Take Time to Manage Time

A couple weekends ago, I took advantage of a rainy Sunday to watch The Winning the Week Method Webinar by Demir Bentley. He talked about time management and productivity, something I focus on a lot in my life to help me stay focused on my work and my business. The webinar was a lot of fun, but was also eye opening for me.

Demir offered some new information and I quickly saw that the process wasn’t all that different from my current method, but offered a few helpful tweaks that got me excited to plan all over again. The tips that I connected with are some great ways to help you as a business owner with everything to do and not enough time to do it. So, let’s talk about how to help!

Plan for Fun

Would you believe that 95% of professions know that weekly planning is valuable, but only 1% of them do it? How can you be expected to plan if no one else does either? Demir’s suggestion is to pair planning, which actually only takes about 30 minutes of your time, with something you enjoy. The idea is that you will begin to “crave” that fun thing and you’ll still get your planning done.

Demir’s weekly routine is heading to the coffee shop on Friday afternoons for coffee and new scenery to knock out his planning for the next week. I think this is a great approach, especially for busy entrepreneurs. There have been times that I’ve skipped my Sunday night planning time because I wanted to hang on to the weekend. By adding it to your end of week list and combining some fun into it, you’re making time to plan and kicking the weekend off with a little fun.

Decide to Learn

Another thing I found helpful was the idea of a high-level view of the past and the future. By looking back and analyzing what you learned in the previous week, you can discover and “cement” any new learning that you did. In order to grow, we really should learn at least one thing every seven days.

Next, look to the future and decide what can be done in the coming week to improve the next weeks, months, or years even. You’ll be setting yourself up to learn week after week, improving your future, yourself as a business owner, and your business.

Set Yourself Up

The last thing is to “triage your calendar”. Look two weeks out at your appointments and events instead of just the coming week. By doing this, you’ll have time to make any scheduling changes you might need, and also create time for projects or meetings a few weeks ahead of time. I have already been trying this for the last year and it has changed everything. I have plenty of cushion to pull in other people for help if needed, and block out some time to work and coordinate with others.

Also use this time to analyze your activity. Doing this, you can set yourself up to be the most productive during your week. If you start to slow down and get a bit draggy in the afternoons, this isn’t the best time to go over important reports for a big meeting. You’ll know how to schedule time to product the best results.

These are just a handful of helpful things from the webinar. The tips are small, easily achievable things that offer so much reward in the end. So, which one are you ready to try?

If you’re looking for some help managing your time, money, and business better, we can help! Reach out and get started with the bookskeep team today!

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If your ecommerce business isn’t where you’d like it to be in terms of profitability, check out my book, Profit First for Ecommerce Sellers. It answers important questions about how to implement Profit First in an ecommerce business. Take control of your money and your business, and put Profit First to work for you!

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