Summary: Being able to launch, execute, grow and scale a startup business is an intellectual exercise that involves a lot of backstage activities and incredible time management.
Entrepreneurship is a state of mind that demands many personal and professional traits. Scaling a business is an intellectual exercise that involves networking, planning, research, marketing, sales, business strategy, and several related activities.
As a result, entrepreneurs have to juggle multiple tasks like attending events, meeting investors, taking care of business operations, hopping on calls and being extra careful with every decision for their business endeavor. All this can lead to a critical state of burnout- a situation of complete mental and physical exhaustion.
Experienced freelancers, business coaches, entrepreneurs, and successful business owners manage to finish their tasks on time because of their perfect time management skills. Time management techniques and strategies help them to prioritize their important tasks on a daily basis.
Time management is a process of organizing; planning and strategically controlling the time you spend on specific tasks. When done effectively, it enables you to get more work done in less time.
Here are the top 5 time management tips for entrepreneurs to increase their peak performance and productivity:
1. Find Your Golden Time
Are you an early bird, a night owl, or somewhere in between? Do you know during what time of the day you feel you are most productive? Time management is not just about managing 24 hours a day. It is also about understanding how and when you function best. You can schedule your most important tasks according to your productive window of time and set up your day in harmony.
2. Use Covey Time Management Matrix
Created by the author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People- Steven Covey, this time management model is quite effective and used by many business coaches across the world. This model is based on four simple quadrants:
- Urgent and important tasks
- Not urgent, but important tasks
- Urgent but no important tasks
- Not urgent and not important tasks
Divide all your tasks into the above-mentioned four quadrants. Manage things in quadrant one first, followed by the second, third, and so on. Prioritizing your tasks this way can be extremely helpful if you are juggling multiple things at the same time. You can also watch some of the best time management techniques, right here:
3. Plan Your Days or Weeks in Advance
Planning out your days for the week ahead is a brilliant way to organize your time efficiently. You can keep a diary or use a calendar app and write down the tasks with high priority. You can start with tasks that have upcoming deadlines, followed by less urgent tasks. Also, don’t forget to squeeze in your breaks and buffers to keep you focused and refreshed.
4. Focus on One Thing!
If there is one myth that needs to be busted across the globe, it has to be the concept of MULTITASKING. Yes! A human brain can only handle doing one thing at a time. So, if you try to do more than one thing, you will end up constantly switching your focus and taking even more time to complete both tasks.
Hence, focus your attention on one task at a time and stay on course till you finish it. Once it is finished you can move on to the next task.
5. Remove Distractions
Many times we start doing one task and our phone beeps! Instead of ignoring it, most of us check the screen and then forget about the task that we were doing. Even if a deadline is looming, we would try hard to finish one task, but it just does not happen.
So the first step that you should take towards managing your time efficiently is to remove distractions. Figure out what distracts you the most. Is it employees chattering around you or the notifications coming on your phone? Once you find out your triggers, you can take action to eradicate them.
From turning your internet off to putting your phone on airplane mode, chances are that you already know how to help yourself drown out background noise to focus on only what is important.
Also, don`t forget to take a rest even when you have countless things to do. It is very easy to let your business take over your entire life, but you also need to take care of yourself. If you let your physical and mental health slide, you won’t be able to perform your best.
The idea of managing a business is easier said than done and we completely agree with you. This is why to help you move forward with your business goals, we at Bada Business offer an exclusive Business Coaching Program that comes with Foundation courses, specialized courses, and value-added courses. To know more about these courses, visit: www.badabusiness.com