The secrets to creating time

Can you really create extra time to spend on your business?

When you run your own business and work for yourself, spending time on your business can be hard to do.  After all, you are so busy trying to market yourself and then working on the clients you generate, spending time “on” your business can be hard to proritise.

Are you really able to increase the number of hours that you have in a day?

No, of course not.  Time management is such an awful phrase, isn’t it!  Of course you can’t manage time. Time just keeps ticking away the same way that it has been for millions of years.

What you can manage is yourself.  How you manage yourself in the hours that you have available is what counts.

And making sure you spend some of these precious hours working “on” your business and not “in” your business, is critical to your long term success (as well as your personal sanity!)

So how do you create the time for your business?

This topic comes up time and time again within my coaching and mentoring sessions (especially in regards to creating social media strategies!) and these were some of the strategies that we use to help create the time.

Use your diary. Whether you prefer electronic or good old fashioned paper, your diary can be used for more than just your client appointments and networking meetings.  Why not schedule in a “Meeting with Me” (and never re-schedule!).

Time commit your deadlines. Planning this month’s marketing is all very well, but if this planning session just doesn’t make it to the top of pile of things to do, it is never going to happen.  And all that means is another month of not setting up your LinkedIn profile or planning out your speaking strategy!  Set a deadline to projects.  Commit to a time, day and month – and stick to it.

Block out key days in your schedule. Whether you can work full time on your business or part time, you can’t work “in” your business all the time.  The magic formula that works for me is 3/5 working “in” the business, 1/5 on writing, setting up systems and general admin and 1/5 “on” the business for my business & marketing planning, including reviewing activity reports and statistics.

Learn and build your skills. It may be that it is your confidence or a lack of understanding that is stopping you from taking the time to plan out your business or marketing strategy.  Build up your confidence by going out to learn how to do plan a business, set goals and review your finances.  Don’t just stick your head in the sand and complain that you don’t have enough time.  That’s a poor excuse.

Little and often. Far better to spend one hour a week thinking, planning and reviewing your business every week, than leaving it until you run out of clients and start panicking about the lack of cashflow.  The business planning process becomes much more daunting then.

Take off and disappear. It is amazing how a change of scenary can allow us to be more creative with our business.  Sit and stare, let your mind think without your phone ringing or your inbox bleeping at you.  You may just come back to your business refreshed and renewed.

And finally, stop wilfing. A great term which stands for “What Was I Looking For?”  For those of you who spend hours being “busy” in front of your PC, searching for websites and reading articles, you may be better off pulling the plug and give those hours back to planning and developing new programmes.

What other ideas do you use to create more time for you in your business?

Other articles you may be interested in:

1. Do Small Businesses Really Have Time For Marketing?
2. Business Networking is Not Just for the Quiet Times
3. Mental Space is Critical for Small Business Success