When you’re a business owner, you’re accustomed to wearing many (many, many!) hats. There’s a hat for administration, another for marketing, another for accounts, another for logistics, another for customer service and another 50 for all of the various tasks you have to do each week.
Sometimes it may feel like there just isn’t enough hours in the day, I get it, I’ve been there and I know it’s tough so I wanted to share my favourite time management tips. Hopefully they’re helpful for you as well.
Plan your week
The first and one of the biggest helps for me is planning my week.
Each Monday, I allow 30-60 minutes to plan my week ahead. During this time, I have my calendar out and schedule in all appointments, meetings and places I have to be (both personal and professional). Next, I schedule in the smaller work tasks I need to get done. This includes (but of course is dependent on the week) checking over marketing plans, replying to emails, checking social media insights, rostering and approving staff leave and chatting with clients.
I also schedule in 30 minutes of exercise, 3 times a week and 30 minutes of ‘rest’ time every single day. This means I do have the time for myself and it will be prioritised.
Don’t multitask
The next tip is to stop multitasking. When we multitask, our mind is jumping from one project or task to another and is never given the opportunity to entirely concentrate. By focusing on one task at a time we can increase our productivity and performance.
Keep your space organised
When our space (office, home, car, phone, emails etc) is unorganised, it can also cause our minds to be unorganised too. When we work from an organised, tidy place, our creativity and productivity will increase.
Use to-do lists
I love to-do lists. I find them incredibly helpful in keeping up with what needs to be completed and when it needs to be completed. I find having to-do lists for both work (separated into each project) and for home incredibly helpful.
Outsource
Lastly, outsourcing has been the number one time managing hack.
Outsourcing can be done both at work and at home. For work, this may include hiring staff (or more staff) or it may be hiring a Virtual Assistant company (such as us here at Mint Business Centre). At home, it may include hiring a cleaner or ordering dinners from a food service such as Hello Fresh.
Whatever you don’t enjoy doing, you can consider outsourcing to somebody else.
I hope the 5 tips above help you to manage your time as a business owner!