3 Tips to Improve Your Time Management
Approx. reading time 3 minutes
Time is money, and unlike money, which we may be able to regenerate, our time is finite. I don’t mean in an existential way, although that is true too, I mean there are only so many hours in a day and week that we can and want to work. It requires being selective in what we give our attention to.
This holds true in every aspect of life and especially in the life of a business owner or entrepreneur, especially a solopreneur. One head and two hands juggling a multitude of proverbial balls, a.k.a. tasks—no wonder some of those balls get dropped!
A recent Entrepreneur article and interview with Bethenny Frankel highlights how a successful entrepreneur, who helps build multimillion-dollar brands, manages her time and priorities wisely.
I agree and abide by several of her approaches, so here are three tips to help you improve your time management:
1. Prioritise
Decide what is truly important for yourself and your business and plan your responses accordingly. Figure out your priorities in your head or on paper by using the Eisenhower Matrix (aka Urgent & Important Matrix) to categorise what is or isn’t important. The matrix is a quadrant split as follows (see image below as well):
a. Priority 1 Urgent & important = Do: Business-relevant tasks with an imminent deadline that only you can/are best suited to do
b. Priority 2 Important & less urgent = Schedule: Plan these tasks in your calendar and do them within 1-3 days or at least within one week
c. Priority 3 Urgent & less important = Delegate: For instance, email inquiries, online research, unexpected queries or ‘need-to-do-at-some-point’ tasks. These are ideal to have someone else take care of. Be sure to check back on their progress
d. Priority 4 Not Urgent & Not Important = Eliminate: Like surfing the Internet, checking your social media or any kind of distraction that isn’t going to grow your business
Eisenhower matrix
2. Stack
Frankel suggests “stacking” tasks, meaning doing a string of tasks that are similar in nature, e.g. making back-to-back phone calls, or writing all your social media and e-mail marketing in one sitting (posts, blog, newsletter). This helps create focus and flow because you are using the same part of the brain for each activity, rather than jumping between completely different kinds of work, which takes greater brain-effort.
3. Use Parkinson’s Law to your advantage
Parkinson’s Law says that “work expands to fill the time allotted”, meaning that the amount of work required adjusts to the time available for its completion. In plain English, if you have several weeks to complete a task, you will either make the task bigger than it needs to be or leave it to the last minute to complete (aka procrastinate). Conversely, when given only a short timeframe to complete something, you can usually hustle and actually get it done within the allotted time.
So, maybe set yourself tighter timelines more often, stick to your priority quadrant # 1 and 2 for efficiency’s sake and don’t be afraid to say “No” (or “Not now”) more often!
Image by Jon Tyson_Unsplash