Time Management Tips

Are you constantly saying, “I don’t have enough time, I am too busy, I wish someone could help me manage my time.” That seems to be a continuous theme with my coaching clients. Their biggest concern is not having enough hours in the day to get everything done, especially their marketing and money-making projects. To help them be more productive, I have come up with time management tips.

But before we can even talk about managing our time, I want to eradicate the myth of magical time management by helping you to avoid your time-eating gremlins. We all have them, those things that take up our precious time, interrupt us and stop us from being as productive as we say we want to be.

No more gremlins

Here are some possible gremlins that may be eating up your work time – especially if you are an entrepreneur working from home. Add kids to the mix and this list grows exponentially.

• Underestimating how much time a project will take
• Checking your email constantly
• Jumping onto social media every time you get a notification
• Watching television 2 or more hours a day
• Letting paperwork and bills pile up
• Doing laundry or other housework instead of making sales calls
• Meeting with clients in person instead of by phone or Skype

The list is endless of activities that can distract us from spending our time working on the money-making activities in our business. Sometimes there is fear underneath those distractions, in which case we tend to create more activities and make ourselves busy so we don’t have to focus on what is or isn’t working in our business. Fear of making sales calls can have us scrubbing floor boards instead of picking up the phone.

I hosted a free webinar yesterday on 3 Proven Strategies to Manage your Time and Your Family. You can listen to the replay here but I wanted to share a couple of tips I discussed on the call.

In order to manage your time you have to first manage your mindset and your expectations. It takes a high level of belief, desire and commitment to be a successful entrepreneur. How badly do you want it? Are you 100% committed to making money or are you creating distractions because of lack of clarity, doubt in yourself or fear of success? These are very real fears and I have dealt with all of them at various times in my career. I still struggle at times to get all of the pieces of family and business flowing in harmony – I have two teens and it can get pretty chaotic. My husband and I both work from home and there is lots to take care of.

How do I do it when it’s all working well? I time block – this is the best time management tip I have ever learned. That and learning to live by my calendar are two areas that have changed my business this year. And when I don’t do this, I can see where it impacts my income and lead generation.

What is time blocking?

Time blocking your calendar means getting rid of your to-do list and putting into your calendar specific blocks of times dedicated to the different activities in your business and life. Here is a sample work calendar. The yellow blocks of time are dedicated to money-making activities unique to your business.

Take a look at your calendar and see where you can stop the distractions and create more time. If you are struggling to figure it out, click here to apply now for a free strategy session with me. In 30-minutes we can create a perfect profit plan for your business.