Entrepreneurship is one in all the most fulfilling but demanding careers a person can have. As a business owner, you’re in charge of nearly every facet of your organization or enterprise.
From planning and executing a technique to hiring employees, winning recent clients, and all of the
As an entrepreneur or small business owner, time management is critical to ensure productivity, effectiveness, and overall success. Wondering how you’ll be able to improve your time management skills to improve your organization’s bottom line? Keep reading!
Unique Time Management Challenges for Entrepreneurs
Let’s first discuss the basics — what’s time management? As a skill, time management helps individuals complete work on time, avoid distractions, and effectively prioritize critical tasks without ever sacrificing the quality of work provided.
But why is time management essential for entrepreneurs? Time management skills are vital to be successful in any role, be it team leader or individual contributor. Nonetheless, this skill set is arguably the most significant a part of an entrepreneur’s
A whopping 89% of entrepreneurs see their workload as too heavy. So, what makes the entrepreneurial role so difficult that point management becomes an issue? Here’s what entrepreneurs are juggling that sets them aside from the remainder of the workforce.
High-Level Responsibilities
Running a company is way more complicated than one might realize. Entrepreneurs and business owners have their hands in every facet of the business. On any given day, they may go from interviewing job candidates to a sales meeting, calls with investors, onboarding recent customers, and handling customer support issues.
In a small business, the owner is significantly involved in most departments’
How stress affects small business owners’ lives (Source: Survey by Truist)
Unpredictable Schedules
Entrepreneurs are sometimes called makers and managers, where they hold
Business operations can ebb and flow, requiring more involvement during some seasons and less in others. This makes time management strategies for entrepreneurs and professionals critical for the company’s success.
Time Management Suggestions for Entrepreneurs
Wondering how one can improve time management for entrepreneurs? You’re in the right place!
Listed here are some practical strategies you’ll be able to implement immediately and see how they improve your productivity as a business owner. You’ll be in a position to get more done in less time since you won’t attempt to deal with multiple things at once.
Prioritization Methods
Prioritizing is an effective time management strategy. It helps entrepreneurs define what essential tasks have to be accomplished first and put aside the rest. Various time management worksheets simplify the process.
These methods include the Priority Matrix (Eisenhower Matrix) method, where you draw a square and label the top two quadrants Urgent/Not Urgent and the bottom two Necessary/Not Necessary.
The tasks in the Urgent and Necessary quadrants develop into the priority items, while those in the Not Urgent and Not Necessary quadrants might be delegated or delayed/cancelled.
This method is also often known as the 4 quadrants of time management. You possibly can create this time management matrix using a notebook and pen or download a
Other prioritization methods include the ABCDE method, where you rank the tasks on your
This method helps entrepreneurs accomplish essential tasks, freeing up their time to work on other pressing items. Plus, spending as little as
Time Blocking
Time blocking is a highly effective strategy for providing structure to your day. It ensures you’ll be able to accomplish all the things you want to while setting boundaries and limits on certain items.
This method involves setting aside specific blocks of time for each task quite than attempting to juggle multiple items at once and never getting anything completely over the finish line.
You possibly can easily time block using any calendar app you favor
For instance, you’ll be able to dedicate the first hour of your day to responding to emails, the next three hours to completing critical tasks, and the last hour to meetings.
By assigning
Delegation
Delegation is arguably one in all an entrepreneur’s only skills. The power to pass essential tasks to trusted employees is a huge strength as a business owner.
Delegating lessens your workload, builds trust in your staff, and lets you have more time to dedicate to areas of the business that need your attention.
To delegate tasks effectively, take a look at the items that take up a lot of your time and energy day by day. Can any parts of that task be handed off to a qualified worker? In doing so, you’ll be able to strengthen your team’s confidence and skills while optimizing your productivity. It’s a
By the way, if you utilize Ecwid by Lightspeed for your online store, you’ll be able to easily delegate some online store tasks to your team members. You possibly can add staff accounts and grant permissions to be sure that only authorized employees can access sensitive information and critical functions.
Leveraging Technology for Higher Time Management
How can an entrepreneur compensate for a time management weakness? Try one in all the strategies mentioned above. To support your commitment, here is an additional suggestion.
Because we live in a digital age, technology plays a significant role in time management and the overarching success of any business. Fortunately, various tools and technology resources can offer support in time management for entrepreneurs and small business owners. Let’s discuss those here.
Productivity Apps
As a business owner, your phone likely lives in your hand during all of your waking hours, able to take calls, answer emails, schedule demos, and more. The excellent news is that many productivity apps can assist make your day more productive. A few of the popular productivity apps and resources include:
- Evernote for effective
note-taking you can share with employees - Slack for
on-the-go communication with staff and clients - Zoom for convenient video conferencing from anywhere in the world
- Canva for quick and easy skilled graphic design capabilities
- Lightspeed Payments for a easy payment setup in an online store
- MileIQ for travel tracking to streamline taxes
- ClickUp for project management and task organization.
Using Evernote for
Automation
Automation tools can assist save time and increase productivity for repetitive tasks in your workload. From appointment or meeting scheduling to processing invoices or data entry, automation can assist simplify your workflows and can help you deal with the tasks that actually matter.
That is where an ecommerce platform plays a role, too. For instance, Ecwid by Lightspeed automates inventory management and order processing, making it easier for businesses to manage their online stores. With integrations with popular shipping carriers and payment gateways, you’ll be able to deal with other points of what you are promoting while offering customers a seamless shopping experience.
Ecwid sends you
Overcoming Common Time Management Challenges
Time management for entrepreneurs and business owners might be a challenge as they need to wear so many hats. Nonetheless, acknowledging your strengths and weaknesses can assist to understand where you want to focus your efforts and where you would like support through delegation.
Here’s how you’ll be able to effectively solve many challenges related to time management.
Combatting Distractions
Whether you earn a living from home or in an office setting, distractions are around every corner. Anticipating them can assist reduce their power and remove your focus. We recommend turning off notifications on your phone and email as you’re employed.
Based on a report by Economist Impact, recovering from distractions is one in all the top five causes of lost focus. For an average US knowledge employee, the time spent bouncing back from distractions adds up to 127 hours yearly. Imagine what you would accomplish with an extra 127 hours of uninterrupted work!
Annual hours of lost focus and equivalent economic cost per person (Source: report by Economist Impact)
Plan your day using the time blocks we mentioned above so precisely what time allotments you’ve gotten to complete specific tasks. Take breaks to refocus your mind, walk outside to
Prioritizing Work-Life Balance
Did you realize that 70% of entrepreneurs experience burnout as a consequence of a lack of
Proceed to prioritize a healthy
You can too use the
Wrap Up
Running a business is no easy feat, but time management skills for entrepreneurs make it possible to be more productive and effective for your team and what you are promoting while maintaining a healthy
It takes planning, strategy, and effort, however the consequence will result in a more fulfilling profession that requires less energy and time. What may very well be higher than that?
