Time Management Strategies For Busy Entrepreneurs

Every entrepreneur’s goal is to identify and utilize opportunities that increase the return on their investment. You are your employer as an entrepreneur. It may sound exciting, but it also means that you must properly manage your resources. Time is a valuable commodity. You only have twenty-four hours in a day, so making the most of each hour is crucial, especially for entrepreneurs focused on scaling up their businesses. But how can you manage your time effectively when there are so many things that need your attention?

If you ask any successful entrepreneur, time management is the skill they value the most. That is what allows them to stay sane amid uncertainty and holds the psychological costs of entrepreneurship to a minimum. Experienced entrepreneurs have perfected various time management tactics to maintain their sanity and avoid creating inconsistencies during everyday business operations. The better an entrepreneur is at time management; the more successful her or his company will be. The best thing is that the more time management you practice, the better you get at it.

Time Management and skillset

The process of organizing and conscious monitoring of time spent on specific tasks mainly improves performance, productivity, and efficiency. It involves juggling several personal and professional tasks to achieve a proper balance between completing them all correctly. Time management is simply a trick that won’t let time rule you. It includes preparing and scheduling, setting priorities and targets, delegating tasks, setting deadlines, prioritizing activities according to their value, and allocating time to the proper role.

So, how can we develop our time management skills? There’s no lack of advice — books and blogs, hacks and games, all designed to help entrepreneurs handle time better with a variety of ready-to-use resources. You can also upgrade your management skills by enrolling in an online MBA no GMAT required, which will also help you learn how to manage your time. Of course, you’ll need to take out time for that too!

However, the most frustrating fact for people looking to improve their time management is that these methods, no matter how well built they are, are unlikely to work unless you develop some skill set. Fortunately, numerous research has been done on the skills that underpin time management. Three skills distinguish success from failure in time management:

• Awareness: recognizing that time is a finite resource and thinking logically about it.
• Planning and arranging your goals, strategies, schedules, and activities to make the most of your time.
• Adaptation: keeping track of your time while doing things, such as adapting to interruptions or shifting goals.

Time management and entrepreneurship

As an entrepreneur, how to make the most of your work hours while also scaling up your business’s growth? Here’s our response:

1. Making a Good Start to Your Day

Give your day a promising and peaceful start by turning off all phones, texts, and emails. Allow yourself 15 minutes before you go into your normal panic mode. Spend these few minutes preparing your day, the next few hours, putting stuff in order, arranging the materials you’ll need, and so on. Consider finishing the day on a high note as well. Spend 15 minutes at the end of the day wrapping things up and getting things ready for tomorrow.

2. Use the Ivy Lee Method.

The Ivy method entails making a list of six items you need to get done the next day and arrange the six elements in descending order of priority. The next day, concentrate solely on the first mission and complete it before moving on to the second. Do this every day to increase productivity at work.

Isn’t the method straightforward? That is why it works. It employs various vital principles to assist companies in growing efficiency and making better use of their time.

3. Use the “Pareto Theory.”

In today’s business climate, we all have so many things on our to-do list and not enough time to complete them. In this situation, wishing for a few more hours in the day to get stuff done is perfectly normal. Vilfredo Pareto made a helpful point and stated that 80 percent of the results result from 20 percent of the causes. When applied to the business world, this theory implies that the most critical activities will take up approximately 20% of the working day, while the remaining 80% is most likely deadwood. The moral of the story is to discover your job’s heart and take out the unnecessary pieces when you have too much to deal with.

4. Set Your Deadlines

One challenge for entrepreneurs is that there is no one externally placing pressure on them. If you’re not careful, this can result in procrastination and inefficient multitasking. You don’t have to be too precise. But if you make it a routine to set deadlines, you’ll find that you get more done in less time.

5. Learn the Art of Delegation

If you have a duty that you can delegate to a coworker, do so. You will reach optimum productivity if you master the art of delegating things among other responsible employees. This will also be good for their professional development.

6. Make a note of it on your calendar

Using your calendar as a prioritized checklist enables entrepreneurs to properly allocate their time based on the amount required for each task. It also helps organize multiple tasks in the correct order so that the most important ones can be completed early in the day.

7. Save time by using technology

Almost every company now relies heavily on technology. It is a market enabler in every way, from communications to customer relationship management. Every day, the modern entrepreneur must learn how to use technology to save valuable minutes and hours.

8. Take breaks for brainstorming regularly

Influential entrepreneurs invest more time “on” the company than “in” it. When you’re knee-deep in overlapping projects, it’s easy to lose sight of the bigger picture. Take periodic breaks between tasks to make sure your progress is in line with your goals. Go for a stroll, get some fresh air, and relax for a while. This will also provide you with some new ideas to apply to your job.

9. Face Tough Tasks When You’re at Your Best

It is an excellent idea to start with the most challenging task. If we put off complex tasks, we sometimes get anxious about them and continue to put them off. Once you get started, things will begin to fall into place over time. Split the job down into many sections if possible. As a consequence, it would seem to be feasible and even fun.

Verdict

Time is money. As an entrepreneur, if you fail to understand this, you’re going to lose a lot of money. Wake up early, set your deadlines, allot each task a proper time, and watch everything fall into place.