Be Your Own Boss Friday: 5 Crucial Time Management Hacks for Entrepreneurs

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Every Friday is BYOB (Be Your Own Boss Fridays). I recognize that being an entrepreneur, a solopreneur, business owner, or freelancer is also a part of The Future of Work and there are plenty of readers who fall into that category (myself included!) and many who want to be in that category. So from now on, each Friday will be devoted to that audience but the things I share should also be applicable to those with more traditional employment options as well.

When working a full-time job inside of an organization chances are you have a pretty good idea of where your time is going, you know how much time is being spent on each project and task, and the company is keeping track of the hours you work.

But as an entrepreneur, it is very hard to keep track of where all of your time actually goes. Everyone wants something from you, everyone is pulling you in a lot of different directions, and you're trying to balance a lot of different things. So it is easy to get overwhelmed and to feel burned out. 

Being able to manage your time effectively as an entrepreneur is crucial. It is good for your business, it's good for your sanity, it's good for your spouse's sanity, and it is good for your health and wellbeing.

You can watch the video of our full discussion below or just listen to the audio version as a podcast. If you want more content like this you can subscribe to our Youtube channel. 

Click below to play or go here to listen on your favorite platform.

As entrepreneurs for many years, we have learned the importance of managing our time well and we have found several things that work for us. Today we are sharing top five time management hacks that have worked for us. 

1.Track your time

You need to know where all of your time goes. You don’t necessarily have to do this long term, but it can be very helpful to track your time for a week or a month so you can really see what you are spending the most time on. You may find that a majority of your time is spent on tasks that aren’t actually making you money. Tracking your time can help you find areas in your business that you can improve upon so you can be more effective.

2. Batch your tasks

You may find it helpful to batch similar tasks together so that you can be more focused. For example, maybe you can block off specific time in your day just to write or set aside time to check social media. This can be better than jumping from task to task. This may not work for everyone, Blake typically doesn’t batch tasks, but it is something that works really well for some people, so give it a try and see if it helps you.

This episode is sponsored by FedEx Office.

FedExOffice serves small businesses at more than 2,100 store locations and through convenient and easy to use digital and mobile platforms. FedEx Office is committed to entrepreneurs and small business owners — like us — to support all our printing needs as well as packing, shipping and more. Think of FedEx Office as an extension of your team … your office … or your business.

3. Focus on the rule of three to five

When you run your own business it can be easy to see the 100+ tasks you need to get done and try to accomplish them all in one day. But this can lead to overworking and problems in your personal life, it can cause you to feel overwhelmed, it may even cause you to start disliking your work. One thing you can try is to come up with 3-5 big, achievable milestones for the day and once you are done with those give yourself permission to stop. If you have more energy and time in your work day to accomplish more, great. But if you are tired or if you have reached your stopping point in the day, you can feel good about stopping.

4. Have a general routine

You don’t have to have a strict routine with everything planned out for every hour, but it can definitely help to have a general routine. It helps you get in a mindset of knowing when you are focusing on certain things like exercise or meetings or breaks. This not only helps you as an entrepreneur, but it can also help your team to know your schedule. Plan your day, don’t let your day just happen to you. You can be as strict or as low key as you want to be with the routine, but have one.

Blake and I made lots of mistakes during our entrepreneurial journey and learned things the hard way, but you don’t have to. Whether you are considering going off on your own or you already have, this will be a valuable resource for you. Download our PDF on the 7 things you need to master if you want to be a successful entrepreneur.

5. Learn to say no and create boundaries. 

People are always going to be wanting something from you as an entrepreneur. We get requests all the time from people who want to pick our brain or ask advice or have a call about ideas they want to run past us. You can easily get caught up in these requests and before you know it your day is gone. Learning how to say no to non-potential clients is a huge time saver. It’s not about being mean, but you have to save your energy and time for working on the things that make money, otherwise your business will not last long term. If someone requests a time to talk, maybe you can send an email with your pricing and packages to see if they want to move forward with anything specific or if they just want to talk about their agenda.

You can hear more of our stories and strategies in this episode of the Be Your Own Boss (BYOB) Podcast. Click below to play or go here to listen on your favorite platform.

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If you enjoyed the article and want more content like this here’s what you can do:

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2. Listen to episode 32 of the podcast where we talk about these things in much more detail including sharing our personal stories.
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