Time Management Tips to Grow Your Business
How good are you at time management and are your time management skills holding you back from growing your business? Do you ever catch yourself thinking: “If I had more time I would be able to build my business faster”, “I’m not where I want to be in life because I don’t have enough time”? Do you blame your lack of progress in your business’ development on your day job, living situation, family situation? How often do you tell yourself you’ll never make it because you’re too tired to get anything done?
I used to think that my day job was holding me back, so I resented it. I used to think I was too tired during my time off to get anything done, so I didn’t even try doing anything. I used to blame my lack of progress on everything but my own default: a lack of commitment and organization. That is until I started to write a new story for myself after deconstructing my limiting beliefs, one by one. You can read my blog post about how to identify and get rid of limiting beliefs, but first... let’s talk about time management.
In 2021 I found myself with a few weeks of “free time” on my hands, I was in between jobs, well actually I was out of a job and waiting to hear if I got the new position so it wasn’t exactly a stress-free period, but I didn’t get much done. Or at least not as much as I hoped to. It was a time of refelction, I was figuring out what my next career move would be, and I did, but I didn’t do anything to start this new path. I just thought about it, a lot.
Once I started the new job, I had committed myself, once more, to sell my time to someone else, instead of using it to build something for myself. So I resented my job, even though it was my dream job (check out the blog post: What Getting my Dream Job Taught Me). This is when it hit me, it became so clear, the problem wasn’t a lack of time, I just had plenty of time and did almost nothing with it, the problem was a lack of commitment and poor time management. A real wake up call!
So I decided to start moving things around. I wasn’t going to make excuses anymore, I was going to take responsibility for myself and my career. In order to do that, I did what I know how to do best, I got organized. I took a spreadsheet, created a schedule, and planned my days from the first sip of coffee in the morning to flossing before bed, while stuffing as much “business time” as I could in between my day job and everything else I need to do to function as a human being.
In the beginning, it really helped me to identify when I could make time to work on my business, and it was great for a while, because I started to actually get things done, but I made a huge mistake. I planned too much work and no time to rest. In addition to my day job, personal issues to deal with, and an energy-draining living environment, it was too much, and I froze. But I didn’t want to give up on my project, too many times I gave up on a creative or professional project after a burnout. Not this time, I was determined to see this through.
So I decided to try something new. This time, instead of pushing through or giving up, I will learn to listen to my body, learn to understand what it needs and when it needs it, and be kind with myself. This is when I understood that resting was as important as everything else I was doing to get my business going. I talked about this in my blog post: Take a Break
If you are running a business, you are most likely very passionate about what you’re doing and ready to work every minute of every day, but it’s the last thing you want to do. You cannot sustainably run a business when you’re tired, you cannot present yourself as your best self for your customers when you feel depleted, and you cannot show up for yourself when you are exhausted.
So, after much trial and error, I’ve learned some valuable time management lessons, and I want to share some of them with you. But keep in mind that figuring out your work schedule is, and will always be, a work in progress. No matter how well you plan ahead, your energy level, workload and circumstances will always change, the key is to learn to adapt to it!
Plan for work and rest
Schedule work time. Schedule rest time. How much time do you spend working? How much time do you spend resting? Make sure you understand what your body and brain need and adjust your planning accordingly.
If you have a day job and you’re struggling to find time to work on your business, ask yourself if you can watch less TV in the evening? Maybe you can go out for drinks only once a week? Can you cut the time you spend on social media? (I’m talking about doom scrolling here, spending time marketing on social media is work).
If you don’t have enough time to rest, maybe you can try moving things around. If you work in the evenings after your day job and enter the weekend exhausted and lose all motivation to work on your business, can you instead try to rest in the evenings during the week and be fresh to get things done on the weekend? Or vice-versa.
If your current work/rest routine isn’t working out, see how you can move things around and try new arrangements. Be careful to not overplan though, that’s what I did when I started my YouTube channel, and this is how I ended up having to take a break for a few weeks (I wrote about this in another blog, YouTube Burnout).
Once you identify the work / rest balance you need to grow your business and show up as your best self for your clients, things get much easier.
Set boundaries
Do you have boundaries? Do you know how to respect them?
Setting boundaries in your personal life can already be a challenge for many of us. But did you know that you need to set boundaries in your business as well?
Hear me out, you just made your schedule for the week, you know when you’re working, and when you’re going out, and you feel great about it. You know this schedule is optimized for your needs and getting the best results for your business and yourself.
A friend calls you, asks you out on an evening you planned to work, what do you do? Do you start moving things around so you can go out? Or do you stick to your plan?
Sometimes it’s easy to move things around and it does no harm, but what about that time when you rescheduled your work time and went out, then needed some extra rest because of it, then got behind with work, and it left you feeling discouraged and feeling like things aren’t working out?
It can be really easy to get distracted and think that “It’s ok, I’ll catch up with this task later”, but what if you don’t? I’m not saying it’s the end of everything, but it’s certainly the small choices we make that create the big picture and help us reach for the results we’re aiming at.
This is why you need to set boundaries around your schedule. When you go through the trouble of making a schedule, try to stick to it, respect your own boundaries. When you made that schedule, you were objective and knew it was the best way for you to make things work.
And the same goes about rest time. When you’re resting and relaxing, do you get sucked back into work because “I just have to do this one thing and then I’m done”? Fast forward two hours later, you’re still working instead of resting, and now you’re exhausted. And the next day you won’t be as energized as planned to show up for your clients and get the job done.
Consider the benefits of setting boundaries around your schedule in the long-term, you can be flexible, but be careful not to lose momentum in your business’ growth.
Trial and error
Try out the first two points of this blog and see what happens. It’s only by trying things out and studying your own needs and results that you’re going to be able to find out what works for you in the long run and create a healthy and efficient schedule for your business and personal life.
But first you have to know what kind of work / life balance you want to have. If that’s not something you thought about yet, maybe start thinking about it. You can’t successfully create a result you haven’t planned for.
What does your ideal workday look like? How many hours a week do you need to rest? How much time do you want to save for your friends and family? It’ll be much easier to make a successful work schedule once you know what your needs are in all areas of your life.
Figure out what works for you. Don’t let hustle culture get to you. Didn’t you start this journey so you could eventually run your own business and work on your own terms? Better take care of yourself? Have more time to relax? If you know how to meet your needs today, you can already start living that life.
