As an entrepreneur, it often feels like there’s not enough time in the day to get everything done. Between all of your work responsibilities, plus perhaps a full-time job and the demands of your personal life, it might feel overwhelming.
You can’t add more hours to the day, but you can work smarter to be more productive.
I put together a video which talks about this in more detail. Please check it out below and if you want more content like this you can subscribe to my Youtube channel.
These six tips are proven to dramatically increase your productivity and what you can get done in a day.
When you follow these tips, you’ll be amazed at all you can accomplish:
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- Check email once or twice a day. It’s easy to get sucked into email and check it every few minutes, but spending too much time in email can drain your productivity. Instead, only check it once or twice a day. When I made this switch, I started by checking my email three times a day, but now I only check it once a day at 4 p.m. I use an auto-responder to tell every person who sends me an email that I only check email once a day and that they can text me if there’s an emergency. When I’m not stuck in my email, I have more time for important tasks.
- Remove phone notifications. Too many people have notifications on their phones for their email, social media, and other apps. No matter what you’re doing throughout the day, you’re constantly disrupted by the chime or buzz from every notification. You don’t have to respond to these things right away. Remove extra phone notifications so that you only get an alert when you receive a call or text.
- Limit meetings. When you start as an entrepreneur, you may want to take every meeting, no matter when it occurs. But having meetings scattered throughout your week can really upset the flow of your work and limit your productivity. Just when you get into the groove of a task, you have to stop for a meeting, and then spend time later getting back to that groove. Instead, I don’t schedule meetings Mondays, Wednesdays, or Fridays. I started with just one meeting-less day a week and slowly moved to three. Now I look forward to my non-meeting days because I have freedom to focus on what I want without distractions.
Blake and I made lots of mistakes during our entrepreneurial journey and learned things the hard way, but you don’t have to. Whether you are considering going off on your own or you already have, this will be a valuable resource for you. Download our PDF on the 7 things you need to master if you want to be a successful entrepreneur.
4. Batch tasks. Batching is grouping similar tasks together. Instead of bouncing between your various tasks, try to do them all at once. Spend a day recording videos or podcasts, or block out an afternoon to write or respond to emails. Have a set time every day to work on social media. When you batch tasks, you can stay in the right frame of mind and churn out a lot of quality work at once instead of bouncing around between various tasks.
5. Keep track of what you need to get done. Some people track goals, and other people track tasks. It doesn’t matter how you do it, just that you have a system that works for you so you can easily see every day what needs to get done. As you track your goals and tasks, start with the most time-consuming or difficult task. If you don’t get it done first thing, it’s easy to put that task off until it eventually gets pushed to the next day. The thing you don’t want to do is what you need to get done first.
6. Learn to say no. Setting boundaries is crucial to being productive. No one can say yes to all of the meeting and phone call requests they get and still expect to get their own work done. When you say no to other people, you’re really saying yes to yourself and what you want to focus on.
These six tips can greatly increase your productivity as an entrepreneur. You might not be able to make time magically appear on your schedule, but you can use your time wisely to maximize what you can get done in a day.
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