The great entrepreneurial struggle
Online marketing—funnels, website layout, copywriting. Payroll. Accounting systems. The list goes on and on. When you run a business, study abounds. As you know, there’s no end to the information you can learn! And with your entrepreneurial spirit, this probably makes you giddy with excitement.
But one thing that’s not possible to study until you’re waist deep in the trenches is: how to be your own boss. Ain’t no class to prep you for self-management quite like the School of Entrepreneurship.
That’s why we see so many of our small business clients, in a word, struggle. They’ve signed up to do work that fulfills them, makes money, and lets them live flexibly. Yet in reality, their businesses afford anything but. Instead, they’re logging insane hours and feel stretched thin in a million different directions. Impending status: burnout.
Now, before we go any further, let it be heard: we’re not here to scare you. We simply want to address this critical question: as a small business owner, how many hours do you actually need to work in order to reach your goals?
Time management is key to successfully being your own boss
At the root of it, they don’t know how to manage their time and create a schedule that promises success. Are 70-hour weeks necessary, or should we get strategic about how work happens so you can maximize your happiness and your wallet at the same time?
Turns out, the answer to these questions varies from person to person, because it depends on your goals.
That’s why today, we’re sharing a simple 5-step process that’ll help you decide how many hours you need to work in order to set yourself up for success.
The 5 steps for business owners to successfully manage work hours
- Identify what business “success” looks like to you.
Does it mean 3x-ing your revenue in 2016? Arranging your schedule so you can take weekends off and soak up time with your toddler? Once you identify your target, you can reverse engineer how to make it happen.
- Decide how to measure that success.
Since as a business owner your work is literally never done, it’s always easy to justify working more. Design a way to quantify your progress as well as a timeline for reaching your goals. That way, you aren’t working aimlessly and can know conclusively whether you’re on track or not.
- Reflect on whether your pace is sustainable.
Sure, maybe you’ll get a ton signed, sealed, delivered spending 13 hour days working in the office space for a couple weeks straight. But how successful will you be long term if you drive yourself into the ground, sidelining yourself for stretches of time due to exhaustion or illness?
- Map how you’re spending your time.
So often, we get yanked into the day then promptly tugged underwater attending to tasks that may or may not be truly moving the needle. Business systems expert Amy Wright suggests for one week, logging what you spend your time on, and then…
- …using your time log to decide what to delegate.
Motion is not the same as progress. You may think you’re getting ahead by queueing up every single Facebook post yourself, but chances are, your business needs more of you at the higher levels. Once you free yourself up to spend time on strategy and visioning, you’re opening yourself up to more success and more freedom.
There you have it — 5 steps for spending time strategically and maximizing success!
We sincerely hope this helps you.
Let us know in the comments: what are 2 tasks or projects you’re going to delegate this week?