5 Ways For Entrepreneurs to Do Less and Accomplish More

Entrepreneurs are both blessed and cursed. On the one hand, they have more control of when, where, and what kind of work they do. On the other hand, most self-employed business people tend to end up working crazy hours. Fortunately, there are some simple ways for you to start to do less while accomplishing more. 

 

Employ the 80/20 Rule 

 

If you want to get more done in less time, then you need to create your daily work schedule around the Pareto principle, also known as the 80/20 rule. Creating a daily work schedule using the 80/20 rule will allow you to spend 80 percent of your day working on the most critical tasks, and 20 percent of your time on the menial, but necessary tasks.

 

Disconnect

 

If you want to keep your mind fresh and your energy levels up, then you need to take a break from your work frequently. Don’t continue to work under the assumption that you have to work harder to accomplish your goals. Taking frequent breaks throughout the day and disconnecting from your email and phone calls, and stepping away on the weekends, will allow your brain to refresh and your body to recover. 

 

Be Willing to Say “No”

 

Those who are highly successful have to contend with many demands on their time. It is essential that you know what it is you want to achieve and be willing to say no to other projects. Working less and achieving more is necessary for a balanced life. If you can’t achieve that balance, then you’ll quickly find yourself overwhelmed and on the verge of burning out. Prioritize your tasks and be willing to pass on other work and projects. 

 

Have a Plan

 

While most entrepreneurs have a long-term plan on how they’re going to reach their goals, they fail to plan and prioritize their days. When you are scattered throughout the day, you aren’t able to maximize your time. If you want to get more done, then you need to set some time aside every evening to plan out and prioritize the tasks you need to accomplish the next day that will move you forward toward achieving your goals. 

 

Outsource Where You Can

 

This doesn't just apply to work tasks that someone else would be better suited to complete. Think about the 20 percent of menial, but necessary jobs that you have to complete every day and determine if you can outsource them to a freelance or contract worker.

 

While it is impossible to restart your career overnight, taking these five time management strategies can significantly improve your productivity.

5 Habits That Will Kill Your Time Management Efforts

Engaging and maintaining your productivity is a difficult thing to do for most people, especially when the Internet is just a mouse click away, and unfortunately, your bad habits are killing your productivity. Luckily, it doesn’t have to be this way. All it takes to get your productivity back on track is a little awareness and some quick action on your part. Here are six habits that will kill your time management efforts and decrease your productivity. 

 

Multitasking

 

Of all the bad habits, one of the worst and most common is multitasking. Multitasking tricks you into producing incomplete, subpar work daily. When you fall into the habit of multitasking, you aren't doing multiple tasks at the same time, but rather you are giving partial focus to a single task while giving the majority of your attention to switching jobs.

 

Not Having a Work Routine

 

You’re setting yourself up for disaster if you are in the habit of working whenever you feel like it. It is essential you establish a work routine if you want to get your mind into a productive gear. Without a work routine, you will always go into your work mode cold, which can make getting into the zone much harder. 

 

Being a Perfectionist

 

Another common productivity killer is perfectionism, which can manifest itself in many ways, including being thrown off balance when thing don't go your way or having unrealistically high work standards. When you set unrealistic standards for work, you will tend to work your tasks to death. This can lead to falling behind, which then causes a mountain of tasks to buildup.

 

Having a Giant To-Do List

 

When you are creating your to-do list, it can be easy to get overzealous and fill it with a dozen or more tasks, that you most likely won't be able to complete. If you can only finish half of your to-do list at the end of the day, it can lead to you feeling overwhelmed. Unfortunately, when you start to feel overwhelmed, you can quickly lose your momentum.

 

Being Indecisive

 

Indecision can quickly bring a productive work session to a halt. When you don’t know what to decide on, you end up sifting through the information you have and mentally rehearsing the pros and cons until you end up making a decision. Indecisiveness can eat up a lot of energy and willpower in the process and derail your work. 

 

These are just a few of the bad habits that could be responsible for killing your time management efforts. If you find that your productivity is lacking, take a look at your daily habits to see if any of them could be sabotaging your time management efforts and productivity. 

 

Boost Your Productivity with These Essential Time Management Skills

If you're looking to become more productive with your time, then you have to understand that you need to make constant and never-ending improvements to the way that you work. Fortunately, there are many time management skills that you can improve that will help you become more productive. Here are several essential time management skills that can help you boost your productivity.

 

Goal Setting

 

Time management isn’t a standalone skill. While you can't manage time, you can control how you use your time. When it comes to your productivity, the way you use your time should be directly driven by effective goal-setting. The most fundamental skill when it comes to time management is your ability to use the time you have in a manner that serves your goals.

 

Prioritization

 

When it comes to prioritizing work tasks, most people attempt to prioritize the items that are on their to-do list. However, many of the things that appear on their lists are ones that shouldn't be on there. When it comes to time management, your prioritization efforts should start with eliminating tasks that you shouldn't be performing. When you've done this, then you can begin to focus on finishing the most valuable work with the time and resources that are available.

 

Self-Motivation

 

There will always be days that you don't want to do anything. On days like this, you have to be able to motivate yourself into action. When you can improve your self-awareness, you give yourself the information that you need to get yourself motivated to work. While you may have all the other time management skills necessary to remain productive, if you cannot motivate yourself, you'll find yourself bowing to stress and pressure.

 

Focus

 

Being able to shut everything out and focus on the task at hand is one of those time management skills that you don’t realize the importance of it until you struggle with it. The best way to achieve focus is to stop multitasking and identify the most crucial task and block the rest out.

 

Delegation

 

As an entrepreneur, you need to ensure that all the necessary work gets completed. However, that doesn't mean that you have to be the one to do it. One of the most vital time management skills that you can master is knowing when you're not the right person to perform the task. If you have a task that is more suited to someone else's skill set, then you should consider delegating those tasks.

 

If you want to get the best results from your work, then you need to improve your time management skills. As you start to improve your time management skills, you begin to enjoy a boost in your productivity and get more work done in less time.

Improve Your Productivity With These Essential Time Management Hacks

It seems that the one thing that technology can’t help us create is more time. There are only 24 hours in a day, so if you want to increase your productivity, you need to have a better sense regarding time management. When it comes to managing your time, it is essential to understand that time management isn't about trying to squeeze as many tasks as possible into a day but instead finding a way to work smarter. If you're looking to improve your productivity here are some essential time management hacks to help you along the way.

 

Get Enough Sleep

 

Often, our rest and sleep are sacrificed to gain more time in the day. Being well-rested, well-fed, and having a healthy body removes the distractions that will rob us of our time. When you can get enough sleep every night, your focus is sharper, your attention span is longer, and your quality of work is higher, which lends itself to an increase in productivity. 

 

Plan Ahead

 

When you can take the time to outline the events of the coming day, you provide your mind with the time to work through the tasks while you are sleeping. This allows you to start your day with many of the subtle details already worked out. Before you go to bed each night, take a few minutes to evaluate what you achieved. Spend a few minutes clearing your workspace, and create a list of the tasks that you need to complete the following day. 

 

Create Work Bundles

 

Various tasks that you have to perform require different skills and different ways of executing them. To save yourself time with re-orienting yourself between jobs, create work bundles. Grouping similar tasks together that require related skill sets will allow you to more easily flow from one segment or tasks to the next without a break.

 

Create Routines

 

There are some tasks that you work on that require little to no thought. You can create a routine for these kinds of functions that will allow you to accomplish them without becoming distracted from the real tasks at hand. Establishing routines is similar to your overall planning and execution, but with the sole intention of automation.

 

Work on the Hard Tasks First

 

We tend to tackle the easy tasks on our lists first because they don't take much time to complete, which will leave you with more time to work on more involved things. However, to increase your productivity, you should tackle the more difficult tasks first with your fresh energy, which will make the lighter tasks flow quickly. 

 

When it comes to time management, there is always time for improvement. Try to take into account the above tips, and you will find yourself getting more done in less time.

Increase Your Productivity with These Daily Habits

Everybody wants to get more done and feel like they accomplished something at the end of the day. While there are millions of different tips for productivity out there, you can increase your productivity levels by changing a few daily habits. Here's how you can improve your productivity by changing the following daily habits.

 

Arrive Early, Stay Later

 

If you live in a congested city, you can save some time and beat traffic by starting your day earlier. When you're not wasting your time sitting in traffic, you can start working on your most essential tasks sooner. Your ability to save hours not sitting in traffic will drastically increase your productivity. Make it a habit to arrive early and stay a bit later, and you'll notice an increase in your productivity.

 

Plan the Night Before

 

Spending just 15 minutes before you go to bed creating and prioritizing your to-do list for the next day will give you a head start the following day. After you create your to-do list, spend a few minutes marking the tasks that are important to remind you that those tasks have to be done to push you forward in achieving your goals.

 

Have Lunch Outside the Office

 

While small, this habit can have a huge and powerful effect on how you work for the rest of the day. Using your lunch to get out of your work environment can refresh your creativity, significantly reduce your stress levels, and help you re-focus when it's time to get back to work. Consider taking a short walk to help clear your head and think about what you want to accomplish the rest of the day.

 

Minimize Distractions

 

Distractions are everywhere. If you work from a computer, you have the temptation of checking your social media and surfing the Internet, among other things. There are plenty of tools that can help you minimize these distractions. If you work in an office with a door, place a ‘do not disturb' sign up, so your coworkers know not to bother you.

 

Always Keep Your Goals in Sight

 

After you’ve set your goals, keep them in sight at all times. You want to write your goals down and keep them in a place where you will end up seeing them throughout your day. Being able to see your goals throughout the day will give you the motivation to get tasks done that move you closer to accomplishing them. 

 

Changing these five habits will move you toward being a more productive person. Keep track of your results and watch as the small daily victories start to transform your life. 

The Top 5 Time Management Apps for Entrepreneurs

Your time, as an entrepreneur, is valuable. Every minute you waste looking for your to-do list is a minute that you’re not earning money and building your business. Rather than hiring an assistant to help you keep track of your time, why not try one of these five time management apps for entrepreneurs. 

 

Todoist

 

Todoist is an app that recognizes that not every task on your to-do list is equally important. You can create multiple products for different aspects of your life and business. As you add items to your agenda, you can set priority levels and due dates. Todoist will then show you the essential tasks with the nearest due date first.

 

Toggl

 

Toggl is an app that shows you how much time different tasks take to complete. This is the perfect time tracking app for entrepreneurs. Toggl allows you to track various activities with the touch of a button, then adds up how much time you are spending on that activity each day, week, and month. This can allow entrepreneurs to know their average hourly profitability for each client and task.

 

RescueTime

 

RescueTime can help you stop distractions once and for all. It runs securely in the background of all your devices and tracks how much time you spend on different websites and applications throughout the day. It will give you an accurate picture of how long you are spending on Facebook, email, and other distractions. It will provide you with detailed reports on your productivity so that you can see where you need to improve.

 

Letterspace

 

Letterspace is a notetaking app that is perfect for the disorganized mind. The app allows you to use #hashtags and @mentions within your notes and then organizes your thoughts in the sidebar next to those tags. If you forget to tag your notes, the app also has full-text search capabilities so that you can find what you're looking for easily.

 

Instapaper

 

If you ever get distracted by an interesting video or article, Instapaper can help you stay on track. Whenever you come across something while browsing the Internet, Instapaper will send it to the app. This way you can read it later on any device. It also allows you to comment on and highlight text in an article so that you can save and retrieve information as well as share it on social media.

 

These five-time management apps will help you stay focused on what matters most so that you can quickly grow your business. Incorporate your favorite apps into your daily routine and see how much you can accomplish.

3 Simple Ways to Use a Calendar to Increase Your Productivity

There has been plenty of discussion about how a calendar can fit into one's productivity system. The general rule is that you add scheduled appointments to your calendar, and your tasks should be placed into the task management system that you use. However, what often isn't discussed is precisely what appointments you should be putting in your calendar to maximize your time best and ensure you're staying productive. Here are the three types of appointments you should add to your schedule to create an effective productivity system.

 

General Appointments

 

These are the regular appointments that you may schedule throughout your week. These would be appointments for the doctor or business lunches. They are relatively general regarding defining an appointment, so they need to be treated as such. These kinds of appointments can be moved if needed, given enough notice is provided, and both parties can make it happen, though you should try to avoid moving them in most cases.

 

Self-Appointments

 

These are the appointments that you make with yourself. They can be in the form of blocks of time that you schedule so that you can work on projects and tasks without interruption. You can transfer these kinds of appointments, but it is more beneficial if you can try to create a framework so that they stay as static as possible.

 

You want to pick a time during the day when you can work in 90-minute intervals on a regular basis so you can create a habit and improve your productivity. Break up the time with breaks where nothing is set in stone. You might even want to take larger blocks and break them down into smaller chunks using The Pomodoro Technique so that you can move from task to task. You want to keep these time blocks nimble enough that you can move them to other hours of the day if needed. 

 

Team Appointments

 

Team appointments are for when you need to bring a team together. The best way to get these scheduled is once you’ve already locked in the other two types of appointments on your calendar. While doing this can make it more difficult to plan these kinds of meetings, you can use tools like Doodle, Google Calendar or Tungle.me to pick optimal times where most of the team can be present.

 

When you can keep in mind the three types of appointments that you have at your disposal, your calendar will become a tremendous tool that will allow you to create time and space for yourself and improve your productivity.