Developing good time management skills will help you to focus on the priorities and achieve more every day.
Here are my 6 Ps to Perfect Time Management:
- Prepare
- Prioritise
- Productivity
- Performance
- Payment
- Pretend!
If you’ve started a new business, it’s a fun and exciting time – yes?
But there’s so much to do that it can also be challenging and at times, really stressful.
Even if you set-up in business to do what you love, there will be times when other less interesting, but essential tasks take you away from the fun stuff and you perhaps begin to wonder if you’ve done the right thing?
Running a business is challenging and extremely hard work. There’s lots to do at the outset and then, when your enterprise begins to grow, doing everything alone is likely unachievable.
Even with a passion for your business concept, it’s really easy to become overwhelmed with everything that needs doing and your to-do list can become so long that it’s often difficult to decide what to do next.
This is when scrolling through social media and watching cat videos, or even tidying the kitchen, washing the dishes or doing laundry are tempting distractions to anything work-related…
Is this time to outsource some of the operational tasks so you can focus on strategy, on growing your business and doing what you love again?
I have a list of ‘150 Tasks you can Delegate to a Virtual Support Professional‘ in a free guide. Download it below.
Developing good time management skills will also help you to focus on the priorities and achieve more every day.
Download my FREE guide on:
‘150 Tasks You Can Delegate to Virtual Support Professional’
Here are my six Ps to Perfect Time Management
1. Prepare
Look forward and ahead in your diary to identify up and coming commitments and spend a little time preparing for them.
This may be as simple as printing out papers for a meeting, checking exactly where it will take place and adding the details and perhaps documents to the calendar icon. Or, being aware of regular tasks e.g. when your invoices will need sending out, and so blocking out time in your diary in order to have the time to complete this work.
Take a look at your appointments for the following month, especially if you will need to travel as purchasing tickets in advance will usually be cheaper. Try to avoid travel and see if the meeting can be via video, or even a phone call.
A Virtual Assistant will be happy to assist with your diary management – contact me to find out more about this kind of support.
2. Prioritise
It’s so easy to work on what we enjoy doing as opposed to what we should be doing, but these unpleasant essential tasks won’t go away, they will still be there, waiting.
According to Brian Tracy, the author of this book, he believes that completing the most disagreeable task first will improve productivity for the rest of the day. The sense of achievement has just got to be worth it don’t you think?
Also identify the tasks that could have a detrimental effect on your business if not completed and do it, no matter how tedious. You should ensure you are undertaking at least one task per day which will help grow your business.
Try the Eisenhower Matrix to identify what you should be working on. Divide a page into four quadrants.
Label the first column ‘URGENT’
Label the second column ‘LESS URGENT’
Label the first row ‘IMPORTANT’
Label the second row ‘LESS IMPORTANT’
Then pop your tasks into the most relevant quadrant.
- Urgent and Important tasks should be prioritised.
- Less Urgent and Important work can be scheduled for another time, but not too far ahead.
- Urgent and Less Important tasks can likely be delegated.
- Less Urgent and Less Important work may not need completing at all…
Find out more about the Eisenhower Matrix here.
A Virtual Assistant will be happy to assist with your diary management – contact me to find out more about this kind of support.
3. Productivity
Work on one task at a time and resist distractions.
Check your emails, but then turn off the alerts whilst you focus on something else. It’s tempting to respond to each message as soon as it arrives and to even feel that this is now expected, but multi-tasking is just not productive. Unless you are waiting on an urgent message, read and respond to your emails just two or three times per day.
Consider adding a sentence to your email signature informing senders the times when you will be checking emails and what they need to do to alert you when the message is particularly urgent.
Block time in your diary for all tasks, just as you would an appointment and, where possible, work on the designated task accordingly. Treat yourself as you would treat an important client. After-all, you are just as essential to your business as they are.
My post on Time Blocking has more details of how to use this method to improve productivity.
A Virtual Assistant can help you plan your diary and protect time in there by liaising with anyone wanting to book a call or meeting with you.
4. Performance
It is now recognised that we don’t work to optimum performance after around 20 minutes activity. Even if you have a long report to write, it’s not productive to sit there for hours on end as your concentration will have lessened within a short time.
Take a break, stretch, get a drink and re-focus your eyes by looking into the distance before resuming work.
Identify when you are most alert and productive and schedule appropriate tasks during these times.
I can concentrate better in the morning, but am more creative later in the afternoon. Take a look at the Pomodoro Technique (which even has a tomato timer) to help you practice concentrating for 20-30 minutes maximum, before having a short break, then changing your focus.
5. Payment
If you are working for yourself, especially on an hourly rate, there can be no better motivation to manage your time efficiently than being paid. Calculate the minimum number of hours you need to focus on fee generating work each week and schedule other tasks around this. Consider other ways of charging by introducing retainers, packages or power hours etc and research ways of earning a passive income that doesn’t require your input full-time.
If your workload is heavy and your to-do list too long, automate as much as possible, or consider delegating and outsourcing certain tasks, to an associate, a sub-contractor, virtual assistant or book-keeper for example. These skilled professionals will likely be able to complete tasks much more quickly than you and charge less than the income you can generate during the same time.
Ensure invoices are raised on time, overdue payment is chased and taxes are paid on time, to avoid any late payment fees. Go through your regular direct debits as there may be subscriptions that you are paying for but no longer need.
6. Pretend
that each day is the last working day before your holiday!
Apparently we are at our most productive the day before we take annual leave as we focus on completing as much as possible to leave everything tidy and in order before we depart. We are able to say “No” more readily without feeling guilt and prioritising seems to be much easier as we identify which urgent tasks need to be done and which can actually wait until our return.
We also ensure that there is adequate back-up during our absence and activate an out-of-office message, so why not keep this in place at all times? Have an out-of-office message for when you want to get your head down without distraction from incoming messages.
Alternatively, work with a trusted colleague, associate or assistant who can temporarily cover for you and leave them to do this whilst you focus on something else, or even take much needed time out.
Book a call with me to discuss the pressure points in your weekly schedule to ascertain how outsourcing may help you free-up much needed time.