Time Wasters - Optimize It, Don't Waste It
Optimize Your Time ... Optimize Your Marketing Strategy
Down time is key to recovery, Time is a precious commodity. Ensure it is used to improve business.
Even in a small home office alone, there are unpaid time wasters and distractions we must deal with on a daily basis, and yet they are necessary evils to grow a practice - day to day operations such as email / phone calls / meetings, marketing tasks such as social media / link building, and accounting tasks such as invoicing / paying bills not to mention home management of personal errands / tasks. But we don’t always have time to be a jack of all trades, yet sometimes we have to be. So how do we find the time to be?
Answer? Be scheduled, be disciplined, be focused. In short, be organized. Work smarter, not harder. Specifically (while at “work”):
? Keep checking of email to scheduled times throughout the day (2 - 4) then make a to-do folder / task list to keep things organized. Perhaps have an auto-responder to let the sender know the email was received and when they can reasonably expect a reply. Allow phone calls to go to voice mail and then schedule time to check the voice mail and get back to the person within 24 hours unless urgent.
? Keep posts to social media to scheduled times. Write a list ahead of time (perhaps on the weekend or in the evening) and then before your day starts. Only post to the most relevant social media channels and use a tool such as HootSuite. Again, be sure to NOT spend TOO much time on this. You have other things to do. If need be, feel free to outsource this third item. However, be sure what is posted adequate reflects your passion and expertise, not the managers interpretation of it.
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? Set aside time each day to stay caught up on your accounting tasks. That is, be sure to keep your check register, bills to pay, and invoices to send up to date on a daily basis so you don't fall behind. Perhaps make it part of a morning or evening routine.
And for God’s sake, put the cell phone down once in a while. Final tip, even when you have a home office (and even when you don’t), find a way to leave work at work and leave personal stuff to the evenings and weekends.
Original Post July 29, 2015
Rob Shurtleff
The Website Guy