Our neighbors have an invisible fence for their dog. I’ll bet you have heard of invisible fences, but you haven’t seen one, have you? I've seen the components which are wire and transmitters, but it is impossible to see the finished product. I do see the result of the invisible fence however, which is the constant confinement of the neighbor’s dog. He respects the perimeter of the invisible fence even when our two ducks and goose waddle away from the barn on a field trip to taunt him. The invisible fence does its job establishing boundaries.

It must be challenging to sell a product that no one can see. The sales force doesn’t sell the product; it sells results. The results are the ability to keep your dog contained within an invisible perimeter, the boundaries of your yard. I’m sure you’ll agree that boundaries are important in our lives, especially when we want our privacy and time respected.

Unfortunately, others don’t respect the boundaries we want to establish in our business and personal lives. Have you ever noticed how your customers, co-workers, friends and family have an unlimited amount of requests to make of you and your time? If you think about that problem of not respecting your time, it exists because there is no invisible fence available to make people aware of your boundaries. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have your own personal “invisible fence” to turn on and off whenever you needed to protect your time “in the box” doing what you do?

Your invisible fence would allow you to get more done in less time without offending the time robbers in your life. It’s not that you are not inaccessible, the message is that you aren’t always accessible. The invisible fence wouldn’t prevent others from seeing you and knowing that you are around and active. It would create blocks of time for you to get things done without interruption and shield you from feeling obligated to take on activities, projects and functions that don’t fit in with your business plan.

How do you create your own invisible fence?

1. Let voice mail answer the phone for an hour or two. If the message is urgent, it will get to you. Disrupting your activity to accommodate a ringing phone costs you more time than you think when you consider the time for the call in addition to getting back on track with the project at hand.
2. Get out of the mainstream in your workplace. Retreat to a conference room and shut the door. Use another office, the shop or the warehouse.
3. Leave the office for a few hours and go to: the library, the park, a coffee shop. Cell phone, laptop, yellow pad and you can get a lot done off premise.
4. Establish a practice of an early start to your work day. Get to your office a half hour or more before the rest of the group. Let everyone know that you aren’t available early morning before the workday bell rings.
5. Get into the habit of saying No immediately to people who want you to do things that don’t make sense to your business plan or to your personal plan. Saying No is the switch that will turn your invisible fence on to protect your boundaries.

Be thinking of other ways to create your private invisible fence to protect others from intruding in your personal back yard.

Making time to plan for your business is one of the skills I can teach you in my 8 simple strategies for success. Want to learn more? click here

"The beauty of daylight saving time is that it just makes everyone feel sunnier." -- Edward Markey

"Civilization is a method of living, an attitude of equal respect for all men." -- Jane Addams

"All great things are simple, and many can be expressed in single words: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." -- Sir Winston Churchill

As Veterans’ Day is approaching soon, take a moment to be thankful and appreciative for the courage of all soldiers, seamen and airmen over time who have protected freedom and personal rights.

When I start to get the idea that the world is conspiring against me to create a bad day, I pause to think about how quickly a soldier in Iraq or Afghanistan would trade jobs with me for just a few hours to enjoy the simplicity of my problems.

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