Why I Skipped My Own Blog Last Week (And Why It Was the Right Call)

I skipped the blog last week.

I didn't schedule it, didn't pre-write it, and I didn't feel guilty about it. I had other projects that needed finishing, so the blog waited.

And here's the thing, I love writing the blog (trying to justify this fancy degree in English), but it's just not on my must-do list.

That sentence trips up most people who run a local service business because they think loving something and needing to do something are the same. They're not.

You have a list in your head of everything you're supposed to be doing: Posting, Emailing, bookkeeping, networking, and the list continues. And it all feels equally urgent, so you try to do all of it, sometimes badly just to check it off the list, and end the week exhausted with nothing that actually moved the business.

The problem was never time management; it's that you never decided what actually counts.

A must-do list isn't a to-do list with nicer handwriting. When I work with my team, when we make our action lists at the beginning of the year, I have them label the actions A-list and B-list items. The A list makes their business grow; it leads to sales and connections, it must be done and tracked. Then on the other hand, the B list can get done, it has its use, moves the needle of progress, but if it does not get done...will anyone notice? Face it, I did not do the blog last week, did you even notice until I mentioned it this week? Did it change your opinion of the value I bring to your marketing business? Nope. 

For most of us in a referral business, the blog is not one of those things, but the conversations are, the follow-ups are, and I needed to address my systems for showing up for the people who send me work. It became the priority, the A-list, last week.

So I dropped the lesser thing for a week, the business didn't notice, and that's the whole lesson for you this week: how to prioritize your lists to remove the guilt when you have make an executive decision and cut minor things to build up the main drivers. 

What's on your list right now that feels urgent but isn't actually moving anything? Drop it in the comments. I'll bet half of us are carrying the same dead weight.

And if you are ready to build an efficient referral marketing system for your business, try the five-day Challenge and see for yourself how the systems will work for you: https://www.livelocalwarmmarketing.com/courses