Have you ever thought to yourself “I am way too busy to do anything more than what I am already doing.” Running a company requires a lot of work. Sometimes things get a little fussy and you end up with so much “busy work” on your plate, that there’s not much time to focus on the tasks that only you can do.
So how can you go from being just busy to being productive? How can you work smarter instead of harder, and see the benefits of it in your business?
Focus on your Business Goals
When you start a business you have a mission, a statement, something you want to bring to your customers. It’s important to remember why you started this business in the first place. Having clearly defined goals, and keeping those in mind, will help you prioritize your tasks.
When you set up your goals properly, you start seeing your achievements more clearly. This helps you see your progress and it feels encouraging. For example, break down your yearly goals into quarterly goals. Having smaller, more frequent goals, that build up into a larger achievement later, helps to make work less overwhelming and progress more tangible.
It is also important to break down your quarterly goals into monthly goals. Those can be more flexible and work as a guideline to keep yourself on track. Doing this helps you to measure the business progress. That way you understand better if you’re setting the bar too high, or maybe too low.
Based on your monthly goals you can then create weekly tasks that are needed to achieve those goals. Now you are working on important tasks every week that are in line with your overall yearly goals. You will see progress happen towards those yearly goals and you will have less stress when faced with the daunting list of all the things you think need to be done. It will also help you to notice tasks that aren’t important to your business outcomes, that you can set them aside. Either reschedule them for another time that is more in line with your business goals or drop them completely.
Outsource
Understand the value of your time. There are things in your business that only you can do. That’s what makes what you offer unique and creates value for your customers. The more time you spend doing busywork, that could likely be better handled by someone else, the less time you spend creating value and growing your business.
It can be scary to outsource these tasks in the beginning. You might have to train someone or maybe you are afraid of investing the money. But if you can pay someone $20 an hour to do something and you charge $50 or more an hour for your time that is now free. You will actually be making more money in the end.
The faster you get used to building a team the faster you will be able to increase your business revenue. The truth is, you can’t do everything by yourself. As your business grows you need more people working in it and you need to get used to delegating.
It can be challenging for a growing business to have money for hiring and growing a team. However, if you bring in the right people your investment will pay off quickly. Most business owners keep costs low for the first few people they hire. However, the right team members will bring immediate positive results. Hiring the right people helps you become more confident in your hiring and scaling your business.
At the beginning of your business, you have more time than money, then you get to a stage where you don’t have much time but your income is climbing. This is the sweet spot for outsourcing. You free up your time so you can go make more money and the tasks in your business are still getting done. Sometimes even more tasks get done, especially the things you have been procrastinating on because you didn’t have time! At this point getting an OBM (Online Business Manager) might also be a great option.
Guard your time
Just because you don’t have a 9 to 5 job that doesn’t mean you have to have unlimited work time. You can’t expect to dedicate all your hours just to work, that’s simply unrealistic. Set your work hours!
This was one of the first things I did when I started to get too busy. I set my working hours and my personal hours. The more I respect those hours the happier I am and the happier my family is too. You aren’t running a business so that you can be available 24 hours a day 365 days a year. Those are unrealistic expectations and the stress of those expectations alone will not be good for your mental or physical health.
Learn to say NO. That one can be tough. When you start a business you want to please everyone and make things perfect. However, saying “yes” to every meeting, project, or interruption that comes up can lead you to feel drained very quickly. Learning how to say “no” is a vital skill to keep your sanity and guarantee you can concentrate on what’s really important to you and your business.
Always refer to your business goals before accepting “opportunities”. Some opportunities look like they will be great, but in the end, you expend too much energy on it and you don’t get any value for your business. Don’t make decisions based on excitement. Always measure the pros and cons of taking in a project or a change to see if it aligns with your goals. If it doesn’t… then it’s a good time to practice the art of saying “no”.
Meetings
Meetings can take up a lot of your time. It’s disruptive to have to drop everything and drive across town for a meeting in the middle of the day. Or have every team member stop their work, get settled into a common space and discuss a matter. Of course, meetings are important and communication is key, but as a rule of thumb keep them short, sweet and to the point.
Don’t let people book your time to “pick your brain”. There are times you know a meeting just isn’t going to bring you any benefits, but you still compromise to go just because you have a hard time saying no. Nevertheless, this comes back to knowing the value of your time. You need to learn how to say “no” in these situations when you know you will just be giving your valuable time away and getting nothing in return.
Before booking that meeting ask yourself if it really needs to be a meeting or if it can be handled another way. With today’s technology, there are a lot of things that can be done online. Many times a meeting might not be necessary. You can save a lot of time by assessing the issue through video calls, emails, chats, etcetera. Another way we waste time around meetings is in trying to set a time that works for everyone to meet or the chit chat that happens at the beginning of a meeting.
Make time for yourself
Last but not least, you need to make time for yourself. No one is a machine and if you let the stress pile up for too long you will end up breaking. That won’t help your business, yourself or anyone really. Your health needs to come first.
Exercise!! If you would have asked me a year ago if this was important, I would say some people find it helpful but not me. I have changed my tune! When I am stressed and busy, making time for physical exercise is extremely important. I also now realize that when I am taking time to work out on a regular basis my stress levels are much lower and my mental health is much better too!
This one is going to sound silly, I know, but breathing is something we take for granted. When you focus on your breathing, you naturally slow your entire system down, and that allows you to be able to get out of the high-paced frantic feeling when you are overwhelmed with work. That helps you reconnect to yourself and lower your stress levels making it easier to keep on working.
Make time for your hobbies. You may have put all your hobbies on the back burner because you were creating this amazing business, doing that has huge consequences. Your brain needs to be able to have fun and enjoy life too. When you make time for your hobbies, it allows your brain to be more creative!
Need help managing your time? Get in contact I’d be happy to see if I am the right person to help!!
