Millennial Tips, Tricks and Hacks To Crushing It!

Entrepreneurs and executives today have more on their plate than ever before. We all know that feeling when you’re absolutely crushing it. It’s that feeling when you have a million great ideas racing through you head and your fingers can’t seem to type fast enough. You finally hit send, feeling like a million bucks and look at you, you even finished early.

BUT…

What about about those times where you just feel… Stuck. You’ve got no idea where to go and somehow find anything and everything to do except for what you need completed.

How do we get into the zone more often? What causes us to feel motivated? Stressed? Excited? Anxious?

Fear no more – Here are 5 steps to getting more sh*t done and feeling better about yourself.

📝 Make A List

Ever get that feeling like you’re forgetting something? It’s because you didn’t write it down! Lists do not work for everyone but if you’ve never tried it (and I mean truly committing to one), how can you know for sure? Thankfully, making a list that syncs across all your devices is easier than ever before. The first step to getting more stuff done is knowing what you have to get done!

• Evernote – The Best Note Taking App, is an awesome way to keep track of everything on your mind, no matter what device you’re on. It’s a pretty popular one but in case you haven’t heard of it, your welcome.
• Slack – One of the most common messaging apps around town with a ton of functionality built in. Did you know you can type ‘/remind [person] [what] [when]’? A great way to make sure nothing slips through the cracks. /remind me to get more coffee in an hour ☕️
• Alexa + Todoist – Alexa add buy coffee to my to-do list. For the fancy ones in the room, just have a bot do it for you.

Pro Tip – Don’t leave anything out! If you haven’t called Sarah back in weeks and it’s weighing on your mind, jot down.

✅ Prioritize

Now that you know everything you need to get done, it’s time to start adding some due dates and priority levels to each. As you continue to add to the list, start adding some notes to each item: How long will it take you? How many steps are there? Including these notes will prevent you from trying to squeeze 2 hours of work into your coffee break.

• Trello -There’s only product here for a reason. It’s been around for a while and renowned for its customization. Color coding, due dates, checklists, team members… The possibilities are endless with Trello; whether it’s personal or for work. The goal is to keep your board simple so it’s easy to review at a glance.

Pro Tip – Be realistic! You’re not a superhero and you need to eat and sleep. Pretending that you’ll be awake for 22 hours of the day and producing at your highest level isn’t realistic.

👉 Delegate

Knowing what you are and are not good at is crucial for a business owner. It requires you to be brutally honest with yourself and often leads to one conclusion – GET HELP! Have you ever had a friend who’s said, ‘Seriously, anything you need help with, just let me know!’ Well, time to call in a few favors.

At some point, your friend will grow tired of being paid in chicken wings so you’ll need some real help.

• UpWork – A great option for short term needs while you figure out what kind of help you really need. The reviews are great and they have freelancers available at any rate you can afford.
• Fiverr – Speaking of rates, Fiverr was created with the idea of letting freelancers set their own rates, as low as $5.

Pro Tip – Automate it! Don’t forget there are tons of apps out there that can do a lot of work on your behalf. Ask yourself, can a bot do this for me?

⏰ Timebox It

Now you know exactly what to do, how long it should take, the steps involved and the best part is — it’s what you’re good at! Toss on your favorite Spotify Playlist and get to work. The key here is to set boundaries. If you only budgeted 2 hours, then bust your tail to get it done in 2 hours! The more you let tasks overtake your day, the more lost you’ll feel tomorrow.

• Timer – No fancy app needed, odds are your smartphone already has this built in. Set a timer and when the bell rings, it’s pencils down.
• Timeluar -A new IOT device that allows you to effortless track where you are spending your time and on what.

Pro Tip – Routines are great, but only if they are healthy and helpful. Try experimenting with different activities before working to see what boosts your mood. I prefer a quick jog around the block and a big slice of avocado toast #millennial

📌 Review

Add this to your to-do list. You can’t ever get better if you don’t know how you did… And you’ll never do this if it’s not on your to-do list (reference Step 1 👆). Like most things in life, the first time is going to feel odd. The key is to reflect on what you did, how you felt and if you tried anything new that helped.

Was it the time of day? Where you did it? Who you were around?

• Weekly Action Planner – While this is a planner, it’s unique in the fact that it makes you account for how each task makes you feel: Energized, Neutral or Drained. BestSelf Co.’s notepad can be used to review how each item on your to-do list impacted your mood.

Pro Tip – Taking a minute to think about how different activities make you feel is important. These insights can then help you test out unique ways of structuring your day, based on the types of tasks your working on.

👋 Ask For Help

One of the toughest part of being an entrepreneur is being confident enough to lead a team and humble enough to understand your unknown unknowns; and when to look for help. Sometimes it’s hard to see through the fog of unchartered waters, and if you are not sure what direction your ship is heading in – Find someone who’s been there before and reach out!

Don’t worry, we won’t leave you high and dry:

• GrowthMentor – Growthmentor offers a solution no matter your need or budget. They connect business owners with startup, marketing, and technology experts from around the world. Getting on a call is quick and easy. You can schedule a chat in 15-minute increments, so you can jump on with a quick question or talk through a big project.
• Matt Lo – ChipBot founder is always on Twitter and enjoys helping companies of all shapes and sizes. If you need someone to double-check your strategy – He’s your guy.
• Matt Mroczek (me) – LinkedIn is where you can find me and I’m always happy to grab a coffee or jump on a video call to hear what you’re working on.

Pro Tip – A timeless quote is to ‘Be careful who you take advice from, you might end up just like them’ and that couldn’t be more true today.

🤔 Final Thoughts

Some of these steps might not seem revolutionary, but that doesn’t matter. The goal is to get you on the right path and give you some modern tools that make life a bit easier. Everyone is different, the key is getting into a rhythm that works for you.

What’s the point here?

Before working on ChipBot, the struggle of designing and managing websites was challenging. Beyond that, managing customer support was more work than I could have ever anticipated. ChipBot does two things incredibly well:

• Browsing a website – Giving users the content they are looking for, no matter what page they are on. Think of it as an interactive FAQ
• Optimizing a website – Curious to know what content users are looking for on your site? ChipBot offers insight into your user’s behavior and actionable data on what to do next.

For the past 6 years, I’ve been helping business owners better understand their users. When the opportunity to work at ChipBot arose (and boy was it fast!), I saw it as a chance to scale my passion. Before coming on board with ChipBot, I was first a customer. What I found was it was saving me tons of time with clear, actionable feedback and data. If you have a website, you’re leaving data on the table by not having a bot working for you. This was a task I was happy to outsource to a bot and now, reviewing user behavior and website data is actually kind of fun 😊