10 Time Management Tips for Busy Entrepreneurs

Business owners tend to wear many different hats, which is why saving yourself time however and whenever you can is super important to your sanity. Being busy is not a badge of honor; you need to be productive in the things you spend your valuable time on. Discover tips and techniques that will help you simplify how you work and effectively manage your time – ensuring that you get tasks done more efficiently and giving you more time for whatever you choose!

1) Organize your work around your energy levels.

Your productivity levels are directly related to your energy levels, so schedule your hardest tasks for when your energy levels are at their highest. You might be a morning person, or maybe you get a burst of energy in the mid-afternoon. Knowing when you are most productive can help you tackle your biggest or most important tasks during that timeframe. Any tasks that require little mental energy, such as responding to emails, can be scheduled for the times when your energy levels are lower.

2) Make a plan for the day.

You’ve most likely heard of this tip already but it works! Before you go to bed, write down your priorities and events for the next day. When you plan ahead, you’re mentally preparing yourself for any challenges you may face. This will also help to limit procrastination at the start of the day and ensure that you work more efficiently.

3) Start your day with the most important task.

Ever heard of “eat the frog”? When you start the day off by completing your most important task, you’ll give yourself a boost of momentum and a real sense of accomplishment.

4) Email Templates.

If you’re constantly getting emails with the same questions, it’s time to write an email template. Whether it’s a team member question or a client inquiry, email templates can save you valuable time. Gmail, in particular, makes it easy to save templates and quickly apply them whenever you need them.

5) Project Management Templates.

I talk a lot about project management tools, like Asana or ClickUp, and for a good reason. PM tools allow you to organize everything in your business – company information, your team, your projects, and your tasks. One of the features of PM tools is creating templates for your recurring tasks or most common projects.

Here are a couple of examples of templates:

• Publish a new podcast episode every week? Make your process into a task template!
• Regularly publish new blog posts? Create a task template for everything you or a team member does in the process.

The best part? You can then create a powerful automation within Asana or ClickUp to generate your task template, saving you even more time.

6) Prioritize and Batch Your Work.

Often times we see our tasklist and get overwhelmed. When every task is a priority, nothing is. Assess what you have on your plate – urgent tasks should be the highest priority then place low-priority tasks at the back of your queue. 

If you do a variety of different tasks, like most entrepreneurs, batching your work will not only help you become more productive but will help keep you sane. Jumping from task to task is an energy killer and batching your similar tasks will help you accomplish so much more in less time. Move all of your tasks that involve the same client or system into one block of time.

7) Limit Meetings and Appointments.

If you feel like your days are constantly broken up with meetings or appointments and you don’t feel like you are making progress on your projects, try allowing them to be scheduled on certain days, like only Tuesdays and Thursdays. This will allow you to fully focus on your work on the days you have cleared.

8) Automate Workflows.

Pretty much anything that is recurring can be automated. There are tools from scheduling your social media posts to sending email newsletters. A few industry-loved tools to try are Tailwind, Later, Flodesk, and Convertkit. Automating all or certain parts of your workflows could save you hours a week, allowing you to have more time to spend elsewhere in your business.

9) Limit Interruptions.

When you are distracted, it can take a while for you to get your focus back which greatly limits your productivity. According to this University of California Irvine study, it takes an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds to get back into focus on what you were working on.

As a work-from-home mama, this has been my biggest hurdle. When I have childcare, I turn off the notification setting for certain apps or use the do not disturb feature for an allotted time window when I am in work mode. I have also scheduled time in my day to allow myself to scroll through social feeds rather than in random pockets of my day. It’s incredible how much more productive you can be when you aren’t constantly distracted by your phone’s notifications!

10) Learn to outsource.

You don’t have to do every project or task yourself, and sometimes you simply can’t. Outsourcing parts of your workload that aren’t in your skillsets will allow you to focus your attention on the parts that are in your zone of genius. You’ll be happier with the end result and you’ll get there faster!

There are only so many hours in the day and only you can decide what you spend your time on. Start by trying some of these tips. Once you find the methods that work best for your situation, use them consistently. Your productivity will increase and you’ll save precious time in your busy life, giving you more time to do what matters most to you!