Shoulditis- a cure

Good morning, everyone. Katie McManus here, business strategist and leadership coach. It is the morning. I don't normally go live in the morning, but I wanted to talk about a very serious disease that affects nine out of ten entrepreneurs. Just kidding. It is serious, though. I like to call it should itis. And for an entrepreneur or anyone in the world who does anything you probably suffer from should itis. And should itis is the condition of feeling like there are a billion things that you should be doing and they all seem like the most important thing. And so you get overwhelmed. Some side effects are you get overwhelmed and you don't do any of them, or you pick the easiest thing to do. That's really just busy work. It's like, you know, tidying up your desk. It doesn't really make a difference in your business or in getting actual things off of your plate, although it can feel good because you're crossing things off the list. Snacking is another side effect because you're stress eating, because you're so stressed out that you have so much to do. The cure, and I say it's the cure, but it's really a practice, is to look at that list and assess what on there will get you clients today, what on there will get you new business today. That is the number one thing you want to be focusing on. Because without clients, without business, how are you going to stay in business? And I say this to my entrepreneur people, but I'm saying this to everybody. Everyone. You know, if you work, if you work, the most important thing is to have business. That's the only way we're able to be paid is if we have money coming into the business. Okay, so for those of you who are engineers and you work for a bigger company, what are the features that you could add to an existing product that would ensure that you land more clients? What's a need that's out there in the market? If you are selling a service, if you're selling a service, what is the thing that is going to get you in front of as many new potential clients as possible and get them interested in what you're doing? Maybe it's writing a post, maybe it's going live. Maybe it is sending emails to people that you know and telling them who you work with and what you accomplished with them and asking them for referrals. Okay? These are all the things that will move the needle in your business. So that is priority number one. Okay? Priority number one in dealing with should itis is you want to do the one thing that will get you new clients. Oh, I just hit my elbow on the edge of the desk. That hurt. Ow. The other thing. Sorry. That really hurt. I don't know. This desk, like, is an elbow. Dangerland. Anyway, it's just at the right height. I don't know why. Good morning, everyone. I'm gonna have a sip of coffee on that note. Also, if anyone has ever seen Knives out, this is the mug from there. My house, my rules, my coffee. The other thing. Okay, so that's priority number one is you want to do the one thing that is going to bring in new business. The number two thing that you need to do to beat Shaditis is to look at what you are doing with your current clients and how can you go above and beyond them today, or go above and beyond for them today? I learned this concept from Wequassett Resort and Golf Club. Hi, Sultan. Nice to see you. So many squirrels. Yes, it is squirrel syndrome. It's shiny object syndrome. We get so excited as business owners and just as humans in the world because we want to take on that new shiny thing. It's so much easier to do that than to stick with the thing that we have going. Let me tell you, I have shiny object syndrome so bad. I'm always wanting to develop new programs rather than go back and redo the ones that were really successful when really, like, I've already created a thing that works. Why am I trying to reinvent the wheel? Cause it's fun and exciting. But anyway, so the number one thing that you're doing is how to get new clients, bring in new business. Number two is make your offering better for the clients you already have. Check in with them, see how they're doing, send them a gift record a how to video for them that helps them learn a new skill. Anything like that. That's number two. And number three again, you know that chart that they do? I'm not going to draw it out because I have to get up and, like, find a big piece of paper and everything. So but the chart, that's like, you know, how urgent is it and how important is it? You're going to chart that out. I don't have to explain this. You have YouTube and you're going to figure out, like, if, you know taxes are due. If you haven't done your taxes yet, this is a call out to my account, my accountant friends. You're welcome. Go and do your taxes right now. If everything else is covered, if you have enough clients and your current clients are happy, go, go do that. You know, if there's anything else that is weighing on you, the things that, like, you go to bed thinking, oh, God, like, I really need to be doing that. Go and do those things, okay? Don't waste your time on the little tasks that so easily eat up your day, okay? And as always, if you have a big project that you're putting together, carve out time for it, okay? It's not going to happen in the minutes in between one meeting and another. Okay? So, for instance, I'm writing a book right now. I'm writing a book and I'm putting together a podcast. It doesn't work for me to write for 15 minutes here or there. I actually have to carve out about four hours to do that. The same for recording the podcast. If I try to do it in a rushed way, it's not going to be good, and I want it to be really good quality. So whatever that is for you, carve out time for it, plan it in your schedule. And I really. I'm going to tell you this. Say no to any new projects for the next two weeks. You. The next two weeks. My cat is doing something. He's. Okay, distracting. We have this little thing over here that he likes to sit on because it's right by the window and he likes to sit in the sun, but sometimes he just gets up and stares at me and freaks me out. Anyway, good morning. You guys are getting a lot of insight into my world this morning. Anyway, we're just gonna have more coffee. Sultan. Time blocking is crucial, as hard as it may be at first, to get used to it for someone who works in a scattered way, but it's the way to go. Yeah. And for time blocking, you know, there's the neurally normal way of time blocking, which the Pomodoro method works really well, which is you set a timer to do certain stuff. I don't know. Should I show you the cat? He's kind of grouchy today, and he doesn't really like me, so I don't know if I should. He doesn't like being picked up. Give me a moment. Let me just gauge his temperament this morning. But anyway. David. Oh, my God, I feel distracted for you. Yeah. Now he's sneezing. Now he's sneezing. He's even allergic to himself. But anyway, I'm losing the track of what I'm saying. Oh. So time blocking. So time blocking, Pomodoro method works really well for neurally normal humans. If you're like me and you have some add ADHD going on. Don't do that to yourself. Give yourself big blocks of time. Okay? You will not be able to get anything done if you anticipate there is an arbitrary interruption coming. No. Doesn't work for us. We have to go deep. That's where we get into flow and that's where we get into that hyper focus. That is our magic power. Anyway, I feel, you know, I feel like when I go live in the evenings, I'm a little more tired and it actually helps me focus a little bit more. It's so funny to learn your workflow and see, you know, what happens for you. And I'm also learning as I'm filming, stuff that I'm actually going to be sharing with my clients and sharing, you know, on Instagram and in courses. This experience right here this morning has been a great lesson into what works. The cat cannot be in the room. So if you have Shoditis, just know that you're normal. Everyone feels that way. You're not failing. This is the other thing. The other side effect of Shoditis is that you constantly feel like you're a frickin failure. And you're not. You are not. The fact that you have that many ideas, oh my God. You are creative and resourceful and you can do this. Carol, perfect timing for your lives. Starting my day with my to do list and my don't do list. Yes, yes. This is the other part. Thank you, Carol, for reminding me. So should itis the other way to deal with it is go through and just cross off anything that won't move your business forward today. It's no longer in your to do list. I found myself getting really stressed out recently about all the things that I have to do. And then I realized I'm the CEO of my life. Okay. I get to let things fall through the cracks. Because you know What? That's what CEOs do. Anything that doesn't really matter to them gets to fall through the cracks. And they don't care. They just keep going on to the next thing that matters. Let's see, Sultan. It's early morning and you've a lot of ideas in your mind and a ton of energy. I can imagine why you'd feel focus in the evening. Yeah, I get them out during the morning. Hi, Anna. Just needed an additional eight or so hours a day. I know, I know, I know. I always say that. You guys are gonna laugh at me. I always say that if vampires come out as real, I'm going to become a vampire. And my plan Is this. I'm going to wait about three or four months, go to the gym, diet, like get in the best shape of my life and then I'm going to be a vampire and then I'll get to live forever. I won't have to sleep and I will just be able to get everything done that I've always wanted to do. The only downside with that is that it, you know, if the whole mirror or camera thing is on, then I won't be able to be on lives anymore. So, you know, if I ever disappear, it's probably because I became a vampire. Ron Joseph. I think I have ADHD or ADD for sure. Yeah. Something talk to your doctor about it's a superpower. It's not, it's not something bad. It honestly, people with ADD have the ability to connect wildly different ideas. Kind of like in Working girl where you know, she puts together this whole plan to get someone on a radio station. That's an ADD move. You know, we're able to connect the dots in really weird, wonky ways that work really well. We're able to do hyper focus as well. David, your captions had it as ADHD. Yeah, cool branding to sell high def TVs to people with ADHD. Yeah, no, for the caption people I'm talking about ADHD, not TVs. No, I'm not distracted. Why do you ask? Yeah, I know. You know, and it's funny, in the mornings I find I'm my most creative and I think that's why should I just hits me so hard in the mornings is because I'm so creative. I think of all the millions of things that I could be doing and all the ways I could be getting in front of new potential customers and all the things that I could be teaching my clients even more. Oh, and it just, it all goes on the list and then I get overwhelmed. I'm not alone and you're not alone and we are all just here trying to bat off all the to do lists. Sean. David McUrlean. Good morning. Hope you're good. Yes, I'm well. I hope you're well as well. Thank you. But anyway, just want to normalize this for you. The thing that you don't want to do when you have striditis and you have a million things floating around in your head that you feel like are so critical that you have to get to right now. The last thing you want to do is put failure on yourself for not being able to do it all. Because be real. How long would it actually Take you to to get every single thing on your to do list done. Now I want you to take that number that's coming up in your head, the amount of hours and I want you to at least double it because you know, we, we're bad at estimating how long things take. Okay. We think we can really quickly call into our credit card and inquire about a charge that we don't recognize. And It'll take us 20 minutes. No, there's going to be a wait. It's going to be at least 45 minutes on hold. Okay, so you want to at least double that number. Do you have that many hours in your day? No. No one does. Okay, so give yourself a break. The other thing you can do is just pick three things on that list that are must dos today. Only three things. And if you want to, if there are a lot of important things on that list, you can pick three other nice to haves. Those are bonus points. But you don't get to touch them until you get your three must do's done today. Sultan, perhaps sleeping a little less so you're tired in the morning should help in curing. Should I just. No, no, no, no. Being tired and actually lack of sleep. So here's something interesting about our brains, the rest of our bodies and I'm going to completely butcher the scientific language here. So I'm not even going to touch it. The rest of our body has a system to get rid of waste, to get rid of dead cells, to get rid of damaged cells. All that stuff our brain does not. The brain can only clean up, can only clean house, can only get rid of damaged cells and old cells when you're sleeping. Okay, so imagine having should itis and having to have all your thoughts work around piles of junked out cells in your brain. It doesn't work. But I appreciate the thought and terrible advice. I'm just saying that Kishav, I hope I'm pronouncing your name correctly. Hi Katie. Good evening, watching from India. Oh thank you for tuning in From India. Hello to that side of the world and Sultan. And then we get into this rabbit hole of comparing ourselves with others on how much they, how much, how many things they get done and then boom. Yeah, should itis and compareitis are two sides of the same coin. We think that everyone else is killing it and getting all this stuff done. We are only seeing their social media lives. That's it. That's really all we're seeing. We're not seeing all the things that they're leaving on the side, we're not seeing the inside of their closets. I can tell you, the inside of my closet, it's just shoved full of stuff that I just can't deal with. And you know what? As CEO of my own life, I get to make that. Okay. That is fine. And LinkedIn user, I think you have your privacy settings so that I can't see your name, or at least other people can't see your name. You said. Hi, Katie. This is amazing. I'm a law graduate in the UK and I want to start an Instagram page to document my progress on qualifying as a solicitor. I have no idea where to start or how to make posts online. And I want to start a podcast, too. Any recommendations? I have so many ideas in my head that I want to do and I get stuck on how to start them. Okay, so LinkedIn user, I don't have your name because of the privacy settings, but here is my advice. What is the end goal? You know, starting an Instagram page and a podcast. Those, I mean, they seem like they could be pretty easy, but they take a lot of time. What is the end goal? Are you looking to build up your credibility so that you get clients right away? Are you wanting to. Gosh, I don't know. Are you going to get referrals for people signing up to become solicitors themselves? I don't want you focusing your energy on anything that isn't going to ultimately make you money. Okay. Unless you're independently wealthy and you just want to, you know, have some fun, you know, and if that's the case, then hit me up. I'd love to help you with that, but here's. Here's what I want you to think about. Who, what are you trying to enroll people into? How are you going to make that money? And who is your ideal client? And where do they hang out? So that's going to help you decide which one to focus on. Instagram or a podcast or even LinkedIn, because I see you're on LinkedIn. And then also, what are the problems that they face every day? And that's really going to be your content. What are the problems that they face that is going to make them need you? Because if you can talk to them on that level, they're going to lean in and pay attention, and you're going to be the first person they reach out to when they need a solicitor. If that's what. If that's the end goal. But it's really hard to give advice if I don't Know the end goal, Sultan Angeli. Ask your fellow qualifying solicitors. Oh, Angeli. Okay, cool. On what their burning questions are and you can start posting about it. Yeah, great advice. You want to absolutely speak to the problems that your clients have. And it's weird that Sultan can see your name and I can't. Ian Walker. Hey, Katie. Finally managed to catch you live. I know. I normally go late. Welcome. Good to see you. What else about Shoditis? So Shoditis, when you. When you're overwhelmed. When you're overwhelmed and you have a million things on your mind of what you should be getting done, you lose the ability to prioritize. Everything feels critical. Everything. So again, I can't stress this enough. I don't want you spending any time on stuff that isn't going to bring in more money for your business. And when I say more money, I mean getting new clients. So building awareness for your business. Everyone should be doing one thing every day at least to build awareness for your business and your brand. Okay. That is a non negotiable. It's one of the reasons that I post on LinkedIn every day. It's one of the reasons I go live so often. It is my non negotiable. So bring in new business. And then of course, you want to maintain the business that you already have. You want to make sure that your clients are really well taken care of, which means you want to then focus on your current clients. Those are your top two priorities. Everything else, unless you're about to be arrested for tax evasion and your credit cards have a lot of fraud on them and you have to deal with that, all other emergencies are secondary to those things. An emergency that, I mean, like the things that you feel are critical and you have to get back to this person right away, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, it is almost 11. I haven't had breakfast, so I'm going to go do that. Thank you all for joining me this morning and I would love if this was useful to you and you now have new perspective on what you should be spending your time on. I would love in the comments if you would share with us what you're focusing on today. We could get a little accountability going and I will check back in the comments this evening and ask you how you did on those things. Anyway, that's all from me today. I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and leadership coach. I hope you have a wonderful day and I will talk to you tomorrow. Bye.