Building Reserves is the topic of my September business retreat with my business coach Anastacia Brice . I am working with her to build reserves of time into my business (and my life) and determine where I can make changes to create more space in my schedule.

Originally I had planned to do all types of reserves: Time, space, money, love, community, security, comfort, and opportunity. However, as I began to prepare for the retreat I realized that a lot of the tension I am finding in other areas is coming from the time area. I decided to focus first on time and then work in coaching for the rest of the year on adding in the other areas.

My intention is to ensure that I have provided for the inevitable need to reinvest in myself and my business. I want to create continuity in the services I provide, protect my assets, and continue to build my value. As I reviewed this, time continually came to the surface… time for personal and professional development, continuing education, increasing value for my clients… it all takes time.

It’s funny. I am good at managing my calendar and tasks. I am better at it than many people. I lack in comparison to others. I truly feel that I can improve and by improving, create the space and time in my life to take my next steps. I probably have friends who would laugh knowing I want to work on my time management, because they think I am some kind of guru. It’s so relative. I absolutely know I can get better.

This week we actually discussed this on the phone. How successful virtual assistants, with multiple clients, already have good time management skills. We quipped that you cannot successfully do this type of work for a variety of people unless you have a handle on it. Multiple clients make a poor time manager trip all over themselves.

So, I seek to learn from someone I consider excellent at the balancing act. Someone with mad skills when it comes to standards, boundaries, and keeping a lot of balls in the air at once.

We will review my calendar and both task and project management. We will be reviewing systems, processes, and tools and look for what I am doing right and where I can make improvements.

Anastacia has taught me that by developing “reserves of time, money, space, skills, love, community, and energy,” my life becomes far easier for a variety of reasons. The simplest reason?  Because having more than enough of everything makes things easy. Who doesn’t want things easy?

I want my client to feel like working with me is a walk on the beach. I also like for her to feel as if she is my only client. This is all affected by the way I balance everything. Mastering all the workflows: my own, hers and the way hers interacts with my other client’s work, my interns, and my mentees. It’s a dance. I simply want to make sure my steps are the right ones. Building reserves of time will allow me to do this.

I am so excited to be taking this dive into my business.

How do you build reserves?