The most challenging part of owning
a small business is maintaining a high level of motivation and drive at all
times. There is no drill sergeant
breathing down your neck to get things done. (This is also one of the perks of
having a small business.) But most of us occasionally need that person that is
going to push us to do more. We need that person to put the fear of god in us. To
convince us that if we don’t get out of bed early and work late then god will
rain down hellfire and brimstone on the face of our souls.
Having a daily routine seems to be
the most effective way to fight off these occasional lulls in enthusiasm. Having
a certain time in the morning to be out the door, a certain amount of time to
spend at work or a certain time to get to the gym helps. We first tried setting
goals for the day. This ended up as a bad idea as the disappointment of missing
those goals and in some cases not even getting close to completing them ended
up being counterproductive to the motivation levels.
We say all this because the month
of January really threw off our daily routine and caused delays in a few of our
projects. Initially we had 2 trips to Illinois dealing with family matters and
just as things were getting back to normal in Georgia a tornado decided to
throw us off again. Unfortunately we
have some experience in dealing with the aftermath of a tornado and have been
able to get things back to normal relatively quickly. Let’s hope the problems
of January are long gone now and February will allow us to get back into a
routine so we can get some projects done.
