Personal Skills
The first step in being an effective entrepreneur is to have a good skill set. Now you’ve probably read all sorts of stuff on how to have meetings standing up, how to reserve time in the day to get important things done, how to handle email only once etc. Well unfortunately, a lot of that just won’t work for you. It might work for the person telling you how to improve productivity but not everyone is a machine. (Well actually, the people who write productivity stuff are probably machines.)
Now this section is a work in progress and will develop better over time but I wanted to give you something to start with that might act as an intro into the subject of personal skills.
How to Focus on What Truly Matters
For most people, productivity is lost because they are continually doing the urgent stuff, at the expense of the important. Unfortunately it is very easy to understand what is urgent. It is often much more complex to understand what is important. In order to understand that concept a little better, This section introduces the concept of materiality.
Successful Failure
Once you get over the fact that you will fail at some point in time, missing a deadline, going over budget or substandard work, then you can get on with what you are going to do about failing. You essentially have two choices, you can crash and burn, never to be seen again by the water cooler or you can learn from the mistake and move on
Goal Setting
Goal setting might be personal or corporate but the process is the same: Establishing short- or long-term objectives, usually incorporating deadlines, tactics and quantifiable measurements.
Time Management
Most people these days are pressed for time. Work seems to expand to exceed the amount of time available and we are frequently stressed by deadlines and deliverables. Sometimes, it seems that the pressure will never end. And yet, you probably know entrepreneurs who never seem stressed, who are unruffled by the demands of the day and who can meet deadlines. These entrepreneurs are good at time and task management. Being good at these things is the way to a more enjoyable, stress-free start-up. (Well less stressful anyway.)
Emotional Intelligence
Have you ever met a successful person and wondered how they achieved that success? You might even sit back and wonder, how on earth has that person done better than me? I’m smarter, I dress better, and I speak well. What is it? If you’re wondering that, chances are that you have just found someone who has more emotional intelligence than you do, someone who achieved success by making people feel good about themselves.