Today, I want to talk to you about that little thing that always seems to get away from us – our time.
We surveyed a large audience before designing our Planathon online course. Since the goal was to help as many entrepreneurs as possible, we wanted to figure out what people are struggling with – and what they want to plan to grow their business.
Let me tell you; we received a lot of answers!
One of the topics that came up a lot was time management. Where does your time go? And how can you start using it more efficiently to better your business?
When you want to know where your money is going, you create a budget, right?
I want you to start creating a time budget.
How will that help you? Well, I've helped a lot of people create their own time budgets, and I've found that people often have a lot of extra time available that they aren't fully optimizing. Instead of using that time in ways that will benefit their business, they're spending it on lower-priority things that aren't necessary in their lives.
I want to give you a few tips on how to be strategic on how you prioritize your time.
Structuring your time budget. There are a few different ways that you can structure your time budget – you can go by your week, your month, or just your work week. Just choose what works best for you, and don't forget to budget in time to sleep!
Scale back your work time. Let's say that you plan to work 40 hours per work week. My advice to you is to scale it back to 35 hours when planning your time budget. Why would you want to do that? Because that leaves 5 hours per week for you to be a visionary and to be creative. It also leaves you space for overflow work, or to make time for a team member or client that needs you. Consistently working for over 40 hours per week harms your productivity, so to keep your productivity at peak levels, don't overwork yourself. 60 hour work weeks here and there are fine if you have a big project in the works, but don't make it a regular habit.
Identify your $100 goals. I talked a bit about the difference between $5, $20, and $100 goals here. Many people who sit down and really think about where their time is going (and where it should be going) find that instead of working toward those big $100 ideas, they are wasting time on $5 or even $1 ideas – and that's no good for you or your business! You'll want to budget time each week or month to work toward these $100 goals. Once you have a clear picture of what your goals are, you'll know how much time you need to spend (and where to spend it) to grab those bills!
Build in time to recharge. You're not a robot – working on your business every hour of every day is going to burn you out and ultimately make you less productive. If you don't take the time to recharge and do things that fulfill you (whether that be a creative outlet, spending time with loved ones, playing a sport, or just walking on the beach), you're not going to be an asset to your business for very long! Schedule in some downtime to do the things that bring you joy, so that you can bring that energy back to your business.
Make room for marketing. A lot of people ask me how much time they should spend on marketing, Business owners who spend two days per week on sales and marketing activities grow 60% faster than those who don't. If you're in a stage of growth in your business, aim for those two days per week. You can dial it up or down based on your schedule.
How many hours are you planning to work every week? What goals are you prioritizing? I'd love to hear your plans in the comments!
If you want to stop wasting time and start making more time and money for yourself by doing less, then you need to clone yourself! Click here to get Lifetime Access to my popular program, How to Clone Yourself, and start cloning yourself today.
