For years I’ve made a vision board for my business. In the beginning I had cork boards with images from magazines pinned on them.

My current vision board for my business is online and acts as the screensaver on my laptop. It’s the first and the last thing I see at work each day.

Why am I writing about this? Well, it works very well for me so I thought I’d share in case it helps you too.

For those of you who have no idea what a vision board is, it’s a collection of images, items or words that represent what you’d like to have in your life. Many people will think the law of attraction is a nonsense, others who have found it successful will believe in its value.

Focus

Whatever your view, collating a vision board can be a very useful business tool.

Why?

Well, it helps you focus on what you really want. Often, we are so busy working on the tasks in front of us that we don’t make time for planning ahead.

Pipeline

When you’re self-employed it’s likely that you’ll always have one eye on the pipeline of new business. But you want to work on projects that excite you right? Maybe you’d like a change of scene to work from a different city? Perhaps you’ve got a real passion for cooking or cycling, or museums and you’d really get a kick from having a client in those sectors. Imagine spending hours every day working with people who share your passion, learning new stuff, getting to visit cool places for research purposes. Sounds great, doesn’t it? Sure, beats sitting in front of your laptop at your desk working on that thing that earns you money but doesn’t make you leap out of bed in the morning.

Thought

There are two approaches from here. The Law of Attraction teaches us to ask the universe and act in a certain way to attract what we want. The other chain of thought is that having a vision board that reminds you every day what you’d really like to be working on will help you focus. By focus I mean investing a little bit of time each week…

• Networking in those areas
• Adding content to your website or social media channels that reflect the projects / passions that interest you (so you appear in searches when someone wants to hire a person with your skills)
• signing up for opportunities that will help you to connect with people working in those fields

Luck

I’ve been self employed since 2008 and I think there’s also a huge element of luck involved in business. Sometimes it’s about being in the right place at the right time and having a random conversation that leads you in a desired direction. Is that luck…. or the law of attraction? Who knows, but it’s brilliant when it happens.

As the summer ends and the schools go back it’s time to refocus. If you’ve felt the benefits of time off and the sun on your face then the thought of the cold winter months, politics and fuel price hikes might put you off thinking ahead. But investing an hour in yourself to focus on what would really make you happy when you switch on your laptop every morning, has to be time well spent.

My Board

For those of you who are still reading. My business vision board has photos of a luxury bathroom with luxury wallpaper, yellow roses to represent gardens, a London bus, a pair of antique binoculars, jewellery, architects’ drawings, glass apothecary bottles and a very expensive ladies’ blouse. I’ve also got a Qantas flight as the goal I’m currently working towards is a trip to Australia to see my family.

I created this vision board in May. So far the trip to London has happened and I’ll be there again on business next month. I’m also working on a new piece of work which involves the architects drawings so it definitely works for me!

Let’s see what the rest of the year has in store, hopefully a gardening project, something antique related and if any wallpaper designers are reading this… hello, let me buy you a coffee!

If you decide to create your own vision board for business please do let me know how you get on.

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