5 Time Management Strategies that Separate the Best from the Rest of the Entrepreneur Pack

How many times a week do you find yourself saying something like this? “Things are good. I’m just so busy. There aren’t enough hours in the day.”

Part of the crazy life of being an entrepreneur is learning to feel good about being busy, to not stress out over being busy, and to thrive when you’re busy.

The other part of it is making sure you’re spending your very in-demand time wisely.

We all try to do that, right?

But let’s be honest… Most of us fail at it.

Or at least we feel like we’re failing at it.

However, there are strategies we can use to make sure we’re spending our limited time as wisely as possible.

Plan a few easy tasks to start your day. I don’t know about you, but when I first sit down to work, I want to ease into it. I check email, I might read an article, I might go on Facebook… all of a sudden, an hour has gone by. An hour I’ve wasted. Instead, at the end of each work day, pick out 3-5 super easy tasks to get your day going the next morning. Send one quick email. Read your notifications. Post one thing on social media. Easy peasy.

Once you get into the groove with those easy tasks, you’ll be ready to seamlessly move on to bigger stuff. Which leads me to…

Schedule the important stuff. Build tasks into your calendar with plenty of time to calendarcomplete them, accounting for interruptions and things taking longer than you had planned. Then when the time comes, minimize possible disruptions by turning off email and text notifications and closing other browser tabs.

Schedule the time sucks too. One of the best things I’ve done to free up my time is scheduling email time and messaging time. Two or three times a day, I put time on calendar for email and (here’s the hard part) I only check it during those times. The same goes for messaging with my team – I allow myself about 5 minutes out of each hour to catch up on any messages that have come in.

Take breaks. And use them wisely. We all need mental and physical breaks while we’re working. And research shows that taking breaks actually enables you to work smarter and more efficiently. Need to make a phone call? Walk around the block while you talk. Need to take a 5-minute vacation at your desk? Instead of Facebook, read your favorite professional blog or try a site like MentalFloss that can take you out of your rut while stimulating your brain. Even better, try meditating for a few minutes to clear your mind.

Take what trips you up off your to do list. If you find there are things you consistently dread doing, they’re probably eating up your time. Either you’re procrastinating on getting them done or you’re taking too long to do them, which is part of why you dread them.There’s an easy fix. Cross them off your list. Outsource those tasks. You’ll have more time to do what you do best, and those projects will get done more efficiently.

Your challenge today is to put these 5 strategies in place. Then watch what happens to your time.

You’ll be amazed how fast you go from feeling like there aren’t enough hours in the day… to feeling like you have plenty of time for what matters most (and less time spent doing work you don’t enjoy).

More importantly, you’ll be using your time strategically, which grows your business.