Here we are, the final days of 2010. What a year it's been!

One of my favorite sayings is, "We tend to overestimate what we can do in a day and underestimate what we can do in a year."

The day-to-day demands of the urgent, pressing, and must get done details can often make it feel like you're spinning your wheels.

The upcoming new year is a fresh start and an awesome opportunity to implement and take action on the big goals and projects that you've either been waiting to do or not found the time to do. None of us will ever find more time! Instead it's about creating systems and structures around your business to support growth and progress while also gracefully handling the day-to-day demands effectively.

This could be your year to attend a convention, bring in a guest artist, host an intensive, upgrade your software, get a new website, jump in the conversation on social media, hire a new teacher, or get support where you need it most so you could even take a vacation!

Here are three things you can do to tackle the urgency of the day and make leaps and bounds toward your big projects and goals for your dance studio.

1. Ask yourself, "if I only had one hour to work on my business today, what would I do?"

The answer helps you determine what you should do first. Typically my question goes something like, "If the babysitter cancels or my kids are home sick from school what is the one thing I need to do today to run the business?" Most of the time the answer is not email! It's things like setting schedules, meeting with key team members, marketing and more. KEY: Get to the source of what only you can do that keeps your business going - and growing.

2. Put your schedule into a physical structure that gives you perspective on short and long term goals.

It's easy to get completely absorbed by the minutia and demands of what people need and want right now. The way we offset this at our studio is by using the large year-at-a-glance calendars for our faculty and staff to see the important deadlines. We also give them a list of all the faculty meetings, important dates for music, costumes, rehearsals and more for the whole year in advance so that they can plan ahead. KEY: Whatever system you use, put the dates, deadlines and more out in the open, right in front of you each day. Because, out of sight - out of mind.

3. Remember this phrase: We tend to overestimate what we can do in a day and underestimate what we can do in a year.

You know how fast the year feels like it goes by...now visualize yourself a year out from here, what is the one big project, event, goal, or experience you want to be celebrating? KEY: On days when it feels like your inbox is overflowing with email and your to-do list is never ending, keeping this perspective can be the source of your passion and enthusiasm.

It is very important for the health of your dance studio business to know what makes a student drop out of class. Strong student retention is a goal for studio owners and by having a system in place to track those that discontinue dance lessons you can make improvements where necessary.

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