30 DayProductivityKickstart

30-Day Productivity Kick Start™
6 Simple Steps to
Getting over Overwhelm and
Finding Peace through Productivity
NOTICE:
You DO NOT have the right to reprint or

resell this information!
You also MAY NOT give away, sell, or

share the content herein.
If you obtained this lesson from anywhere other than

Monique Y. Wells or GettingOverOverwhelm.com, then you have a
pirated copy.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this lesson may be reproduced or transmitted in any
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DISCLAIMER AND/OR LEGAL NOTICES:

The information presented herein represents the view of the author as of the date of
publication. The author reserves the right to alter and update her opinion based on new
market conditions or other information.
© 2013 Monique Y. Wells

www.gettingoveroverwhelm.com
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Table of Contents
Introduction 4
The System 17
Step 1. Background Check 19
Step 2. Your Three Most Important Projects 25
Step 3. Your “Other” Projects 30
Step 4. Getting Rid of “Dead-weight” Projects 32
Step 5. Identifying Potential Sources of Overwhelm in

Your Projects 37
Step 6. Creating a Plan to Combat Your Overwhelm 42
Tips for Success 46
Peace through Productivity: Next Steps 48
Appendix 49
Marketing: A Common Source of Overwhelm 70

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Introduction
Are you sick and tired of the stress and anxiety that come from
feeling that you are not getting enough done in your business,
even though all you do is work?
Do you feel that everything needs to be done at once, but at the

same time, know that you will never be able to finish because
there is simply too much to do?
Are you unhappy because work is constantly interfering with life

at home?
These are some of the classic symptoms of "OVERWHELM" that

many solopreneurs struggle with every day.
If you are dreaming of the day when you can feel more focused,
consistently work on the priorities that will give you the greatest
success, better serve your clients, and grow your business with
ease, grace, and faith, then I congratulate you on choosing to

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take advantage of the 30-Day Productivity Kick Start™! This
tried-and-true system will empower you to become more
productive in your business so you can enjoy:
• Less stress
• More income
• Greater personal and professional growth
• Improved life balance
These are the outcomes that will provide you with peace of mind
in your business. When you master the system, you’ll find peace
through productivity!
I used to struggle with overwhelm just

like you, until I harnessed the incredible
power of a secret that allowed me to
control and then eliminate it.
I’m Monique Y. Wells, your mentor and

creator of the 30-Day Productivity Kick
Start™ system. I have designed it
specifically for you – the passionate,
high-achieving, over 40, overcommitted woman solopreneur. (Don’t
worry guys – I work with men too!) I can totally relate to why you
can feel overwhelmed during the workday because I am one of you
and I have experienced your problems and challenges myself! Let
me share my story with you:
I own a consulting service that I run alone and a travel planning

service called Discover Paris! that I run with my husband Tom.
Both are full-time businesses.

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A few years ago, with the onset of the recession of the late
2000s, Tom and I realized that word-of-mouth referrals and
writing a monthly newsletter were no longer sufficient to
successfully market Discover Paris! services. We had just
published Tom’s book, which was compiled from a selection of our
DP! newsletters, and thought that promoting the book would help
with the promotion of the business. But I quickly realized that
promoting the book was like promoting a separate business.
Did I mention that I volunteered to take on the responsibility for

the marketing and promotion of the book?
For months, I struggled with how to handle this effectively, while

keeping up with my consulting business and my other obligations
for Discover Paris! I took an online training course on how to use
social media so that I wouldn’t lose time floundering on Facebook
and Twitter. I began following Internet “gurus” and “experts” to
learn more about marketing, and quickly fell into the trap of
trying to attend every free teleclass and Webinar offered on-
line. Yet I never implemented anything that I learned from these
marketing sessions.
I was trying to do everything all at once, including running a non-

profit organization in addition to my two “for-profit” businesses!
On top of it all, I was especially leery of outsourcing – hiring a
virtual assistant to help me – because after all, “No one else has
the high standards for my businesses that I have.”
Does any of this sound familiar to you? Do you see elements of

your life and your business in my story?

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I was suffering from what I call the
“Wonder Woman Syndrome” – trying
to be all and do all in your business,
and believing that you can get
everything right the first time. This
is a classic recipe for overwhelm!
I’ll bet you won’t be surprised about

what I’m going to tell you next . . .
I found that life wasn’t fun anymore, that I was chronically tired,
and that I was growing resentful of Tom, who would only
occasionally contribute to the marketing effort (that I
volunteered for) before retreating into his “safe haven” of
creating content and serving clients. I even began feeling
physical effects due to the overwhelm of this self-imposed
overcommitment – I developed mucus in my throat that would not
clear, and a pulling sensation at the back of my head that
extended down into my neck and shoulder. In short, I was
miserable!
Here’s what finally happened to help me turn the corner:
I watched a training video by business mastery expert

Brian Tracy and I heard him say the following words that
revealed the secret that were the beginning of getting over my
overwhelm:
“When the market is contracting, go back to your core business

and your core competencies.

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“Ask yourself the following – ‘Knowing what I now know, what am
I doing that I would not have begun to do?’ Identify those
things and pull out of them as quickly as possible!”
It took listening to these words and

reading them in the notes that I made
several times before the proverbial
“light bulb” went off in my head. But
once it did, I wrote out all of the goals
for my businesses, I looked at all the
projects that I had outlined for
myself, and I got busy crossing things
off. As quickly as I could, I reduced
or eliminated from my daily activities the projects and tasks that
were not completely aligned with my goals.
It took some time, but the results were astounding! The pulling
at my head disappeared, the mucus cleared from my throat, and I
found energy again. My new, reduced workload was more focused
and more manageable, which made me happier and more relaxed.
I began to focus attention on how to get Tom to share
incrementally in the marketing responsibilities for his book and
Discover Paris! – with good success! Furthermore, we are now
converting more leads into clients because of our sharper focus
on our core competencies.
Similar results are possible for you if you embrace the secret
and make the following statement your motto for doing business:
Achieve more by doing less!

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Doesn’t that sound inviting? Believe me, it’s possible – I’m living
proof of it! But there are some common roadblocks that you may
face in getting over your particular overwhelm that I want to
expose to you right away so that you can identify them and move
past them. I experienced these too, and I can testify that you
can conquer them as long as you can recognize them.
1) We women solopreneurs are too hard on ourselves! We want

to be “perfect,” so the first time that we stray from our
set path to improvement, we feel dejected and hopeless,
and we abandon the entire idea.
2) We assume that tips and tools are enough to change

longstanding habits, when in fact we need to look at why we
behave the way we do to effect meaningful change.
3) We don’t have a clear path to follow to begin with! Either

we haven’t set proper goals for our businesses or we’ve lost
sight of them. (In this case, using tips and tools to deal with
the challenges that lead to overwhelm is like patching a hole
in the side of a ship that has a damaged captain’s wheel . . .
we may get ourselves moving, but we aren’t in control of
where we are going!)

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4) We’ve heard the expression “Time is money,” and believe
that if we can increase the amount of work done in a given
amount of time, then we will make more money. We don’t
stop to think that if we are working on something that is not
important with regard to the advancement of our business
goals, then we are not likely to make more money.
=
5) We are not aware of how we use our time, often asking
ourselves at the end of the day “Where did the time go?”
and genuinely not knowing the answer to this simple, yet
fundamental question. We must learn to master how we use
time during the day to make any progress in our businesses.
Now I know that you may be thinking, “Well, she did it, but I
don’t know if I can . . . .” I’m here to tell you that you can get
over overwhelm and blaze a path to prosperity and peace of mind
– with the 30-Day Productivity Kick Start™ system!
Let me share with you some of the results that you can expect to
achieve in working with me:

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No matter where you are in your business, it’s easy to fall prey to
overwhelm. Reaching a point at which the growing pains in my business
had become an issue, I was grateful to participate in Dr. Monique
Wells’ refreshing program, Getting
over Overwhelm. Initially concerned
that I might just be adding to my
overflowing plate, the ease of Dr.
Wells’ program was the right next
step for me — not overwhelming in
the least. Not only did I become more
aware of where I was losing time in
my business, her strategies helped me
fine-tune my processes to achieve
more, by doing less.
Dr. Shannon Reece

“The One Trusted Woman in a Man’s Business World”
*******
I was fortunate enough to obtain the advice and guidance of Dr.

Monique Y. Wells with regard to a special project that I kept locked in
my dreams and head for many years.
I knew in my heart that this project would be

a huge undertaking and would require due
diligence on my part. Instead of accepting
this fact, I let fear paralyze me and fill my
head with self-doubt and excuses as to why I
could never achieve this goal.
Monique talked me through the fears and

taught me the importance of owning the time
I have by planning, prioritizing and focusing
on my goals.

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Although I would have loved to finish this project in a day, Monique
explained to me that I needed to spend most of my time dealing with
things that are important, but not urgent and that working on my
project over a period of time would allow me to advance towards my
goals. She helped me to visualize the project in bite size pieces,
building my confidence as each piece was completed.
I admit that there were times that I almost scrapped my project but
I would hear Monique say “We are the masters of our time; we are the
masters of our destiny”.
Monique has truly inspired me to pursue my dreams and I can say

without hesitation that Dr. Monique Y. Wells is truly the “Paris Muse
of Time Management”.
Debbie Tremblay
“The Organizing Genie”
*******
Marketing coach Tim Paulson suggested

that I contact Monique when I needed
direction in starting a business and felt
overwhelmed about the process. After an
engaging meeting with her during a recent
trip to Paris and researching her online, I
decided to work with her. Monique helped
me articulate specific goals, sharpen my
focus on what I need to do to accomplish
my goals, and establish a thought process
for deciding what to do first to move
toward them. Using her six-step system, I
was able to craft an elevator speech, narrow my target audience, and
begin evaluating how to incorporate virtual assistant services into my
business. I have set a target date for my most important goal and am
moving forward with a feeling of hope and confidence that I can
achieve it.

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If you want an honest, professional, knowledgeable, and considerate
mentor who cares about your progress, Monique will serve you well!
John Battistoni
“The Master of Empowering Mindset”
*******
Now before we go on to explore

the 30-Day Productivity Kick
Start™ system, I want to dispel a
few myths for you. Just like the
roadblocks that I discussed earlier
in this chapter, I want you to see
these myths for what they are, and
think about how they may play a
role in your business. Only after you identify them can you begin
to tackle them and eliminate them from your behavior patterns as
you work.
Myth #1) Women are supposed to be available to everyone 24/7
In the entrepreneurial environment, this primarily means that we

are supposed to be available to our clients whenever they “need”
us. Our clients have no idea of what we need to do each day to
keep our businesses running smoothly, let alone thrive. All they
know is that they have a question or a problem and they want an
answer – now, or as soon as possible. We often perceive what
they want as a “need,” and act accordingly.
When we drop everything that we are doing to answer client

questions or deal with their problems, we are committing to doing
something that is often not among the most important tasks and

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activities that we should be attending to that day. We either add
this activity to our schedule while maintaining everything that is
already there, or we push something aside. If this happens once
in a while, it may not be a problem. But if it happens regularly, we
rapidly become “slaves” to the desires of our clients and lose
control of our time and our productivity.
Unless the client’s request is time sensitive, we should resist the

urge to respond immediately and program the request into our
schedules, communicating clearly with the client as to when he or
she can expect a reply.
Myth #2) Women are supposed to finish what they start
This may actually be a value that parents instill in their sons as

well as their daughters, but I sense that women are more earnest
and serious about this than men. Somehow, we feel that we are
failing ourselves or others if we take on a project and then fail to
complete it. What this attitude does not take into account is
that we may have made a mistake by taking the project on in the
first place, or that over time, the project may no longer advance
us toward our goals.
Under these circumstances, there is no harm or shame in

abandoning a project. But many of us labor on, postponing the
project at best, or spending time on it that would be better spent
on other activities at worst. This, in addition to working on the
new projects that we accept and the on-going projects that may
be better suited to our business goals, causes overload of our
schedules. The overload leads to unnecessary stress, and
eventually, to overwhelm.

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Myth #3) Women are supposed to make “family” their top
priority
How could any self-respecting woman place anything in front of

family as a priority? This question is laden with preconceived
notions about the role of women in the home and in society. We
are the primary caregivers – many times the only caregivers – for
our children, and this has to come first, right?
I submit that women need to place their own health and well-
being – mental and emotional as well as physical – before anything
else in life. How can we be the best that we can be for our
partners and our children if we are chronically fatigued and guilt-
ridden because we are trying to simultaneously juggle
responsibilities for our families and our businesses?
I believe that second and third in order of priority should be

family and work. But this does not mean that family always
trumps work. As with anything in life, there are times when the
preferred order of things is simply not possible to achieve.
Especially for women working alone, career may need to take
priority in the short or medium term. What is important in these
cases is that we assess what the impact of these situations is on
the family, communicate effectively about it within the family,
and work through things together. If we consistently let guilt or
outside opinions lead us to attempt to give equal time to family
and career during such difficult times, we simply add physical
stress and emotional tension to our lives and adversely affect our
performance at home and in our businesses. This does not work
out well for anyone concerned.

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What’s the bottom line? We women should recognize the
tendencies that we have to react to situations as I have outlined
above, and be vigorous about curbing these tendencies to avoid
overwhelm due to overcommitment. It is difficult to reprogram
long-ingrained behaviors, but we have a vested interest in doing
so – for ourselves, our families, and our businesses!

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The System
The 30-Day Productivity Kick Start™ system is a simple,
reproducible system to help women solopreneurs like you and me
to
• get over overwhelm,
• regain a sense of control over our workday
• increase productivity and
• move swiftly toward achieving prosperity and peace of mind
in business
Over the next 30 days, I’ll show you how to "clear your decks" of
low-value projects and activities, better manage the high-value
projects that remain – which, by the way, will lead to increased
productivity and increased revenue – and achieve better life
balance by eliminating the stress and guilt that come with the
feeling that you need to choose between working and spending
time with family and friends. You will learn to embrace the
mindset that I mentioned in the introduction and that I live my
entire life by today:
Achieve more by doing less!
In adopting and implementing this groundbreaking mindset, you’ll

change your business and your life quickly and permanently!
Here is a bird’s eye view of

what we’ll be doing in the
system:

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Warm-up
Step 1) Background check (Day 1)
Preparation
Step 2) Identify and evaluate the 3 most important projects
that you are working on right now. (Day 2)
Step 3) List and evaluate the remaining projects on your list.

(Day 3)
Implementation
Step 4) Identify the projects from Steps 2 and 3 that are dead-
weight projects and make plans to pull out of them as soon as
possible. (Days 3-7)
Step 5) Evaluate the truly important projects that remain for

elements that may lead to overwhelm. (Days 8-22)
Step 6) Select the most important cause of overwhelm in them

and create a plan to overcome it. (Days 23-30)
These steps are designed to help you carefully and deliberately

set or revisit your company’s goals and employ good productivity
practices to achieve those goals.
By the end of the program, you’ll have a newly reduced workload;

a list of laser-focused, high-value projects; and a feeling of power
due to your mastery of the major causes of overwhelm that you
face each day. You’ll have the pride and pleasure of watching
your business emerge from the shadows of overwhelm and bloom
in the bright sunshine of efficiency, effectiveness, and
productivity! And you’ll have the peace of mind that results from

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knowing that you’re serving your clients to the best of your
ability, advancing your personal and professional growth, earning
the revenue that will support all of your financial goals, and having
time outside your business to enjoy self-care, leisure time with
family and friends, and any additional projects that motivate you
and bring you pleasure!
No expensive software or fancy charts and graphs are required

to complete this evaluation. All you need are the worksheets that
that you’ll find in the Appendix at the end of this document.
Now that you can see what’s in store for you, let’s dive into the
system.

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Step 1.
Background Check
Time frame – Day 1
Before you can take the steps required to
do less in your business, you need to be
clear about what you want to do, and why.
So what you are going to do first is
perform a “background check” to be sure
that you are crystal clear about what your
business goals are, who you serve, and how
you deliver your product or service.
Business Goals
Exercise 1 (see Appendix for Worksheet 1)

On Worksheet 1, write down ten (10) business goals for the next
twelve (12) months in the present, positive tense.
Important: If you have two or more businesses, select one for
this exercise.
Examples:
I have twenty people in my high-end coaching program.
I’m selling 30 e-books a week.
I book two speaking engagements a month.

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Then, answer the following eight questions:
1) Which of these goals is most important in your business

right now?
2) By when will you achieve this goal?
3) What are the three biggest hurdles that you need to
overcome to achieve it?
4) What additional skills and information do you need to
achieve your goal?
5) Whose help will you need to succeed?
6) Based on your answers to the first five questions, what
are the steps that you need to take to succeed?
7) Which step will you take immediately?
8) How will you measure your success (not only by the end
result, but by increments as well)?
Taking the time to think through what you really want, and what
is most important among the things you want, is critical to your
success. This is called “prioritization” and lack of it was the most
frequently cited reason for overwhelm in a survey that I
conducted among women solopreneurs.
Who Do You Serve?
Everybody knows the importance of

identifying and communicating effectively with
your target market – your niche. Your
business is doomed to flounder, or even fail, if
you don’t focus on this!

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Are you serving the market that you originally intended to serve?
Or has your niche market shifted before your eyes? If it has,
are you aware of it? Here’s an example of what I mean:
My husband Tom’s and my business – Discover Paris! – began as a

company that served individuals, couples, and small groups (up to
6 persons). After the Second Gulf War, our clientele seemed to
change overnight. We began getting lots more requests from
larger groups. We resisted this at first, saying that larger
groups were not our target market.
But finally, we realized that we had developed a new target

market (without actively trying), and that the original target
market was declining. We had to decide if we wanted this new
target market, and if we were going to alter our business to
accommodate it.
Exercise 2
In the space provided on Worksheet 1, write down who it is that
you serve with your products and / or services. If you have
subniches, write these down as well.
Important: If you have subniches within your niche, select one

for this exercise.
Answer the following questions:

1) Is your niche aligned with your business goals?
For example, is your niche capable of paying you the fees
that will allow you to reach your revenue goal?
2) Did you begin your business to serve one niche (ex.
entrepreneurs), but find that you are serving another one
(ex. corporate executives) instead?

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3) If you find that there is incoherence between your niche
and your goals, which are you going to change?
How Do You Deliver?
Do you sell products? Maintain an

inventory? Need to deal with distribution
and accepting returns of physical objects?
Or are your products delivered digitally

online?
Do you sell programs or services? Are they delivered live or

virtually (virtual assistance, teleseminars, Webinars, online
courses)?
How are these aligned with your niche?
When Discover Paris! found that we had a new niche consisting of

larger groups, we saw that our signature itineraries delivered as a
personalized guidebook (a product) no longer worked.
Once we decided that we accepted this new niche, we developed

private, guided walking tours to accommodate it. Happily, we
found that these tours also accommodated our original niche, so
this turned out to be an extra advantage for our business.
We also developed a bus tour to accommodate our new niche. But

we didn’t like this method of delivering our service, so we
abandoned it for a time. We’ve recently resurrected it in a
slightly altered format and now sell it as a premium service.

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Exercise 3:
In the space provided on Worksheet 1, answer the following
questions:
1) Is your service generating products?
2) Does your product create a demand for you to also provide a
service?
3) How are these products and services serving your niche?
4) Is your delivery method for these products and services
serving your niche?
Working through these three exercises should take you no more

than an hour or so. But if you are not clear on how to answer any
of the questions about your goals, who you serve, or what you
deliver and how you deliver it, you may need considerably more
time to generate satisfactory responses.
I strongly recommend that you take the time to think through

and answer these questions before proceeding to Step 2 of the
program. Think of this as a practice run for responding to the
questions that you’ll be answering throughout the program. Your
honest answers are a prerequisite for your success!
If need be, work through the exercise, put the worksheet aside,
and read your answers the next day to be sure that they truly
represent the current vision that you have for your business.
IMPORTANT: Without clear responses to these questions, your

progress in the program will be limited.

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Step 2.
Your Three Most Important
Projects
Time Frame – Day 2
We begin the preparation phase by identifying the
three most important projects that you are
working on at present and answering the following
questions about them:
1) How are these projects aligned with my business goals?

2) How do they serve my niche?
This is a crucial step, because we cannot begin to decide what you

can eliminate from your project list until we have prioritized it.
You’ll need Worksheet 1 from Step 1 and Worksheets 2-4
(retrieve them from the Appendix) to proceed.
Exercise 4:
On Worksheet 2, write down your projects – those that generate
revenue, those that have the potential to generate revenue, and
those that support your business behind the scenes or are
administrative in nature.
Examples of revenue-generating and potentially revenue-

generating projects include:
– Coaching group
– Membership program

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– Book (print or e-publication)
– Software development
Examples of support/administrative projects include:
– List building activities (on-line businesses)

– Professional development
– Finding a VA or subcontractor
– Bookkeeping
– Invoicing
Once you have created your list, read it over and select the three
projects that you consider to be the most important for your
business today. Next to each of the projects that you select,
write down why they are the most important projects on your list.
Now you’ll need to go to the Appendix to retrieve Worksheets 3

and 4, and you’ll need to refer to the list of goals that you wrote
on Worksheet 1. We’ll use this list to evaluate your projects
regarding how they align with your goals.
Exercise 5:
On Worksheet 3, write your three most important projects in
Column 1. Then write down the goal(s) that each project serves in
Column 2. Be as specific as you can in what you write in Column 2.
Exercise 6:
On Worksheet 4, write your three most important projects in
Column 1. Then write down how each project serves your niche in
Column 2. Be as specific as you can in what you write in Column 2.

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Here’s a case study to help you with these exercises:
Lana is a woman solopreneur who has just started a business to

help physicians who want to leave medical practice and open a
non-medical business. Her most important goal is to find where
she can readily access her niche market. Other top goals include
making $50,000 (gross) in her first year of business and working
an average of five (5) hours per day, Monday through Friday.
At present, Lana has only one revenue-generating project:
– affiliate marketing for a bestselling e-book that

teaches attorneys how to leave their practices to
start their own businesses
She has two potentially revenue-generating projects:
– video training series on how to begin setting up a

business while working full time
– e-book that teaches physicians how to leave their
practices to start their own businesses
and four support/administrative projects:

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– Online training on how to create great videos
– Searching LinkedIn for physicians and extending
invitations to connect
– Serving as an administrator for an online forum on
paramedic burnout
– Looking for easy-to-use accounting software
Lana considers the following three projects to be most important

to her business today (Worksheet 2):
– Affiliate marketing of attorney e-book

– Creation of e-book that teaches physicians how to
leave their practices to start their own businesses
– Training course on learning to make great videos
Let’s take a look at how well Lana’s three most important projects
align with her business goals (Worksheet 3).
Lana’s only revenue-generating project, the affiliate marketing of

the attorney e-book, is bringing in $1,500 per month for a total
of $18,000 per year. This is well aligned with her goal of earning
$50,000 in her first year of business.
Lana estimates that her potentially revenue-generating project –

creation of an e-book that teaches physicians how to leave their
practices to start their own businesses – will bring in $2,000 per
month for a total of $24,000 per year. This, along with the
affiliate marketing of the attorney e-book will bring in $42,000
per year. So this project is also well aligned with her monetary
goal for the year.

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Lana also listed “learning to create great videos” as one of her
most important projects. This project supports the potential
revenue-generating project for creating a video series. But the
video series itself is not among Lana’s self-defined, most
important projects, so this would be a project that Lana should
consider reprioritizing. Looking for easy-to-use accounting
software would be a better fit for her “three-most-important”
list, since using this software would presumably save her time,
thus contributing to her goal of working a 25-hour week.
Now let’s move to Worksheet 4, where Lana is evaluating how well

her three most important projects align with her niche market.
When we look at her revenue-generating project - affiliate

marketing of the attorney e-book – we see that the target
market for this e-book is not at all related to Lana’s niche. Given
that this is her only revenue-generating project, the misalignment
raises serious questions about whether she should continue with
this business activity. In contrast, the e-book that she is writing
to teach physicians how to leave their practices to start their
own businesses is directly relevant to her niche.
Looking at the support project for learning to make great videos,

we can see that it is independent of Lana’s niche. She can serve
her physicians by learning to make great videos, but she can serve
any other niche with this technical skill as well.

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Step 3.
Your “Other” Projects
Time Frame – Day 3
To finish our preparation, we’ll look at the

remaining projects on your list (whether they
are active or not) through the same lens that
we used during Step 2 – that is, using the
same questions that we asked for your three
most important projects. Those questions
are:
1) How are these projects aligned with my

business goals?
2) How do they serve my niche?
Remember, we cannot begin to decide what you can eliminate from

your project list until we have prioritized it!
During this step, you’ll need the lists that you created on
Worksheets 1 through 4. Continue to fill out Worksheet 3 with
the remaining projects on Worksheet 2 and write down how they
are aligned with the goals that you have listed on Worksheet 1.
Then do the same with Worksheet 4 and write down how your
projects are aligned with your niche.
Let’s return to Lana to see how she is handling this exercise and
how well her remaining projects align with her business goals.

30
*******
Lana considers that her less important projects are:
– video training series on how to begin setting up a

business while working full time
– Serving as an administrator for an online forum on
paramedic burnout
– Looking for easy-to-use accounting software
She estimates that her video series will bring in $2,000 per
month for a total of $24,000 per year. This is well aligned with
her monetary goal of earning $50,000 in her first year of
business. Finding physicians to connect with on LinkedIn supports
her most important goal of finding where she can readily access
her niche market. Finding easy-to-use accounting software
supports her goal of working 25 hours per week. But serving as
administrator for an online forum for paramedic burnout does not
serves Lana’s business goals.
When we look at these projects and how they align with Lana’s
niche, we see that the video series that she wants to create on
how to start a business while working full time is a relevant topic,
but it not targeted to Lana’s market. Finding physicians to
connect with on LinkedIn is directly relevant to Lana’s niche, but
serving as administrator for an online forum for paramedic
burnout is not. Finally, finding easy-to-use accounting software is
independent of her niche – one could say that it is “niche-neutral.”
What should Lana (and you) do now? We’ll find out in Step 4.

31
Step 4.
Getting rid of “dead-weight”
projects
Time Frame – Days 3-7
In Step 4, we begin the implementation
phase! We’ll look at which projects have
“risen to the top” as your most important
projects and which ones are dead weight for
your business. We’ll then look at how you can
begin to get rid of the dead-weight projects
on your list.
With this evaluation, you’ll discover how powerful not doing

certain things can be for your business – in other words, you’ll
discover how you can achieve more by doing less! You’ll learn
how to release those projects that are not aligned with your goals
or not truly serving your niche.
In Step 2, you looked at your 3 most important projects and

determined which of them are well aligned with your goals and
which ones are not. In Step 3, you looked at your “other”
projects – those that you did not consider to be among the three
most important projects on your list at present. You then
determined which of these projects are well aligned with your
business goals and your niche, and which ones are not.
How many of your important projects are well aligned with your
niche and your business goals? How many of your “other”

32
projects are? It’s time to take out the proverbial
“hatchet” and start chopping away those projects
that are not serving you!
Let’s go back to Lana and see how she handles this.
The first of Lana’s three most important projects –

affiliate marketing for an e-book for attorneys - is
her only revenue-generating project. It is well
aligned with her business goals but is not at all aligned with her
niche. Should she give this project the “hatchet treatment”?
After careful consideration, Lana decides that she should phase

out this project, but only after she launches her physician e-book
and builds sales to approach the level of earnings that she has
achieved with her affiliate marketing blog and other online
activities. This way, she will not drastically upset her income
stream and be forced to make decisions about her business in a
state of desperation over lack of revenue. She also decides to
critically evaluate the attorney e-book for tips, strategies, style
of presentation, etc. that could help her create a better, more
effective e-book for her target market.
The second of Lana’s three most important projects, the

physician e-book, is well aligned with her business goals and her
niche, and therefore can remain on her list. (No “hatchet
treatment” is required.)
The third of the three projects – learning to create great videos

- is more or less neutral. It supports a potentially revenue-
generating project that Lana considers to be “other,” and though
it is not directly relevant to her niche, it can serve to support the

33
niche. Lana will reserve her judgment about this project until
after she evaluates her “other” projects.
Moving to these “other” projects, remember that Lana estimates

that her video series will bring in $2,000 per month for a total of
$24,000 per year. This is well aligned with her monetary goal of
earning $50,000 in her first year of business, but is “niche-
neutral.” Finding physicians to connect with on LinkedIn supports
her most important goal as well as her niche market. Finding
easy-to-use accounting software supports her goal of working 25
hours per week and is “niche-neutral.”
What stands out for Lana is that her activity as

administrator for an online forum for paramedic
burnout serves neither her business goals nor her niche.
This is a prime candidate for the “hatchet treatment” –
it can be cut completely from her list without harm.
Eliminating this activity from her list will provide a
great benefit as well – it will free up several hours that
she spent on the forum per week for other more
relevant activities.
To pull out of this project, Lana informs the creator of the forum
that she will be leaving her post as administrator within the next
two weeks and proposes two persons who contribute regularly to
the forum as possible replacements. She indicates that she will
leave earlier if a replacement can be brought on board before her
two-week notice period is up.
Looking at her list now, Lana sees that she can make searching for
physicians on LinkedIn and extending invitations for them to
connect with her one of her top three priorities, as it is directly

34
aligned with her goals and her niche and will serve as a source of
clients for the e-book that she is preparing and the videos that
she will eventually create. She can begin to build her potential
market now so that she can promote her products more quickly
and effectively once they are released. This will give her the
best opportunity to reach her income goal with both products and
allow her to phase out her affiliate marketing activity for the
attorney e-book sooner than later.
Her three most important projects have now become:

– Affiliate marketing of attorney e-book
– Creation of e-book that teaches physicians how to
leave their practices to start their own businesses
Lana has displaced her online training to create great videos to

her “other” projects list. But it is at the top of that list so that
she can begin implementing what she has learned as soon as
possible. She knows that the sooner she can create her video
series, the sooner she can begin to market it and phase out the
affiliate marketing activity that does not serve her niche.
*******
It’s time for you to act now!
Exercise 7:
Print out Worksheet 5 from the Appendix and write down the
projects from Worksheets 3 and 4 that are not 100% aligned
with your business goals and your niche, respectively. Decide

35
which ones you can eliminate from your list so that you can
liberate precious hours in your work week. Write out your plans
for eliminating these projects. Then look at how you can shift
priorities for your remaining projects so that they better serve
your immediate business goals.
Exercise 8:
Print out Worksheet 6 from the Appendix and create a new
project list that reflects your new priorities. Taking all the
changes you’ve decided to make from the previous exercises,
write down a new list of your three most important projects and
why they are the most important for your business.
NOTE: The question “Why?” is of primary importance in this

exercise. If you cannot answer why the changes you are making
support your business goals and your niche market, STOP what
you are doing and rethink! You do not want to change for change’s
sake alone – every action that you undertake during this program
should be implemented with conscious intention and purpose.

36
Step 5.
Identifying potential sources of
overwhelm in your projects
We are now ready to evaluate your
three “star” projects for elements
that may lead to overwhelm during
your workday. To accomplish this,
we are going to ask some new
questions for each of these three
projects. The questions are:
1) How well do I prioritize what I need to do during the day?

2) How often do I add / accept new projects or tasks during a
given week or month?
3) What external influences most disturb my focus during the
day, and how often?
It is important to answer these questions for each project

because your responses will allow you to see if there are trends
across projects that contribute to being overwhelmed, or if there
is something about an individual project that is the cause. For
example, if you find that you note a tendency to overcommit
yourself by adding projects to your list only while working on
Project B, you can evaluate this project to see what is different
about it compared to Projects A and C and then determine what
about Project B lends itself to encouraging you to take on
additional work. Alternatively, if you find that you consistently

37
allow e-mail and phone calls to distract you, regardless of the
project that you are working on, then you will know that you need
to address this behavior pattern and not look for something
about the projects themselves.
Let’s return to Lana and see how she fares with this exercise.
Lana tries to devote two hours a day to

writing her e-book that teaches physicians
how to leave their practices to start their
own businesses. She knows that she does
her best writing in the morning, but seldom
gets around to working on the book before
mid- to late afternoon. She prefers to
search LinkedIn for physicians in the morning, as it is a “relaxing”
way to start the day.
When she finishes her LinkedIn search, Lana dives into affiliate
marketing for the attorney e-book so that she can be assured of
bringing in revenue that day. She spends 3-4 hours on this,
though she repeatedly vows to limit the time spent to only a
couple of hours per day. She is frequently unaware of how much
time is passing when she works on her marketing.
When Lana gets around to writing her e-book, she is usually tired
from all the work at the computer and finds that her creative
juices are not flowing very well. She tends to respond to e-mails
and phone calls while she is working on the book and finds that
her mind wanders. So she generally gets in about ½ hour of
writing before she decides that she is not making much progress
and puts the book away for the day.

38
When Lana is searching LinkedIn for physicians and extending
invitations to them to connect with her, she is often gets
distracted by looking at the profiles of people who are
intermediate connections between her and the physicians of
interest. Ideally, she would spend ½ hour per day on LinkedIn,
but she wastes up to an additional hour per session looking at the
profiles of non-physicians because “they are so interesting” and
“could be useful someday.” She does not have this problem when
she is working on her e-book because she does not need to use
LinkedIn for this activity, but notes the same tendency when she
needs to search for a particular attorney or group of attorneys
on LinkedIn as part of her affiliate marketing activities. The
additional time that she spends on LinkedIn prolongs her workday.
Because Lana has become known for her success as an affiliate

marketer among attorneys who are seeking to change professions,
she is frequently asked to write guest blog postings and articles
about how to become an affiliate marketer. A couple of months
ago, she accepted an invitation from the blog that is her best
source for e-book sales to write a dedicated advice column for
attorneys who want to transition from law into affiliate
marketing. She welcomes these invitations because she knows
that these activities have great potential for increasing the
revenue that she generates by selling the attorney e-book.
Lana notes in passing that to write these posts and keep up with
her advice column, she needs to work an additional 2 to 3 hours
per day. She enjoys the time spent, but she also recognizes that
she is physically and mentally fatigued when she finishes with this
activity every day. Additionally, the extra time extends her
workday to between 7 and 9 hours, not counting the time that she

39
spends on her “less important” activities. This is far from her
target goal of 5 hours a day.
The combination of the fatigue from the additional time spent on

LinkedIn and affiliate marketing activities and the frustration
that she feels when she is unable to work more than a half-hour
or so per day on her e-book has Lana feeling overwhelmed.
When Lana completes Step 5 of the 30-Day Productivity Kick

Start™ system, here is what she finds:
Project 1. Looking at her most important

project – searching for physicians on
LinkedIn – Lana believes that she has done
a good job of prioritizing it because she
addresses it first every day. She does not
add additional projects or tasks to her list
while doing this. However, she gets
distracted during her searches and wastes up to an hour per day
in “off-target research” on LinkedIn. She ruefully notes that
this does not support her goal of working only five hours per day.
Project 2. Lana notes how much she loves affiliate marketing!

She spends the bulk of her time each day on this activity, and not
just because it is the only activity that generates income. She
loves keeping up with her own blog and reaching out to attorneys
through other blogs, which is why she so readily accepted the
invitations to write guest posts and the advice column. She
realizes that though she appropriately prioritizes affiliate
marketing, she routinely spends more time on it than she allows
for in her daily schedule. She also frequently adds tasks (writing
guest blog posts and articles) and even an occasional project

40
(advice column) to her list when working on this activity. The
extra time that she spends on this project everyday is what
“forces” her work on her own e-book to the bottom of her list.
She notes that she is laser-focused when she works on affiliate
marketing, completely ignoring e-mail and the phone.
Project 3. Regarding writing her e-book, Lana sees that she is not
doing a good job of prioritizing this project because it falls to
the bottom of her list of things to do everyday. She suddenly
realizes that she has not set a deadline to complete the book.
She notes that does not add additional projects or tasks to her
list while working on it, but sees that she is easily distracted by
e-mails, phone calls, and other interruptions while writing. She
faces the fact that weeks have passed and she has only finished
one and a half chapters of her book. Where has the time gone?
Suddenly, the “P” word pops into her mind – she is procrastinating
regarding the creation of her e-book!
*******
Use Lana’s example to complete Exercise 9 below. Observe your

behavior and track your time for each activity you engage in over
the next several days as you work through it. When you finish,
see if you can spot any trends. Often, you will find that your
overwhelm stems from one or more behavior patterns that you
manifest with all of your projects.
Exercise 9:
Print out Worksheet 7 from the Appendix. Answer the questions
and track your time for each of your three most important
projects there.

41
Step 6.
Creating a plan to combat your
overwhelm
We have now reached the final step in the 30-
Day Productivity Kick Start™ system! Our goal
with this step is to identify the single greatest
cause of overwhelm in your business and create a
plan to overcome it. Once this plan is in place,
you’ll implement it in increments, not taking on too
much at a single time so that you avoid getting
discouraged and giving up before you’ve even had
a chance to begin!
Lana’s example will help us. Let’s see what happens when she
completes Step 6 of the system.
Lana concludes that her most important source of overwhelm

comes from her affiliate marketing activities. The extra hours
that she spends on her guest blog postings and the advice column
add too much time to her workday and prevent her from making
progress on her physician e-book. Her overcommitment to
affiliate marketing is preventing her from acting on her
commitment to phase out this project (which she decided to do in
Step 4) – she needs to launch her physician e-book and builds
sales to approach the level of earnings that she has achieved with
her affiliate marketing to do so.

42
Lana sees that the other sources of overwhelm in her business
stem from failure to prioritize her physician e-book appropriately
(procrastination), the external distractions of e-mail and phone
calls during her writing sessions, and her “roving eye” during her
LinkedIn sessions (an “internal” external distraction). She has
some ideas about how to solve these problems that she can
implement quickly. But she understands that if she is really going
to get her business onto the path that she envisions, she needs to
deal with the “elephant in the room” – her habits concerning
affiliate marketing – first.
Lana pulls out Worksheet 8 and boldly circles “overcommitment”

as her biggest source of overwhelm. She takes some time to
think about why she overcommits when it comes to her affiliate
marketing project and realizes that it is because she is so
passionate about this activity. Looking at each task that she
performs for affiliate marketing, she comes up with the following
plan:
1) Lana understands that part of the

problem is that she does not notice
the passage of time when she works
on her core tasks for affiliate
marketing, so she decides to set a
timer when she begins this activity
and vows to stop when the timer goes off. She commits to
implementing this simple corrective measure immediately so
that she can recover 1-2 hours in every workday.
2) She informs her blogger colleagues that she is no longer
able to provide guest postings and articles for them, but
assures them that she will complete the pieces that she has
not yet submitted. She estimates that she’ll be able to

43
create all postings and articles within the next four weeks,
and commits to writing them during the 1-2 hours that she
saves because she is now setting the timer to limit her core
affiliate marketing activities.
3) She (sadly) informs the members of her advice column that
she will shut down the column effective immediately, and
that she will provide any outstanding information promised
to advice seekers off line within the week.
Lana notes that she will be able to see results right away by
setting her timer, which will give her the positive reinforcement
and the confidence to implement the other elements of her plan.
With implementation of the second and third parts of the plan,
she will reclaim 3 to 5 hours every day in just a month’s time!
These additional hours will not only move Lana toward her goal of
working a 5-hour day, but also give her time and motivation to
create and implement a plan to address her second cause of
overwhelm – procrastination regarding writing her e-book. When
she has tackled that source of overwhelm, she can look at the
final cause that she has identified – being distracted by
extraneous LinkedIn profiles, e-mail, and phone calls.
*******
Now that you can see what is possible for you in your business, I
know that you can’t wait to complete Exercise 10!
Exercise 10.
Print out Worksheet 8 from the Appendix and circle your
greatest cause of overwhelm. If you find that your cause is
something other than poor prioritization, overcommitment of
time, or external distractions, write it into the space provided

44
next to the word “Other.” Examples include failure to delegate /
outsource, poor planning, and poor organization of workspace.
(Lana could have entered “procrastination” in this space.) Then,
looking carefully at the behavior pattern(s) that you are
manifesting as part of this cause of overwhelm, think about how
you can go about changing it / them.
If you are feeling overwhelmed by this prospect, I want you to

know that you are not alone! Be assured that half the battle is
already won because you are actively thinking about this. The
other half comes with reflection, a little help from tips and tools,
support from others like you, and most importantly, the
determination to succeed.

45
Tips for Success
While you are working through the 30-Day Productivity Kick
Start™ system, I want you to remember three critical tips that
will help you throughout the process and beyond. They will keep
you moving even on those difficult days when nothing seems to be
going right and you wonder if you’ll ever make it through.
The first tip is:
PROGRESS, NOT PERFECTION
is what you should strive for everyday. We may have multiple

challenges to face as we work to become more productive. We
will suffer setbacks from time to time as we endeavor to deal
with them – this is part of the game. So don’t be discouraged
when this happens to you! What matters is that you stand back
up after you fall and continue to move forward.
The next tip is:
BABY STEPS, NOT QUANTUM LEAPS
This is just as important the first tip. It is essential that your

efforts to overcome your productivity challenges do not add to
your already existing overwhelm! Therefore, you should not be
overly anxious about how quickly you make progress. Take one
step at a time and keep your momentum going. Before you know
it, overwhelm will be a distant memory.

46
The final tip is:
REWARD YOURSELF FOR SUCCESS!
For whatever challenge you are tackling during this program – be

it procrastination, organizing your workspace, fighting the
tendency to over commit, or something else; put a plan into place,
and set a target date by which you want to measure your
progress. Then, give yourself a reward for having taken this first,
crucial step.
Once you’ve reached your target date, give yourself an honest

assessment. If you’ve taken steps forward – no matter how few
or how small – reward yourself again!
The reward can be anything that is of value to you: an afternoon

with your kids, a movie night with your friends, a couple of hours
curled up with a good book, a luscious pastry . . . whatever you
need to rejuvenate yourself and feel happy! This makes it easier
to set your next productivity milestone and begin working toward
it, and toward your next reward!

47
Peace through Productivity:
Next Steps
Congratulations! You now have the ammunition
that you need to get over overwhelm and find
peace through productivity. You should feel
empowered and free! But simultaneously, you
may be asking yourself “What do I do now?”
Here’s the answer:
Once you outline a plan to eliminate your most significant

productivity challenge and feel comfortable with the progress
that you have made in implementing it, reward yourself for a job
well done! Then create a new plan for your next most important
challenge. Go to the second page of Worksheet 8 and perform
the same exercise that you did for your biggest cause of
overwhelm. You can print multiple copies of this page to work on
your 3rd biggest cause, your 4th biggest cause, and so on.
Follow through with the implementation of this program and enjoy

the fruits of your labor! Continue creating plans to eliminate
each source of overwhelm that you encounter, remembering that
you are not striving to become perfect – only to make life in your
business continually better.
Every few months (I advise once per quarter), go back to

Worksheets 1 through 4 and read the lists that you created on
them. Has anything changed? If so, print out new copies of the
worksheets and fill them out again. Ask yourself all the

48
appropriate questions and see where overwhelm might begin to
creep back into your business. Then follow through with the
implementation phase of the 30-Day Productivity Kick Start™
system to snuff out these challenges before they can become
recognizable as such.
I wish you the best of success with the program. I have the
utmost confidence that it will serve you well and that it will allow
you to find peace through productivity!
If you would like additional help in your journey to getting over

overwhelm – an accountability partner who you can ask questions
to and who will give you personal encouragement – then you may
wish to consider one-on-one mentoring as an option to help you
move forward even more quickly than you would be able to on your
own. For information on my mentoring philosophy and the
programs that I offer, visit:
http://gettingoveroverwhelm.com/about-your-paris-muse.

49
Appendix
Worksheet 1 51
Worksheet 2 56
Worksheet 3 58
Worksheet 4 59
Worksheet 5 60
Worksheet 6 62
Worksheet 7 64
Worksheet 8 68

50
Worksheet 1
Business Goals
Write down 10 goals for the next 12 months. Use the present,
positive tense!
1. ___________________________________________
___________________________________________
2. ___________________________________________
___________________________________________
3. ___________________________________________
___________________________________________
4. ___________________________________________
___________________________________________
5. ___________________________________________
___________________________________________
6. ___________________________________________
___________________________________________
7. ___________________________________________
___________________________________________
8. ___________________________________________
___________________________________________
9. ___________________________________________
___________________________________________
10. ___________________________________________
___________________________________________

51
Worksheet 1 (continued)
Business Goals
Now, answer the following questions to focus on which of your

goals will have the most powerful, positive impact for you:
1) Which of these goals is most important in your business

right now?
__________________________________________
2) By when will you achieve this goal?

__________________________________________
3) What are the three biggest hurdles that you need to

overcome to achieve it?
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
4) What additional skills and information do you need to achieve

your goal?
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
5) Whose help will you need to succeed?

__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________

52
Business Goals
6) Based on your answers to the first five questions, what

are the steps that you need to take to succeed?
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
7) Which one step will you take immediately?

__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
8) How will you measure your success (not only by the end
result, but by increments as well)?
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________

53
Who Do You Serve?
1) Who is your niche market? (If you have subniches, write

them down and select one for this exercise.)
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
2) Is your niche aligned with your business goals? For example,

is your niche capable of paying you the fees that will allow
you to reach your revenue goal?
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
3) Did you begin your business to serve one niche, but find that
you are now serving another one instead?
__________________________________________
4) If you find that there is incoherence between your niche

and your goals, which are you going to change?
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________

54
How Do You Deliver?
1) Does your service generate products? If so, what kinds of

products?
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
2) Does your product create a demand for you to also provide one
or more services? If so, what kinds of services?
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
3) How are these products and services serving your niche? Be

specific!
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
4) Is your delivery method for these products and services
serving your niche? Be specific!
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________

55
Worksheet 2
My Projects
Revenue-Generating Potentially Support/

Revenue-Generating Administrative

56
My 3 Most Important Projects
My 3 Most Important Why These Projects are the

Projects Most Important

57
Worksheet 3
Project/Goal Alignment
My Projects How They Align with

My Business Goals

58
Worksheet 4
Project/Niche Alignment
My Projects How They Align with

My Niche

59
Worksheet 5
Projects that do not align with my goals/niche
Neutral / Poorly / Not Eliminate from list

Aligned Projects (yes/no)

60
Plan to Eliminate Dead-weight Projects
Dead-weight Project 1
My plan to diminish / eliminate this project from my business:
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________

61
Worksheet 6
My Redefined Project List
Revenue-Generating Potentially Support/

Revenue-Generating Administrative

62
My New List of 3 Most Important Projects
My 3 Most Important Why These Projects are the

Projects Most Important

63
Worksheet 7
Possible Causes of Overwhelm in My 3 Most
Important Projects
Project 1
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________

__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________

day, and how often?
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________

64
Important Projects
Project 2
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________

__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________

day, and how often?
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________

65
Important Projects
Project 3
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________

__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________

day, and how often?
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________

66
Time Tracker
(Print as many copies of this page as you need.)
Date Activity Start Time End Time Total Time

67
Worksheet 8
My Biggest / Most Common Cause of Overwhelm
Based on my responses in Worksheet 7, my biggest / most

common cause of overwhelm is (circle one):
Poor prioritization
Overcommitment of time (not able to say “no”)
External influences (e-mail, phone calls, other interruptions)
Other (___________________________________)
My plan to diminish / eliminate this cause from my business:

__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
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68
My Other Causes of Overwhelm
Based on my responses in Worksheet 7, my ___________ (2nd,

3rd, 4th . . .) biggest cause of overwhelm is (circle one):
Poor prioritization
Overcommitment of time (not able to say “no”)
External influences (e-mail, phone calls, other interruptions)
Other (___________________________________)
My plan to diminish / eliminate this cause from my business:

__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
__________________________________________
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69
Marketing:
A Common Source of Overwhelm
Did you know that small business
owners should spend a good 80% of
their time marketing? For new
entrepreneurs, even the thought of
this can be overwhelming! A large
part of this challenge relates to
coming to terms with the technology
involved, but the most important
part is deciding which activities to
include in your “online marketing
portfolio.” Once you’ve decided what
marketing methods you will use,
you’ve then got to find the time to implement them effectively.
Get ready to take a “30,000-foot view” of how to approach

marketing for your business with
GETTING OVER MARKETING OVERWHELM
This e-book emphasizes the thought process that you need to

adopt to select your marketing tools and specific “time
management/productivity” principles and practices that will help
you implement them effectively. Productivity and peace of mind
are what you’ll experience once you apply what you learn from
reading it!
Click HERE to get your copy today!

70

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30-Day Productivity Kick Start™

You DO NOT have the right to reprint or

You also MAY NOT give away, sell, or

If you obtained this lesson from anywhere other than

DISCLAIMER AND/OR LEGAL NOTICES:

© 2013 Monique Y. Wells

Step 1. Background Check 19

Step 2. Your Three Most Important Projects 25

Step 3. Your “Other” Projects 30

Step 4. Getting Rid of “Dead-weight” Projects 32

Step 5. Identifying Potential Sources of Overwhelm in

Step 6. Creating a Plan to Combat Your Overwhelm 42

Tips for Success 46

Peace through Productivity: Next Steps 48

Marketing: A Common Source of Overwhelm 70

© 2013 Monique Y. Wells

Do you feel that everything needs to be done at once, but at the

Are you unhappy because work is constantly interfering with life

These are some of the classic symptoms of "OVERWHELM" that

© 2013 Monique Y. Wells

I used to struggle with overwhelm just

I’m Monique Y. Wells, your mentor and

I own a consulting service that I run alone and a travel planning

© 2013 Monique Y. Wells

Did I mention that I volunteered to take on the responsibility for

For months, I struggled with how to handle this effectively, while

I was trying to do everything all at once, including running a non-

Does any of this sound familiar to you? Do you see elements of

© 2013 Monique Y. Wells

I’ll bet you won’t be surprised about

Here’s what finally happened to help me turn the corner:

I watched a training video by business mastery expert

“When the market is contracting, go back to your core business

© 2013 Monique Y. Wells

It took listening to these words and

Achieve more by doing less!

© 2013 Monique Y. Wells

1) We women solopreneurs are too hard on ourselves! We want

2) We assume that tips and tools are enough to change

3) We don’t have a clear path to follow to begin with! Either

© 2013 Monique Y. Wells

© 2013 Monique Y. Wells

Dr. Shannon Reece

I was fortunate enough to obtain the advice and guidance of Dr.

I knew in my heart that this project would be

Monique talked me through the fears and

© 2013 Monique Y. Wells

Monique has truly inspired me to pursue my dreams and I can say

Marketing coach Tim Paulson suggested

© 2013 Monique Y. Wells

Now before we go on to explore

Myth #1) Women are supposed to be available to everyone 24/7

In the entrepreneurial environment, this primarily means that we

When we drop everything that we are doing to answer client

© 2013 Monique Y. Wells

Unless the client’s request is time sensitive, we should resist the

Myth #2) Women are supposed to finish what they start

This may actually be a value that parents instill in their sons as

Under these circumstances, there is no harm or shame in

© 2013 Monique Y. Wells

How could any self-respecting woman place anything in front of

I believe that second and third in order of priority should be

© 2013 Monique Y. Wells