I know, it’s a pretty weird and wacky question right?  But not one to be dismissed.  You see, as my first business mentor taught me, bum glue is such a valuable tool for most business owners to have in their business tool kit.

I didn’t really ‘get it’ when he first taught me this 12 years ago, but now I really ‘get it’ and use bum glue all the time to get more productive in my business.

People are always asking Andrew and I how we get so much done, how we manage to always be doing new and exciting things, helping so many people and having so much time off.  I know, it can look pretty unbelievable at times, but the key to getting so much done is that when we are working, we are productive (well for the most part!  We too can have massively unproductive days!)

We are always working on being more productive in our business, because it means there are numerous benefits if we are: we get more done, we can create more new and exciting things (which we love to do), we can have more time off, and we generally make way more money when we are productive.

The truth is that a large percentage of business owners are hugely unproductive.  They won’t tell you that, heck, they won’t even tell themselves that!  Because what happens is we actually lie to ourselves about how much work we are getting done.  I know this from personal experience from what I have done and with coaching and mentoring so many businesses over the last 7 years.  We tell ourselves that we are doing ‘so much,’ and ‘working our butt off’  but in truth, if we are really honest with ourselves, and we truthfully looked at what we are really doing during our work time, we would see that we are wasting huge amounts of time each day being massively unproductive.

I haven’t found any business owner in those 7 years that I’ve mentored that has not been able to improve their productivity.

Now that doesn’t mean you need to work longer hours, or work more, in fact when you are more productive you will free up your time massively, allowing you to have more time to have fun and have time off.

Remember that you are not limited to the societal ‘box’ that people expect you to fit into.  You are a business owner, so you can make your own rules about the business that you want to create.  If you can get everything done in say 4-5 hours a day and take an extra couple of hours off to enjoy life, then why wouldn’t you?

There is no hard and fast rule for most businesses that say you have to be open from 9am-5pm.  For some, yes, but for a lot of businesses you can set your own rules about when you are working, especially if you have staff to cover the rest of the time that the business is open for.

So let’s get back to the bum glue…

Bum glue is the tool where you glue your bum to your seat and stay there until the job that you are doing is done.

Of course ‘bum glue’ is not real, you are not really gluing your bum to the seat, it is just a metaphor for you to stay in your seat (or stay where ever you are) in order to get the job done when you need to.

Because what happens is when you have something you know you need to get done, resistance comes up.  Resistance will make you agitated, will get you distracted, it will make you question what you are doing, or how you are doing it, or question how to actually get the job done.  Resistance will waste so much time and energy, and will have you getting distracted and going off to doing sometime else…. anything else to get out of what you really NEED to be doing!

Take this article for instance.  I sat down this morning with the intention that I needed to write some content.  So I was ready to get it done, then the resistance came up…  All I wanted to do was get up and walk around, go do ‘other stuff.’  I started getting agitated, I wanted to go off surfing the internet to distract me.  Luckily I had turned my internet modem off before I started so I couldn’t do that!  One very handy trick for getting more productive when a job needs to be done.  I started getting hungry, feeling like I needed to go to the bathroom, feeling cold, questioning whether I should do something else first…  The resistance was strong, and since I hadn’t written an article for a while the self doubt decided to join in and have its say as well!

Instead of giving in to the resistance, I recognised it for what it was, and I imagined my bum glue.  I stayed here in front of my computer and connected with ‘why’ I was writing this article in the first place.  I also reminded myself the longer it takes, the less time I am going to get off today because I have heaps to get done.  So I pushed through that resistance and BHAM!  Here it is, all written, and published for you today.

It didn’t take me long, once I told myself I was staying put until it was done, it got written so quickly.  In fact I wrote two valuable articles in less than 45 minutes because once I got into the productivity zone, it all just flowed out and I was having a great time.  Pretty good right?  But if I didn’t have the ‘bum glue’ strategy to keep me here, then I probably still would not have anything decent done this morning and would be looking at a very long day ahead to get everything finished that I need to get done.

So don’t give in to that resistance.  I know it can be really strong, it can be extremely convincing, but how much precious time and energy are you wasting giving in to it?  How much more time could you have to get even more done, or to have more time off from your business?  Get out your bum glue and use it today, and see how much more productive you can actually be.