Have you ever considered that the thing holding you back the most is the constant notifications from your phone, Teams and PSA?
After four happy years with my iPhone 12 Pro, the battery had got so bad it needed two charges a day. Screw that. So I just upgraded to the iPhone 15 Pro. It's a terrific phone.
My teenage child had her daily 10 minutes out of her bedroom and saw my two phones together on the kitchen surface as my new phone set itself up from my old phone.
"Why do you never get notifications on your phone?" she asked me.
"Because notifications are evil and stop you from doing things that are much more important," I replied. "Like spending quality time with you or growing your business."
"Oh," she muttered, wandering back to her bedroom with a ton of food and the last remaining clean plates in the house (she has so many plates in her room now, it would be easier to relocate the dishwasher there).
I have almost zero notifications on my phone. These are the only apps that can interrupt me:
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WhatsApp (and actually I've muted most people in the app, so I only get pinged by the tiny number of most important people in my life. Everyone else I'll read their messages once a day)
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The cat flap (I like to know when my cat is in or out)
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Tesla (alerts on my car)
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Burglar alarm, cameras and Ring doorbell (alerts on my house)
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Bank transactions (just to be sure)
Everything else I switch on notifications just for the time I'm using the app, like Uber to get a taxi or Domino's to track a pizza. Then they go straight off again. I don't care about the 2 for 1 pizza deal they want to tell me about in a few days' time.
That means no notifications about new emails... alerts from my project management tool... Facebook crap... news alerts... and certainly not random notifications from apps trying to get me to open them again. I don't want any of that. I don't care about it.
I still read emails, notes from my staff, Facebook and the news, of course. It's just I do it when I'm ready not as an autonomic response to a notification.
I developed this healthy habit after an MSP paid £2,000 ($2,500) for a 121 marketing consult... and then for two hours gave most of his attention to notifications on his phone, Teams and his PSA
I remember that day well. It was insane. I was being paid a grand an hour to sit in a room and give my strategic advice... and this guy was barely taking in a word I was saying. Because of the constant and never ending stream of PING PING PING from his laptop and phone.
How can you grow your business when you are constantly interrupted like that?
YOU CAN'T.
Growing a business is not that hard. You find a marketing strategy that works and then you implement it. Consistently. Day in, day out, for 10 years. Systemise operations and customer service along the way. Keep quality high and costs under control.
This is not the most exciting thing in the world. But it's what works. Millions of small businesses have been grown this way, and will continue to be grown that way, in our lifetimes at least.
As the owner, your most important job is to work ON your business WAY more than you work IN it.
I love Thursdays as they're the day I spend working ON my business all day long. Already today I have:
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Written and scheduled a week's worth of social media across 2 platforms
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Created and rehearsed a webinar I'm delivering for a vendor
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Filmed a new video for our YouTube channel
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Written this newsletter and added it to my website's Learning Hub
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Delved through hundreds of posts in my favourite MSP community to find questions where I can add value with a long-form reply
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Etc, etc, etc
None of this interrupted by notifications. Amazing. I get in the zone, I work hard and I grow my business. And there's no stupid minor thing that doesn't matter than can interrupt me.
Apart from my teenager. If you can tell me how to switch off the notifications of "why are there no clean plates" please let me know...
How disciplined are you with your notifications?
