How to Be More Efficient With Your Time as an Entrepreneur
When you first embark on your journey to become an entrepreneur, you’ll likely face numerous different issues. One of the most pressing concerns is how much time you’ll have. It’s not unusual to hear of entrepreneurs spending up to 80 hours per week on their businesses – sometimes even more if it’s in the startup stages. However, despite these fears, there are plenty of ways to be more efficient with your time. This can be important for those who are still working a day job or people who are caught up doing administrative tasks and can’t find time to actually develop their product.
There are many ways to be more efficient with your business and the reasons why you should make time management a priority. Whether it’s to achieve a better work-life balance or to make more time for researching and developing new products, this will help you grow your business substantially.
Use dependable outsourced services
When you start to grow your business, it becomes more important to begin using outsourced services to help get things done. There’s a critical moment between the startup and small business phases of your business where you don’t have enough capital to hire employees, but you need to get more work done. For instance, an answering service can help you capture more leads and answer calls while you’re out of the office, and freelance creative services can help you give your brand a much-needed boost with a new logo or website.
Automate whatever you can (within reason!)
Automation is a great way to save time, but it’s essential to use it within reason. Some automation services and workflows require a lot of monetary investment. Others may reduce the quality of whatever it is you’re automating. A good example would be automating specific lead capturing tasks such as sending emails. However, it’d be a bad idea to automate emails if you want to create a more personal connection with your clients.
Stay on track by scheduling everything
If possible, create a schedule for virtually every hour of your day and stick to it. A schedule will help you stay on track, and it’s an excellent way to plan out how much time you have for each task. Just be sure to plan time for leisure and relaxation too as too much work can be incredibly taxing on your mind. Give yourself plenty of time to transition between tasks if needed. Don’t be too hard on yourself by setting strict limits.
Use a time audit to see where you can be more efficient
A time audit is a brilliant way to track how much time you’re spending on certain tasks. For example, a time audit might reveal that you’re spending a lot of time on tasks that don’t help with your business. Or you may discover that you lose a lot of time to procrastinate. Whatever the case may be, it’s important to identify how you use your time by conducting a time audit.
As an entrepreneur, how do you manage your time efficiently? Let us know in the comments below.
Alyson Pittman is a contributing writer for WBD and a JR marketing associate for Excite Creative Studios, an Atlanta-based creative agency.
Alyson graduated from Kennesaw State University with a Bachelors of Business Administration and a concentration in Marketing. She was in multiple organizations at KSU where she held leadership positions. As a part of the Delta Phi Epsilon Sorority, Alyson held the Social Coordinator position and planned/promoted large events.
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