Sometimes, things can fall apart quickly when you least expect them to.
I have a phenomenal team and everybody is working at a high level, but unfortunately, I had a lot of stuff go wrong all at once. I need to focus on better time management policies to maintain my personal and professional life.
This emergency blow-out showed me some major gaps that I had in my business, and I realized that I was either going to have to cover those gaps myself or outsource even further to get a professional who could keep those holes from ever being exposed again.
Of course, in order to outsource, I was going to need the money to pay contractors. Sure, business is good, but not on the level where it would be wise to sustainably add another “mouth to feed” to my business equation.
Okay, so now what? I realized that I was going to have to once again revisit both my better time management and my work schedule in order to continue running my business profitably.
See, when you can’t pay more, you have to figure out a way to do more.
Two Ways For Owners To Practice Better Time Management
Here are the two ways I was able to do just that.
1. Reconfiguring My Work Hours
In order to increase the amount of work that I do, I had to maximize my current work hours.
I created a win-win situation for myself where I could get more done in the same amount of time, and you can do the same by:
- Figuring out at what time of the day your brain is most active and choosing to do your work during those hours
- Making sure that you pre-plan the hours of your workday by allocating certain time frames for specific tasks
- Simplifying meetings with my team so that meetings are kept short but were still as thorough as the longer meetings we’d had previously (I did this by utilizing Loom)
2. Adjusting My Home Schedule
As a wife and mother of 3 kids, it’s incredibly important for me to be able to balance my business with my home life.
And as a lot of you may know, it can be very difficult to juggle both and do it well. The life of an entrepreneur isn’t always an easy one.
I had to revisit my home schedule so that I was not neglecting my home and family but instead maximizing my efficiency and effectiveness there too.
Here are some of the changes I made that allowed me to succeed at home:
- I revamped my cleaning schedule
- I started cooking two meals at a time (my glorified version of meal prepping)
- I allocated days for laundry:
- Kids’ wash and fold day
- My husband’s and my day
- Linen day
- I replaced TV time with reading time– it just helps me be more productive
Of course, my home and work schedules revolve around each other, so it was crucial for me to find a good balance between both so that I could perform both my duties as a business owner and as a mother and wife to the best of my abilities.
You see, when you start to notice gaps in your business, 9 out of 10 times there will be gaps in other areas of your life as well.
Take the time to identify the deficiencies and come up with a master plan for rectifying the issues at hand. I hope this helps you in the most difficult and trying seasons of your career and life!