If you're like most entrepreneurs, you're probably a visionary with tons of ideas. Right? I know I have no shortage of new ideas, and I get really freaking excited about them, of course. When it's your idea, you get super pumped. And that's a great thing, unless you're great at starting something new but not so great finishing, or if you start so many things that it takes far too long to finish any of them. And I've been guilty of both. In fact, just a few weeks ago, I found that I was overwhelming my team with the number of active projects. I had so many things that I wanted to accomplish, and I just kept starting new things. And it all made sense for me.

In my brain, it was all in order, and I knew what was going on. But that's because I was so close to it. They were my ideas. But I wasn't slowing down long enough to actually help my team have what they needed in order for us to finish all of these things. They were losing track of priorities, or they were unclear about what should even be a priority because I mean, by the way, priorities were never really meant to be plural, but yet we use it that way all the time. Like, here are your top 10 priorities. Right? Like, that doesn't even make sense logically. Priorities really should not be so many things.

This should be a single priority. I had to take a step back and had to look at what we could do so that we could finish what we start without limiting my creative vision. And that was key because as a visionary in my business, I don't want to stop Dreaming and creating and imagining the future and planning what's next. I want to continue that while also allowing my team to keep moving and to keep finishing what they are working on now. I decided on a few things that we need to do, some of which we've done and some we needed to do better, or it was a reminder we needed to get back to a few things. But Here are the steps that we're taking in my business to help us finish what we start. So first, I had to create a container for new ideas. I'm really good at coming up with a lot of ideas, and I'm a quick start.

But that doesn't serve me and my team well. What I've had to do is actually make a place where I can store all of these ideas without losing them. And I plan personally, in my business, I plan on a quarterly basis, and then I reevaluate each month. So I've got a spot where I can brainstorm ideas and drop in all of these things that I want to do and save them for that next either month or quarter depending on what's going on in my business. I've also had to do this with my team. As overwhelmed as they may feel, they also bring lots of ideas. And I have to remind them that That's an incredible idea for someday, but not for today. Let's put that in the future list.

I've got a list literally in my project management system. We use Asana where I can brain dump ideas, so I don't lose them, but it also doesn't have to go straight into an active project. So that's number 1. Number 2, we only start what we're committed to finishing now. And this is the tough part. Right? This is where you have to decide what to actually start right now. And because I do plan on a quarterly basis, I have goals in mind. And so, a big part of doing this is actually determining which ideas align with my goals for the quarter, and then we give them deadlines.

Everything has to have a deadline versus just opening a new project, and it's going to sit there for, you know, a year or 2 untouched because we haven't gotten to it yet. We only take that action and start the project If we know we're going to commit to finishing it and that it's gonna help us meet our goals, and we give it a deadline. 3rd, and this was a big shift for me, as I've grown my team, I've had to invest in my own, leadership abilities. Right? I've Had experience managing team members in the past. I've had a number of employees that have reported into me. And yet at the same time, now I have a really small, nimble team, and there's still room for improvement. And so, What I found was that I was handing off a lot of tasks without really explaining the bigger why behind them. And so, I've started casting vision for projects, setting expectations with measurable goals, and then handing off ownership of some projects as well.

I don't have to own every single project. I can hand them off. And when I hand it off and I hand off the responsibility as well, there's that measurable goal that is attached to it. And for the longest time, I felt like I was responsible, and I had to hold on to everything. And so I would, Honestly, I would be the bottleneck, and I still am in so many ways. Heck. I'm recording this podcast episode knowing that I have a team member waiting for it. I am going to be a bottleneck in my business, but I can try to remove myself as much as possible from the things that I don't have to do so I can focus on only the things that I can do.

Recording this podcast episode is something that only I can do. And so, in order to allow me that ability, I have to hand off other things and not just tasks, but entire projects and goals and responsibility. Number 4, When we commit to a project and I hand it off, we create that project plan. From beginning to end, we lay out what's gonna happen and when. We think through all of those tasks to make sure that I agree with the approach even if I am handing off the overall project, that I agree with the timing, and that we know who's gonna do what by when. We, again, use Asana. And so for every project, we hop in and create that project plan for what needs to happen, And we set those milestones accordingly. And then we have a status meeting, a team meeting each week to follow-up.

Number 5, all of the recurring tasks that happen in our business. We are working to batch and or automate. And this is a game changer because this is in part what's going to allow me that space to focus on the new things, the important things, and not just the urgent things that happen every single week because we were pacing things out every single week like content creation. And this is a work in progress, but we are working towards batching different types of content. Right now, we've got emails batched through the end of the quarter. We've got podcast episodes planned but not recorded, And that's on me. We've got blog posts that are written for at least a month or 2 in advance. Everything is batched and ready to go so that it leaves that space each week.

We're not tackling all of those and touching every single week, and that affords us the ability to focus on the new and exciting things and to get them done. Number 6, We use sprints to tackle projects from beginning to end in a very focused manner and in a short time period. And if you're familiar with scrum methodology at all, then this is gonna sound familiar, the this idea of sprints. But, essentially, rather than working on 10 different priorities, plural, which I've already said isn't really a thing, That's possible. Instead of trying to do that all at one time and, say, working on 10 different top priorities over the course of 10 weeks. We're going to tackle 1 at a time or a couple at a time if they involve different team members to make sure that we're just getting things done. By focusing on 1 thing at a time from beginning to end, we're making sure that we get it done, and then we move on to the next. And there's a lot of efficiency in doing that by focusing on one thing and powering through versus the stop start of making a little bit of progress on 10 different things every week.

So, sprints are incredible. And then lastly, and this is one that I have to remind myself of over and over and over again, and I'm going to remind you too, and that is done is better than perfect. Done is better than perfect. So while I know that I may have These dreams of something going far beyond where we take it, we make sure that in these sprints, we're Determining what this phase looks like and leaving space for phase 2 or phase 3 of improvement, But just knowing that right now, done is better than perfect, and that looks like maybe only a piece of the project, Maybe only certain aspects or taking it up to a certain point, and that's okay. You have to be okay with that. It also means Letting go of some of the control, allowing my team to do things, allowing them to do things the way that they would do things, and knowing that that's not necessarily going to be the way that I would do things. That's okay. So done is better than perfect.

Really, the only idea of perfect is, you know, when you have a team in place, perfect is in your own mind. Perfect is what you would do if you were doing it. So, when I hand things off, I have to let go. I hope that those 7 things help and that you're able to actually finish some of the projects that you've started. If you have a lot of projects that are open already or right now, then I encourage you to start to use the scrum methodology and just choose 1 thing to focus on for a week or two and power through that from beginning to end. Follow these steps. Make it a priority. Commit to yourself that you're only going to start something if you plan to finish it and put a date on it.