When starting out as an entrepreneur you ‘ll quickly learn a few things about time.
- There is nothing more important than your own time
- You are not as effective as you think working around the clock.
- Life can pass you by in no time if you don’t make time for it.
Ultimately, it’s a completely different perception of time and there is a little learning involved to become a truly awesome, successful, and fulfilled entrepreneur. Which is what we all want right?
I’ve had an employed career, been a solopreneur, and now I am an entrepreneur. I have also worked alongside entrepreneurs for nearly 20 years. I have learnt the hard way about burnout, overwhelm, single mindedness, and neglect. I have a very analytical mind and am a practitioner in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and Neuro Linguistic Programming. These skills have enabled me to become aware of the problems I have caused myself before it was too late. I’m here to share my lessons with you.
1. No Clear goals!
Get Clarity! What do you need to do? This is literally where so many people, me included, go wrong. No clear goals, plans and tasks. What are you doing? Why are you doing it? Who are you doing it for? What are your aspirations? Be specific, we’re taking dates and numbers here. “I would like to be working with fifteen “ideal clients” clients in three months and have earnt fifteen thousand dollars. To do that I need to do x, y, and z.
To keep moving forward at a steady pace you need to know what you want to do, where, when, and for who. Then crucially how you are going to do it. There are many great planning methods out there. Each of us are different. I think five years ahead and work back, list all the milestones I can think of, back to today. Then I plan the next 3-9 months as goals.
2. Learn to schedule well
Scheduling Monthly, weekly, and daily. Sticking to the plan and time A good way to get focus each month is to list the projects you want to work on and at the beginning of every week list which part of the project you’re going to work on that week. A good way is to prioritise the tasks and then list them in order. I like to work on my different projects for an hour at a time. That way I have multiple things moving forwards. I schedule the specifics a few days in advance because I am also working with clients and need to remain flexible for appointments. A typical Day would look something like this, Deep Work – Content writing or designing – sixty Minutes (My business), Deep Work – Content writing or designing (Mine or clients project) – sixty Minutes, Break – up to fifteen minutes, Correspondence – up to sixty minutes Research, planning or meetings – sixty minutes, Lunch around forty five minutes, Research, planning or meetings – sixty minutes, Prospecting, list building and/or follow up – sixty minutes, Schedule tomorrow and review the day – up to thirty minutes.
I try my best to schedule in five hours a day. I am creating the future of my dreams and that is worth the effort. I often work up to seven hours a day because I want to. However, I know I have the choice and I can easily take a break because I’m consciously aware of how much I am doing.
3. Set intentions of task and time and stick to them.
Setting clear intentions of what you plan to do and how long will enable your brain to be prepared. That is why I schedule work the day before for a specific amount of time. I find my brain is prepared to spend that much time and I even schedule the steps in my planner. For example, Website content creation. “1. List page section titles, 2. write or arrange text for sections, 3. find photos that relate to the text, 4. create a wireframe, 5. add design elements 6. Test responsiveness.” This kind of step by step intention setting enables me to know what to do, be prepared for it and to easily stop and carry on another day.
4. Processes and Procedures, formats, and frameworks.
Once your business is moving. You’ll find there are a lot of things you need to do on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. You’ll also find yourself writing a lot of emails, probably post and maybe articles.
The trick to doing these things fast and effectively are, processes and procedures. A list of daily, weekly, and monthly tasks with what to do will save you a lot of energy and help you be consistent. I do these things at the end of my day as they do not require as much brain power working from a list. Also, formats and frameworks. Content formats will save you hours and help you to be understood. Using simple article, post and even email formats will save you hours of drafting and re-writing. Not to mention the forethought. (We’re not talking copy and paste scripts or posts here.)
5. Reviewing & Adjusting
You see on my daily plan I review my day. I also review my week and often my month. Each time I adjust accordingly.
Asking yourself simple questions in a review will help you work out where you can improve, where you might need to outsource things, and where you may be being optimistic or pessimistic about your abilities. Knowing what’s working and what you’re working on is the difference between, success and failure. The difference between being super productive and seriously burnt out, and ultimately the difference between a dream life or a life of dreams.
How many things do you want to achieve in your day, week month? How many can you achieve? On a daily basis three goals is enough six is too many for most.
It’s about how big your goals are and how well you’ve broken them down. Blocking time (scheduling) and chunking big tasks (working an hour at a time with clear steps to finish the task) will keep everything moving forward.
Don’t work a whole day on one thing! Do not spend three to four hours on highly cognitive tasks. Give your brain time to think in between tasks. You will find you get a lot more done working one hour a day on five goals than working five hours in a day on one goal.
Some important questions are, how long can you really focus well on one thing? How long does it take you to get focussed?
I’ve found it all depends on your intentions and prior planning.
By scheduling and creating lists you can easily look at all the things you’ve accomplished at the end of your day and celebrate the wins. Celebrating each win will keep you moving forward. Let’s do a little dance right now. You’ve got this far that’s a win.
