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Lifestyle Design Plan - Overview

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Lifestyle Design Plan - An Overview for Small Business Owners

Current location - Stavanger, Norway.

If you want to design a better lifestyle for you and your family, then this article is for you.

It's good to be back writing articles, this is my first article in more than a year. Why? Well, I've been experiencing exciting new things and enjoying life... living my preferred lifestyle by choice, by design. In fact over the last 6 months I've been living abroad and operating my business remotely. Why? Because I wanted to live in a tropical location in another country and go sailing for 3 months working only 8 hours a week while still keeping my business running smoothly. Too many people say that they would love to do something but can't do it because....[insert excuse]. I decided to prove to myself, clients and other small business owners that this is possible, so I booked a one-way flight, implemented some changes and just did it.

In this article I'll share with you some key lessons I've learnt and a 3-6 month Action Plan we've created to help other business owners design their business to deliver the lifestyle they want, we call it our Lifestyle Design Plan.

Background

I first heard about the term ‘lifestyle design' when I read Tim Ferris' great book The 4 Hour Work Week. Tim talks about how insane the whole current way of working is for 99% of the population, you know... the whole 40-80 hours per week gig for 40 years until you retire. Tim asks, why not have some fun during your life and experience whatever it is you want to do now not later. He goes on to talk about how he turned his business into a vehicle that he could operate from anywhere in the world while working only 4 hours per week. I thought to myself, "I can do that, that would be great fun, and what better way to show other business owners that you really can achieve whatever it is you want through your business", so I got less than a ¼ way through the book, and I knew what I wanted to do... it had something to do with living in a tropical location, plenty of hot sunny days, idyllic blue waters and sailing. I got online, and found that the Whitsundays, Queensland, Australia fit the bill, and booked my one-way flight.

I wanted to enjoy the summer in Auckland, New Zealand (my home at the time) first, so on the 1^stof Oct I booked my flight for exactly 6 months out, leaving on the 1^st of April. This meant; 1) I could enjoy the summer at home first and keep the sun rolling on by leaving just when Autumn was about to kick in, 2) it also meant I had 6 months to implement the changes required in my business.

So, for 3 months I lived in the Whitsundays and operated my business on 8 hours a week via systems and processes. The rest of the time I relaxed in the sun, did some sailing and contemplated my place in the universe. I then moved to Sydney, Australia for some more excitement that city life can offer, I ripped back into working some more hours because I had many ideas to implement and plenty of energy (thanks to 3 mths of time to relax, think and recharge), and I'm currently in Europe for 6 weeks.

Ok, now for the good stuff....

How can you implement changes to your business so you can do whatever it is that you want to do? The answer... the mimosaPLANET Lifestyle Design Plan!

(NOTE: you don't have to live abroad, remote working can be at home or at a holiday home or it could just mean far greater flexibility in your business giving you the ability to take a week or 2 off at short notice or long weekends or spending much more time with family or becoming really good at your favorite hobby or whatever you want)

The mimosaPLANET Lifestyle Design Plan

We've developed an 11 Step Process which can be implemented over 3 or 6 months. Heck, if you're really keen it could be implemented over a couple of weeks.

But first set some specific goals for how you want your lifestyle to be in 3 or 6 months time. Specific goals in 3 areas; what you want to DO, what you want to HAVE, and who you want to BE.

Over the next few weeks I'll post more blog articles focusing on the different steps. But first here are the overall steps of the plan...

Step 1: Time Log (capture what it is that you do with your time for a week)

Step 2: Time Audit (analyse your tasks to determine what is important and what is costing you time)

Step 3: Document Business Process - Current Work Flow (record, in flow chart form, how you do everything now; your marketing process, order or sales process, service fulfilment or product delivery process, accounting process, etc)

Step 4: Eliminate | Automate | Delegate (take what you have discovered so far and determine what you will do with each Role, Process or Task; Eliminate, Automate or Delegate)

Step 5: New Business Architecture (design the high level make up of your business, how will it work mostly without your time. Don't worry about the exact details yet)

Step 6: Document Business Process - New Work Flow (now link together the details into your new business processes, recreate new business processes that run without you)

Step 7: Supporting Documents, Forms, Templates, Collateral & How To's (create all the necessary collateral for the new business architecture and processes)

Step 8: Implement (implement the new Business Architecture & Processes across your business)

Step 9: Trial - 1 or 2 Weeks (take a holiday for 1 or 2 weeks, only working the scheduled number of hours you have set for yourself, 4 or 8 or 20 or 0 or whatever)

Step 10: Review | Tune | Implement (take the lessons you have learnt from your 1 or 2 week trial and adjust as required to iron out any mishaps or bottle necks)

Step 11: Execute New Schedule (Start living your new lifestyle)

Key Lessons in Lifestyle Design

Here are a few lessons I learnt...

• IMPLEMENTING CHANGES IN YOUR BUSINESS:
  • Less is more. So much of what you do on a day to day basis just doesn't matter. You can most likely cut your working hours in half immediately by not doing half of what you normally do and still get the same results. In fact my business expanded while cutting the hours to 8 per week.
• LIVING YOUR NEW SCHEDULE:
  • Get a new hobby or two. With all this free time you'll get bored very quickly.
  • Find some new friends. You'll find most of your friends are busy working and "can't" join you.

In summary, this was my experience, and it'll be different for everyone. Here's a point I'd like to stress:

Others will say that "this won't work with my business"... but this is exactly the point.... If this is you saying this... well... of course it doesn't work with your business otherwise you'd be doing it now, right? ... you need to change your business, change its architecture, its design! I named mimosaPLANET after the mimosa tree, this tree is very adaptive in nature, it will change to suit the environment. This is true, now more than ever before, in business. We must change and adapt to the ever changing environment in which we operate. Change and adapt or get the same average results or worse... face extinction!

Take away Action Points

• Read Tim's book The 4 Hour Work Week.
• Recognise THINGS CAN BE DIFFERENT and ANYONE can do whatever they want to in this world.
• Set a goal for what you want your life to be like in 3 or 6 months time. What you want to DO, what you want to HAVE, and who you want to BE.
• List then implement changes; TODAY, TOMORROW, and OVER THE NEXT 3-6 MONTHS

Go for it!