Whether you are freelancing or running your business as a solopreneur, these time management tips will produce twenty hours of work in half the time.
For a small business owner, there is never enough time in the day to get everything done. Your to-do list will have more empty spaces than checks as you tell your friends how you will finish up early so you can hang out with them at midnight.
As a solopreneur, one of your main challenges is to do the work of ten people. You’ll have to prioritize, but that’s just a fancy word for skip things. It’s hard to do that when you are trying to convince a prospect that you can produce better results than the five-person team down the street.
The better you manage your time, the more you can offer.
Here are five time management tips to getting more out of your minutes:
No News is Good News
Distractions come in two flavors: Asparagus and Raw Sewage.
It’s bad enough when you have a task to do and it gets pushed off bysome news articles.
The worst is when we are in the zone. We’re building up a real momentum when we decide to check the sports score. While we at it, we zip over to social media to check our feed. In thirty seconds, aour most productive time of the day can be cut to shreds.
There is a quick fix for all of this.
You can download applications that block you from seeing social media and overly disruptive web sites. You can set which sites and what times you forbid yourself access.
It might be a little tough at first, but in time you’ll be able to work a full ten hours in a ten-hour day, never losing your momentum as it builds up.
Plan Your Day but be Flexible
A recent study asked 1,000 successful people what they did to be successful. A stunning 85% of them said they wrote down their goals.
That’s it.
By simply writing down what you want to accomplish over the next ten years, ten months, or in our case, ten hours, you triple your chances of accomplishing them.
At the end of every workday, make sure to plan what you will do the next day. You will be surprised how much more you get done.
As a bonus, you get to click those lovely little checkmarks next to each completed task.
Plan when You Eat
A famous Russian general said, “Eat a big breakfast. Share half your lunch with a friend. Give your dinner to your enemy.”
Whether freelancing or running your own business, it’s good form to eat a big breakfast before you get started and push lunch off when you need a break. Drink water or juice because you can grab it right away. Heating up a coffee or tea takes a few minutes and if you do it several times a day, it adds up.
Turn off the Phone
Receiving phone calls can be the least of your worries. It’s the text messages, social media updates, and email notifications that can kill you.
By planning your day, you can schedule exactly when you will check your phone and return necessary calls and messages. Just as important, you can decide whenit will be impossible to see or hear the phone.
Work Smart
When I take classes on Udemy or LinkedIn learning, I up the play speed to 1.5x. If I have to take manual notes on something, I use shorthand. My friends have two screens they use, but I only have one. It helps me focus more on what I am doing.
If starting work at 9:30 AM lets me put in 45 minutes on the treadmill and getting started with a clear and focused mind, it beats sitting down at 7 AM thinking about hot pancakes.
If you find it easier to focus by working late at night, take advantage that as a solopreneur or by freelancing, you only report to yourself.
If something is considered unconventional by the rest of the world but it works for you, like turning your phone off or using an app to restrict what you see online– go for it!
I have been running my business for over twenty years, and these time management tips have always delivered.
Doron runs The Farber Consulting Group, a software company that develops new apps and upgrades your desktop applications to the cloud.
The Farber Consulting Group Inc. offers the custom software development. Contact us today for more information on how we can help you maximize the performance of your custom software.