It’s a time of reckoning isn’t it?

I don’t mean in an apocalyptic way, merely in the beginning-of-the year way.

We love to start ‘fresh’, to begin a new diary, turn over a new leaf, set intentions and words of the year and all that.

Me too!

So I’m looking at spreadsheets (yuck) and tracking my time and generally Doing My Best to be organised and planner-y and RECORDING all the things.

And I’ve noticed something.

In my time tracker (I use https://toggl.com/) I have NO category for Sales.

Isn’t that interesting?

Having had the tracker on my laptop for a year (or two) I finally decided to do it ‘properly’ a couple of months ago and I can highly recommend it. I was able to see very clearly how many hours I can commit to my business each week and which days are my most ‘productive’ (I say productive but that’s not definitive. Yes I was doing business tasks but actually, a lot of them turned out to be busyness tasks).

I even added Projects and Tags! And went merrily on my way tracking and recording and  definitely NOT analysing as I went but still, having a quick look at total hours now and then.

So this month, it being January and the Fresh Start and all, I thought I’d go and check in more detail. Yes to content creation and email marketing and social media dithering. Yes to Canva doodling and video editing and YouTube optimisation and definitely yes to blathering meetings and doing training and attending coaching calls of one sort or another. No more!

But when I was tasked (yes, I’m not sure I would have noticed this myself) with gathering info on time spent in 5 specific areas, one of which being sales, I saw that I DON’T EVEN HAVE A CATEGORY for SALES. No Project, no tags, nothing.

Lightbulb goes off.

So then I get ALL organiser-y and go and start a NEW spreadsheet for this year because 2023 is the year I make all the 10k months, obvs. And I don’t want that sullied with previous years where the intent was the same but the outcome was, er, well not the 10k, obvs.

And I realise that I’ve been tracking (loosely defined) all my OUTGOINGS and kinda slipping the income in a bit here, there and everywhere.  Because income clearly isn’t important in my brain.  It’s an afterthought, literally.

Oooh.  

Hmmm.

That is something to think about isn’t it?

How I’ve subconsciously brushed my SALES and INCOME under the virtual carpet. It’s not even that I’ve not bothered to track them but I’ve not even bothered giving them space ANYWHERE in my systems.

At this point I am tempted to call myself all sorts of things, starting with dumbass mostly, but THIS is the year I am NOT beating myself up for being myself and not super human so I don’t.

Instead I congratulate myself on being a) organised, b) analysing the stats instead of just recording them, c) aware enough to identify this gap and d) inspired to write about it.

Plus I have now added in SALES and INCOME in LARGE LETTERS to all my systems. Well yeah, the spreadsheet and the toggltrack anyway.  But ‘systems’ sounds good.

Then another lightbulb goes off.

Because I’m all about VISIBILITY and look at me, rendering money and income and sales and all the £-related stuff INVISIBLE, even subconsciously.

Powerful stuff right?

This year, as well as tracking my £££ in a more organised way, I am digging into all things VISIBILITY. Because video is just one part of being more visible in your business; money and mindset matters too.

I’ll be sure to include this in my new Masterclass, How to 10 x your Visibility in 2023 to Attract Your Dream Clients.

If you’d like to know more, DM the word ME.

After all, it’s the perfect time to declutter all those mind gremlins!