Oh this is a tricky one isn't it. It's one of the most common complaints I hear from the small business owners I work with "I don't have time"
It's a totally valid complaint for most, particularly when balancing self employment with caring responsibilities be that for children or elderly parents or for those who are working a 9-5 job alongside their small business.
Thankfully, there are things we can do to make time management in our small business lives easier though..
Plan: Use a weekly planner/calendar to plan your week ahead with everything that you know is coming up to minimise surprise drains on your time
Be realistic: Don't plan in a task that takes you 2 hours when you only have one hour to work that day
Use an app to track your time: Check out episode 2 of The Growth Addicts Podcast where my guest, Sheryl of GYST Virtual Assistance, discusses using Clockify to record where your time is spent in an effort to better manage it, or, perhaps outsource some tasks
Protect work time: It's all well and good planning the time to work but you have to PROTECT it too. Put your phone on do not disturb (you can set it so that important calls can still come through like childcare etc) and clear the space around you if you work from home (nothing worse than that pile of washing eyeballing you all day!)
Plan your Instagram content: Spur of the moment Instagram content is all well and good, and needed, it can't all be planned but, preparing what you'd like to share on Instagram that week for your small business and creating and scheduling a few posts ahead of time really takes the pressure off. I do this on a Sunday night, affectionately known in my Instagram community as Sunday Club! We take an hour on a Sunday evening to plan our content for the week taking a few things into account like what your business priorities are that week, what you'd like to promote and what worked well the previous week.
That's my top 5 tried and tested tips for good time management in your small business. If you have any you'd like to share I'd love to hear them, drop me a DM on Instagram and I'll be sure to share and tag you!
Also, if Sunday Club sounds right up your street, I'm currently developing a planner to make it easier for us Sunday clubbers to do what we do. It will be an A4 spiral bound notepad with each page designed to lead you through everything you need to plan your Instagram content for the week ahead. It will also come with a video from me talking you through all the different sections.
Stay tuned on emails and Instagram for more info on that including a pre order coming up very soon!
That's all for this week folks.
Speak soon!
Amanda