Entrepreneurship and productivity don’t always go together, so I decided to share with you my process for how I help my clients become more productive in their business.
The first decade of my business I was burning the midnight oil. I would get up super early and work super late. I literally worked around the clock. My business was an extension of myself. I would regularly put in 12 to 14-hour days. And guess what, I was nowhere near as productive as I am today.
It wasn’t until after I had my first son, who is going to be 8 this year, that I really started to get serious about being really productive and efficient with my time.
If you want to grow your business as an entrepreneur, you have to get really good at productivity, time management, and focus in spite of all of the distractions that can come up around you. Trust me, there can be a lot of them and there’s always a to-do list to be done and a fire to be put out.
Arrange your schedule to be more productive
Anytime I start working with a client, I always sit down with them and have them tell me about what a regular week looks like in their business.
- What’s the schedule they want to keep?
- What does an ideal day look like to them?
- What does an ideal week look like to them?
9 out of 10 times they are not living that ideal week. So, I always encourage them to do a two-week time study
What is a time study?
During a time study, you track your time every 15 minutes to keep an eye on what you’re doing. It is very uncomfortable, and you often find and realize just how much time you are wasting. It can be really eye-opening and a game-changer.
If you’re somebody who is feeling like you’re not getting any traction or momentum or you’re somebody who just wants to increase productivity, I highly recommend that you do a two-week time study. Take a notebook and write down what you’re doing every 15 minutes from 7 AM to 7 PM.
Write down the time, what you are doing and whether it is strategic, tactical, or personal. (eating, self-care, paying bills, etc.).
You can also take it a step further and write down whether it’s a green light = something you love to do, a yellow light = something neutral, or a red light = something you don’t like to do at all.
I highly recommend doing it for two weeks. Don’t do it when you’re traveling, on vacation, or on a deadline week.
After the time study weeks are completed, you can start making adjustments. A time study can be very eye-opening. Once you have that awareness of how you’re spending your time, you can start looking at
- what you can delegate
- where you need to get better with your time
- how you need to adjust your schedule so that you can be more productive
Oftentimes, an entrepreneur’s day is a mishmash of marketing, sales, client delivery, customer service, email, or social media.
Start grouping your tasks
Once you analyze your time study and see what tasks you are doing and when you can start grouping them together.
What are all the marketing activities you need to do? / What are all the sales activities you need to do?
I always suggest to my clients to time block their schedule and to theme the day. For example, if we can do all of our marketing and all of our sales stuff in one day.
Moving your business forward
Another thing that I like to account for is moving the business forward. In January you probably wrote down a bunch of goals for your business and now it’s May, and you might be thinking “I’m not exactly where I intended to be”. That’s because you actually have to block time to move the business forward.
I highly recommend blocking off time each week for your business. I personally block out time every morning between 4 and 6 am. There are no distractions, and no one is up in my house at that time.
Pre-covid, I would take all day on Wednesday and make that my, OMG day. So it really depends on how you like to operate.
If you’re someone who’s an early riser or like staying up late at night, block that time to move the business forward. Once you have those time blocks on your schedule, it can be really easy to determine what you need.
What are the things that you do regularly so that you can put them on the calendar?
Special Business Bonus Tip: Treat your own business like your best client!
When I shifted my mindset and started treating my business as an entity that was separate from me, and I started treating it like it was my best client that is when my business grew.
I highly encourage you to do the same!
You wouldn’t cancel on your best client; you wouldn’t do sloppy work for your best client.
When you shift your mindset to treating your own business like your best client, growth will happen because you will get things done. You’ll move your business forward and you’ll start to feel super excited and productive and will love to show up for yourself in your business.
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