7 Easy Time Management Tips For Busy Entrepreneurs

Being an entrepreneur is exciting, but equally demanding.

Every entrepreneur has to bite off mouthfuls every day, and still sleep with the thought of an impending, super busy day awaiting.

The question begs itself, how are successful entrepreneurs able to juggle so many crucial tasks and responsibilities without letting any of them fall?

From organizing and chairing meetings to planning and executing novel strategies, from dealing with disgruntled employees to meeting prospective new clients – an entrepreneur’s day can be a complicated recipe.

Ask any successful businessperson or entrepreneur, the one skill they cherish the most is – time management. That’s what helps them remain sane amidst grand chaos, and keeps the psychological costs of entrepreneurship low.

The better an entrepreneur becomes at time management, the better the business will be. The best part – the more you practice time management, the better you become at it.

In every business time management might be the key to productivity. Read this article to understand the benefits of time management for small businesses and their employees.

This guide is my attempt to help entrepreneurs with 16 must-know and must-use time management practices.

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1. Put A Time Limit On Your Time

An entrepreneur can’t always predict how the day or the week is going to pan out. Rather than letting sudden requests for meetings, unplanned teleconferences, and time thieves upset your day, embrace the uncertainty by putting a premium on your time invested in unplanned activities. Not more than 5 minutes on a call, not more than 2 unplanned meetings a day, not more than 10 minutes on an instant messenger session with your regional counterparts – these ground rules will always ensure that you remain on top of your daily work schedule and stay away from time wasters.

This is an indispensable trait for any entrepreneur, particularly to show it to the rest of the team that slacking and wasting of time is not an option. Meetings, for instance, could easily become the biggest time-drain for your team and you, unless you clearly implement ground rules to enhance productivity. Do this, and you’ll gradually forge a culture where people realize that they would need to bring their best game to the table when they’re on your time.

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2. Use Technology to Save Time

Did you know – technology has made such rapid advances that it’s now possible for educators to engage students, and deliver the experience of field trips and travel without investing an entire day, leveraging virtual reality?

Technology has become a key aspect of almost every business. It’s an enabler for businesses in every aspect, right from communications to customer relationships management. The modern entrepreneur knows how to use technology to save precious minutes and invaluable hours every day. Here are some of the routine work elements that you can put on auto pilot to have fewer things to worry about.

• Your recurring business and personal monthly bill payments can be automated easily.
• You can set up highly sophisticated marketing campaigns using tools like Marketo, Clever Hub, and Eloqua
• Instead of setting up a weekly meeting for social media post planning, you could schedule posts for a month or more.
• Appointment reminder apps also make sure you know your commitments when you start your day, and ensure you don’t miss any meetings.
• I recommend you try using a time tracking app like Time Doctor to find out avoidable time-drains.
• If you’re in charge of several retail stores, shops, and offices, use a store execution automation service such as ZipLine, which can take control of communication, workflows, and reporting for store management.

Here is also a list of essential time management apps that you can choose from to help you get more work done as well as save time.

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3. Anticipate Interruptions

An extension to the time management practice I suggested above is to anticipate interruptions, personal as well as business related. Particularly for entrepreneurs with family commitments to look after, it can be crushing to have their work day plan disrupted because of a family need.

Even your colleagues could end up creating unnecessary problems for you to sort out, any time. A sudden requirement for a star performing employee to go on a long leave, a mishap at the workplace, your car breaking down on a solitary road, a howling email from your top client – it could be anything.

If your schedule is packed to the brim with your own tasks, it becomes hard to make adjustments to accommodate these contingencies. This is why it’s crucial that you keep at least some white space in your daily schedules, so that your daily and weekly targets are not flayed off track because of emergencies.

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4. Delegate, Delegate and Delegate

It’s highly likely you are doing several tasks a week that you can easily delegate to somebody by spending 10 to 30 minutes in getting them aboard and comfortable with the task. Because you don’t have those 30 minutes today, you find it alright to spend 5 minutes today, and for the days to come, in doing a task! Always remember, delegation is your best tool to free yourself up to bring the maximum value to the business. What would you commit your time to – editing written material for an in-house program, or showcasing your business’ prowess to new clients? Think of yourself as the quarterback on the football field; focus on calling the right plays, directing the game, and leading your players to the goal. Here are some delegation strategies to use.

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5. Put on Blinders

Ever see how horses are equipped with blinders, to make sure they stay on course during races, and don’t waste time in even one unnecessary step! Metaphorically speaking, you’d do well to put on blinders to get important work done, particularly one where you require laser sharp focus.

• Create ritualistic elements that prepare your mind for the high intensity work that awaits; it could anything, right from making coffee for yourself to doing a quick round of push ups.
• Eliminate distractions, right from ambient noises to unnecessary furniture.
• Ship off your excuses to a galaxy far away!
• Make your goals actionable, measurable, realistic, and timebound.
• Get started; there will never be the perfect time to start that all-important project, the best time was yesterday, next best is today.

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6. Automate Repetitive Tasks

There will always be tasks that demand your attention, that can’t be delegated, and have to be done every so often. Identify such tasks, and leverage technology to automate them.

If you have a team of in-house web developers, you can easily seek their help to add basic functionalities to the applications you use on a regular basis to automate basic tasks such as report extraction. This will, indeed, take some time and effort upfront. However, considering that you can eliminate close to 90% effort of a repetitive task by automating the major tasks in the process, the returns are well worth the investment.

For all of your basic digital marketing tasks for instance, there are pretty inexpensive and basic tools for automation. For example, for verifying validity of emails in a large list, you can use tools like NeverBounce.

To send quotations and contracts, leverage an integrated, powerful, and secure platform for creating, collaborating on, and sharing sales documents and proposals.

Similarly, you can use social media post scheduling tools, email drip marketing campaign managers, SEO campaign management to make your life easier.

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7. Start Your Day Earlier

It’s amazing how even half an hour of early morning time can help you bring your thoughts together, plan your day like a pro, and get things done in super-charge mode. You hardly need to look beyond the success stories and biographies of the most famous men and women of our times to realize that one thing in common among them is that they all slept at a reasonably early hour and started their day earlier than most people. It is highly empowering to have time to yourself, with the peace of mind that there will be no email, phone call, or in-person meeting to attend to for some time.

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Final Thoughts

Entrepreneurs pay a secret price every day, and that’s linked to the stress they manage and face every day. To fare better, and build a strong business along the way, make sure you stay on top of how you spend your time.