d like to be. 2014 is half over! Are you on track?
 

The Business Networking Show – 19 September 2014

I’m delighted to have been asked to speak at The Business Networking Show at Wolverhampton Racecourse in September. I’ll be helping people to answer the questions “What do you do?”, “Why do you do it?” and “What makes you different?” Come along for a very different and interactive session!

Tickets are £20 if you buy them online. Or I can get you a ticket for just £15. Click here to let me know how many you would like!

How Do You Make the Most of Monthly Transitions?
 

Making the most of a monthly transition is simple. Go through your diary for the rest of this year and block out time for each monthly transition.

Then:

1. Create a list of what you need to review – marketing activity, sales pipeline, income, number of interviews.
2. Create a list of what you need to do to help you meet your goals. What didn’t get done this month that needs to be rolled over? Why didn’t you achieve it? Perhaps you need some help in some areas.
3. Allocate time to do the work. Creating a ‘to do’ list won’t get things done. Set aside time in your diary to work on completing any outstanding tasks, to make a great start to the next month.

 
Don’t let one month slip into the next and one year disappear into another. Make transitions with intent and you’ll find it much easier to meet your goals and get to where you want to be.