Three Things That Are Holding You Back + Ruining Your Productivity

Working from home on your own business and staying productive all the time isn’t easy for everyone, myself included. Maintaining a schedule, not being tempted to run all your errands and do your laundry during “work hours”, and not taking that afternoon nap can be… hard.

The ready excuse or reasoning for this would be “laziness.” When I explain to people what I do they immediately respond with all the things they’d do during the day if they worked from home or that I’m lucky I get to wear pajamas all day. When I return with a discussion about some of the difficulties that working from home presents they immediately assume I’m just being lazy.

So quick disclaimer, I’m not going to tell you that what is keeping you from being productive is that you’re lazy. If you’re lazy you are probably already aware of that and that’s going to take another kind of motivation (read: a kick in the butt) to get you going. I’m going to dig a bit deeper than that, because chances are laziness isn’t the actual issue, but actually the result of one of these issues.

So what’s really keeping you from being productive?


FEAR

This is a BIG one for me. Fear causes me to grow completely paralyzed and unable to complete tasks. Fear that my idea will fail or will never grow to the potential I visualize. Fear that I’ll have to get a more traditional 9-5 or never figure out Facebook ads or sales funnels. Fear manifests into anxiety, which manifests into inactivity.

I know I am not alone in this feeling and that many business owners face this. It comes as a result of many things – but for me it builds when I face a lot of people repeatedly saying things that seem small and innocent, but really are damaging. Things like, “So you’re really running your own business?” or “You can really teach people something?” slowly pick away and tear me (and potentially you) down.

Here’s what I’ve been working on to overcome these sorts of feelings:

  1. Creative Brainstorms: I try to allot time every week to sit down with just me and a notebook and let ideas flow organically and naturally. I create mind maps and unorganized, messy lists but it quickly evolves into drawings and sketches, and whatever else flows out. Why does this help me? I’m naturally a creative person and running a business is incredibly draining sometimes, so it feels really nice to get back to just creating something, anything. It let’s me unwind, remember that I have skills and perspectives that are unique and special, and gets me out of my head.

  2. Daily Affirmations: This is something pretty new in my practice and a little “woo woo” for me, but I’ve been attempting to remind myself first thing in the morning of three positive things I like about myself (to help my psyche overall) and I try to focus at least one of those things towards my business. I focus on a skill or talent or a positive asset I have that lends itself well to helping others and growing my business.

  3. Feel Good Folder: I save positive tweets, messages, and emails in a folder on my computer to remind myself that my work has helped people and made a difference in their businesses. Whenever I feel particularly useless or lost reminding myself that I have created value in the past helps me to continue creating value now.

I highly recommend using one of those methods or another one to help you get past fear and move forward into your business. Fear is the biggest challenge for so many of us and we don’t even realize it’s happening. Acknowledging it is step #1 but overcoming it can be more difficult and take time and determination (and stepping outside of your comfort zone).


LACK OF CLARITY

Another huge reason you are stuck productivity-wise is because you just honestly don’t know what to do. This comes from a lack of clarity in your business. I talk quite a bit about brand visions and how those determine everything you actually do in your business and I fully believe that without a strong brand vision you will get stuck time and time again because you’ll lack clarity.

Lack of clarity in your business = lack of productivity. [Tweet That!]

Lack of clarity looks like this: you feel really busy and go through the motions day-in and day-out, but you don’t actually accomplish anything or grow your business. I notice a lot of questions about things in Facebook groups that boil down to a real lack of clarity in business, which is hard because you know what you want (money, success, freedom, etc.) but that’s not your brand vision. That’s just a goal or wishful thinking.

Here’s how to get out of that rut and start moving forward again:

  1. Work on your brand vision: Go back to the basics. Figure out your why, your who, and your how. Even if you think you know it already, go through the exercises and re-think and re-evaluate and solidify your brand vision based on those answers. If you need help you can check out Building Your Base.

  2. Book a strategy session: Coaches and strategist can be helpful in working through your brand strategy - this usually includes hyper-focusing on that brand vision and making sure you understand the big picture of your business in a way that helps you plan daily, weekly, and monthly tasks for your business.


MULTITASKING

I’m an advocate of block scheduling and day-blocking so that I can accomplish ALL THE THINGS! There are a lot of other popular time methods people swear by, like the Pomodoro Method, that sound interesting and useful if your brain works better that way.

Whatever way your brain works, I’m going to make a big general statement: it doesn’t work well multitasking. Switching between 600 tasks is hard. You feel scatterbrained, overwhelmed, and stressed out all the time and that leads to anxiety and lack of productivity.

I’ve talked about my schedule and organization before, but what my day really boils down to is 2-3 really important tasks that have to get done, and 1-2 tasks that it would be really great if I could put some time into. The 2-3 tasks get done during normal working hours (usually, unless something really crazy happens or I have a weird/random interference) and the 1-2 extra are if I am feeling up to it that night and don’t have other plans like Netflix binging and eating a carton of ice cream. And Chipotle.

For the most part this works out great. My brain can focus for hours on one thing before switching to the next. I can turn off notifications and hide my phone (and my Sudoku book – I’m going through a really weird binge right now) and just get it done. The alternative would be me spending the first few hours wondering what I should do, writing to-do lists, etc. before getting started and then when I did get started I’d convince myself I needed to go update Twitter or something. If you can eliminate the need or desire to multitask you can be way more productive.

So how can you do that?

  1. Block Schedule and/or Day Block: Separate out your repeatable daily/weekly tasks and allot them a specific time and/or day and make that a habit (and one of your 2-3 main tasks for that day). Maybe Monday has a main task of filling your Buffer queue, writing a blog post, and cleaning up your inbox. That’s all you need to focus on that day – so don’t do client work, don’t work on your new course, etc. Focus on those tasks and allot those other things to Tuesday, Wednesday, etc.

  2. Research and Trial: If your brain works differently than mine and block scheduling sounds awful, try out the Pomodoro one or other time management methods. I’d recommend researching on your own time (not on “work time”) so you don’t spend a whole day not being productive but being “busy.”

  3. Use Trello to organize all your tasks: Trello is my tool of choice, but Asana would work too. Basically make sure there’s a place that houses all of your “to do” items so that you have a place to start from when it comes to organizing your to-do list into a manageable one-item-at-a-time tasks (that you can check off!)

Somehow this magically turned into a small novel of a blog post and I hope that some of these ideas and methods work for you and boost your productivity. I’d love to know your thoughts on any of these, or other methods you use, so feel free to comment below and chat with me!



5 Squarespace Hacks To Improve Your Search Engine Optimization

Is Squarespace bad for SEO? I hear this question a loooooot. Here’s the deal: not paying attention to SEO is bad for SEO. But wait, wait: what’s SEO?

SEO is internet-speak for Search Engine Optimization, which basically means can the Google robots understand your site enough to make sure it shows up organically when people search relevant topics.

For whatever reason, Squarespace gets a bad rap when it comes to SEO, but there are actually quite a few measures you can take to help your SEO (that you should be doing regardless of your preferred platform). I’m going to cover 5 specific ways to improve your SEO on Squarespace today.


SITE TITLE

First things first, when you’re setting up your Squarespace website you’ll see a left hand panel with a few options to click. I’m not sure if it’s everyone’s instinct, but mine was to click “Design.” From there the first option you see says “Logo & Title.”

The menu that opens up from there is an important one. The very first section asks you to fill out your Site Title and Tag Line. This is the first area I want you to highlight what you do by using keywords that relate to your business.

With SEO it’s important to have things “make sense” and not be completely ridiculously obvious that you’re trying to win over the Google robots. I recommend putting your business name here and then a few essential key words. Mine says: “The Crown Fox | Branding Design, Logos, Websites, Strategy for Online Business.” There are quite a few words that people will search for that relate to what I offer I there, but it reads as a sentence that makes sense and is fluid.

Just a side note: I included logos because I understand a lot of my potential clients start off thinking that they “just need a logo” and will search that term over “branding.” For your own business take the time and research (my favorite way is to just ASK people) what they would search in relation to your business. If you are a local business that works primarily in your town, definitely be sure to include that.

The Tag Line is another area to throw some more keywords in, but be wary that on most templates this does show up somewhere so I wouldn’t sacrifice the look/feel of your website for a huge string of words. Mine is simply “branding design + strategy.”


SEARCH ENGINE DESCRIPTION

Once that’s done and saved, travel back to the main menu (click the arrow in the top left panel that will navigate you back through the different menus). This time I want you to scroll down to Settings > Marketing > SEO.

The first section here is another huge SEO booster. This is what people will actually see when they search for you or if you come up as a result: the 1-2 lines underneath your website name.

Again, focus on making real sentences or at least fragments that make sense versus a jumble of keywords. I incorporated my services and my mission statement into this area: “Cohesive Branding, Website Design, Brand Strategy | I create cohesive branding for small business owners, to they can find their success, become influential, & stand out as the authority in their industry.”

So I have words that I think people will search for plus a small bio about my business that encourages the click through if someone is a small business owner who wants these different things. Only the first portion of this actually shows, so there’s not a huge benefit to making it excessively long.


PAGE DESCRIPTIONS + TITLES

The next focus should be on each of your pages within your website. If you head back to the main panel, the first option says “Pages.” This is where every page for your Squarespace website is housed. Each one has the option of being optimized.

If you hover over a page a small gear icon appears to the right. Clicking that will bring up a window that allows you to change the “Navigation Title” (what actually shows on the top of your browser), “Page Title”, and further down a “Page Description.”

For each page you should take notice of these areas and make sure they have keywords and content in them. SEO Robots look here when they index your website, so leaving it blank is a missed opportunity. This might take a little bit of time if you have a ton of pages, but is worth it. Maybe you have a sales page that has slightly different key words or something that someone might be able to find separately from your overall website! There could be a gold mine hidden in there that you’ve never taken the opportunity to grab.

Don't miss these SEO Hacks for your Squarespace site! [Tweet That!]


IMAGES (NAMES, SIZES, DESCRIPTIONS)

Another huge SEO misstep is not paying attention to your images. The SEO robots (does anyone else actually picture little robots? I do!) can really “see” pictures so instead they look at the actual size of the picture, the name of the picture file, and the description you’ve attached to it.

The size of the file and naming the file comes before you even upload it to your website, so take care of that first. The size should be web friendly which means it doesn’t need to be a huge 300DPI image, but rather 72DPI. This will let it load faster and overall improve your website.

If you’re confused about this just make sure you are exporting files for web use or look for free websites that will shrink your files. A good website designer will take care of this initially for you too.

The file name itself should be something relevant with keywords. For my blog post graphics I usually use 2-3 words from the blog title that are also keywords (maybe like ‘brand’ or ‘blogging’ or ‘online business’) and then my website name. This also matters when it comes to pinning your blog post graphics [link] so you’re really killing two SEO birds (robots?) with one stone.

When you upload an image to Squarespace you have two places that you can enter a description. First is as a caption, second is in a spot they (misleadingly, in my opinion) call ‘filename’.  I fill out a lengthy description in the ‘filename’ area that describes the image (and also doubles as the Pinterest description whenever I pin it). Even if you’re not on Pinterest still take the time to add some essential keywords into either the caption or the filename so you’re not missing another great SEO-boosting opportunity.


BLOGGING

This one might be obvious, but blogging is hugely beneficial to your SEO. It’s filled with relevant key words, made up of real sentences (not an obvious ploy to boost your ranking), and is a loooot of content, right?!

I understand that blogging might not *~be~* for everyone. So even if you do podcasts or videos or periscopes or whatever, create show notes that contain relevant words so that the robots can process that (similar to an image, they can’t listen to or watch other forms of content).

If you think about a website with 5 pages of content that features relevant key words, that might seem like a lot. But then picture those 5 pages + 50 blog posts! That website will instantly be able to rank higher because there is so many more variations of keywords, pages for other websites to link to, etc.

Within your blog it's a great idea to use hierarchy to point out to the robots what is super important to pay attention to. I covered other things to include on your Squarespace blog yesterday!