We are now halfway through another calendar year. By now (at least if you were one of my coaching students) you would be in a routine of promoting and growing your business. But, there is still one problem that I have seen with many business owners, new and old. TIME MANAGEMENT.
Time management is not just about how much time you spend on your social media campaigns or talking with customers or reading the daily news. Time management is about using what limited amount of time you have doing productive things. (We all know as business owners that time is limited especially if you have a family.)
One of the easiest ways to ensure that you are winning the war on time management is to clear on exactly what needs to be done when. To accomplish this, you need to schedule activities…no I don’t mean by time slots…I know that goes against the grain, but I am known for doing that! Here’s an example of how I run my business week:
Sundays – Action: Write blog posts for the week and schedule them for automated posting throughout the week. Result: No more trying to write a quality blog post when things are hectic or your mind is focused on 12 other things. Ideas for new posts that come up during the week are loaded into my notes database and pulled upon come Sunday! Time Spent: Approx 2 hours (that’s for 9 different blogs)
Mondays – My Mondays are all about one-on-one coaching calls so the only items that I execute on Mondays are those that relate to the clients I am working with for coaching. In between calls I do my social media and I end the day with verifying my schedule for the following Monday. If there are blocks of times that are empty on a coaching day, then I will pull from my open tasks list for coaching related projects that need to be completed. Notice I do not stray from the theme of the day which is COACHING!
Tuesdays - My Tuesdays are spent on the road with brick & mortar clients. I normally start my day with a quick hit & run on social media and then after I return from my outside appointments, I will spend some more time with social media. However, my focus on Tuesdays is to be on time to my B&M clients with their tasks ready for delivery upon arrival. When I return, I usually write my summaries from the days events for each client and posting the following week’s tasks & appointments into the calendar. Again, my focus for that day is specifically on OUTSIDE clients, everything else will still be there when I get back!
Wednesdays – My Wednesdays are all about new business creation. I work on executing new marketing campaigns, website updates, course scheduling, call backs, new client proposals, and follow-ups for clients that have not yet contracted. Again I usually start and end my day with social media but my focus for the entire day is about NEW BUSINESS.
Thursdays - My Thursdays are all about my Veterans. I spend the day either physically at Veteran organizations or working on Veteran campaigns but everything on Thursday is Red, White and Blue (except for my normal am and pm social media breaks).
Fridays – Now those of you that know me, you know that I like to start my Friday’s early. One of the luxuries of being self-employed. Fridays are all about tying up loose ends and clearing away the stacks of paper on my desk. So Friday as you have guessed is my admin day wher I catchup on routine emails, review bills, read the mail. Action: Schedule (and delegate if that applies to your business) tasks that must be completed the following week. Result: No time lost on Monday mornings figuring out what needs to be done & the week runs more smoothly. You can easily determine throughout the week if there is space to add additional tasks because you are know what the hot items are! Time Spent: About 2 hours (but that much time might not be required for your business, depends on size of your business).
Saturdays – Are all about having fun! No work on Saturday unless it is an out of town conference and then it’s still play anyway!!!
Hopefully you are seeing the bigger picture here. Its not about you’re business not being the same as mind, its about WHAT ARE YOU FOCUSING ON EACH DAY. You can only successfully focus on one thing at a time! If you need help finding your focus as it applies specifically to your business, call me! I’ll be happy to help you out!
