How to Save Time in Your Business & Be More Productive & Profitable Now

by mandyythomas4, posted in Health Coaching Resources, Increasing Business Productivity, Scaling Your Business

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How to Save Time in Your Business & Be More Productive & Profitable Now

When I first began my business, I was doing all of the things, every single day, multi-tasking, I had 10 tabs open on my computer and was doing multiple things at the same time. Let me tell you, this is the quickest way to take WAY longer to get your tasks done, to drain your energy and burnout.

 

Did you know that when you are multi-tasking, it takes on average, 12 minutes to get back into focus when you switch from one task to another? Add that up every day, each week, month and over the span of a year, that is literally days worth of time you are losing! And because time is money, it directly results in lost potential profit.

So now, instead of doing all of the things in my business and multi-tasking, I focus on doing similar tasks all at the same time, this way I am able to get into a really good flow and to ride that flow until competition of those tasks, taking a break and then starting something new.

Something I was doing early on in my business was creating content every day, for all of my platforms and education I was putting out. Let me tell you about the multi-tasking that this took and inefficiency that it resulted in, and I see and know so many entrepreneurs that are doing the same thing.

If you want to learn how to time block to effectively complete tasks, save time & energy and to be more productive and ultimately, more profitable, here are the tips that I have learned and implement in my own business:

What is Time-Blocking?

Time blocking is when you work on tasks that are very similar and you work on them at the same time. This makes it so you aren’t multitasking and you are able to stay in “flow” and get your projects and what you are working on, completed so much faster and more efficiently.

What Kinds of Tasks You Can Time Block

Write down all the different areas of your business that you need to do in order for it to run and to grow it, then group these tasks into similar groups.

Tasks that you can do in the same block of time include:

Social Media Content: Writing content for your social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Facebook groups, Youtube, etc.

Scheduling Content: Putting your content into apps and scheduling it for when you want it to post.

Planning: Taking the time to plan out your upcoming quarter, plan out content you want to create and when, plan out when you are going to launch something, putting this information into Google Calendar, Trello,  etc. to help you see the timeline of realistically scheduling things.

Other Written Content: Blog posts

Program Creation: The actual creating of new offers, including writing out the content

Content Batching: Filming videos, recording podcasts, etc.

Editing: Proofreading written posts, editing videos, editing pictures, etc

Taking Pictures for Social Media Content: Taking a large number of photos at once so you have many pictures to choose from for your social media.

Working on Finances: Sending out any invoices, reminders for invoices, updating income/expense sheets, writing down when your bigger expenses are due for the year, creating new invoice templates, banking, etc.

Creating Graphics: Creating graphics for social media, for your website, for projects, updating information, etc.

Blogging: Researching, writing content

Blogging Behind the Scenes: Writing SEO, scheduling, reaching out to other bloggers, Pinterest, scheduling posts for Tailwind management to automate your blog posts for Pinterest

The list of tasks are endless, but these are some examples of things that you can time block.

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Being Obsessed with Crossing Things off Your Long To-Do List, is Preventing You From Making More Money

I found that in the past I struggled with having a huge to-do list and being obsessed with crossing things off of it. I was so obsessed with it and felt so accomplished when I got to tick something off, that I would even add things that I did that weren’t on the list, so I could cross them off. Are you saying, OMG yes I know what that feels like, I have done that before too!

So I needed to change my strategy and how I was setting up my day, to get the most important things done, instead of the hundreds of little things, that weren’t actually moving my business forward.

How Your Business Finances Are Causing You Anxiety

Eat the Biggest Frogs First Every Single Day

I remembered reading the self-development book years ago called, Eat That Frog. It is a fabulous book that tells you to eat your biggest “frog” first thing in the morning while you have the most energy, the most precious brain power and the most of your day to do it. What he means by “frog” is your biggest task that NEEDS to get done in order to truly move your business forward, which is often, the things that we don’t want to do or procrastinate doing. That is why you need to do them first to get them out of the way. Instead of using your mental bandwidth to do all of the little things and then by the time you get to the big thing that will move you forward, you are tired and don’t have the capacity to fully focus and give it the most effort which it deserves.

So now, each morning, I schedule into my day, the big things that NEED to be done that day (which is very different from just “needing” to be done) and are going to move my business forward.

 

Click here to download my Realistic Budget template! 

How I Schedule My Days

Depending on the tasks, I group similar things and time block my days, allowing myself enough time to complete those tasks. I found that when I wasn’t blocking off quite enough time, it was causing me to feel stressed about it. At first, you aren’t going to know how much time it is going to take you and that is totally fine. Just write down how long you think it will take you, schedule it for a little bit longer, then do it and see how long it took and then adjust from there, it really is this simple.

I have tasks that need to be done each week, so I have certain days where I do the same tasks each week. I schedule them in and they are my “non-negotiables” and then as other things come up, I will schedule them in around my non-negotiables.

I have some tasks that I truly don’t need to be doing, that I can batch at the end of the month and have them done for the next 30 days for the new, upcoming month. I absolutely love doing this for as many things that I can, because it allows me so much more time, to focus on other really important tasks.

How to Figure Out Your Time Blocking Tasks

Make a list of all of the tasks that you need to do in your business, like all of them. Then start grouping them together with other very similar tasks that you could do at the same time, that allow you to stay focused and in flow, to get more done. Then start breaking them down into what needs to be done everyday, what can be done once a week or a couple of times a week and what you can actually do for an entire month (there is more in your business that you can time block the time, to finish for the entire month than you would think!).

How to Implement Time Blocking

If you aren’t a super A-type, recovering perfectionist, organize geek and nerd like me, then these concepts might sound completely foreign to you and that is totally okay!

Be kind to yourself and know that it will take you some trial and error in order to be able to figure out a system and flow that works for you.

Taking Your Business to the Next Level

If you want to take your business to the next level by being able to bring on help, to take additional courses and work with more coaches, you need to focus on dialing in your personal finances, so you have the money available to be able to purchase these things. I offer financial coaching to help you to be able to see where you can be saving, so you can invest more into your business, to become profitable, faster.

You can spend hundreds of hours trying to figure it out on your own, or you can book a free 20-minute discovery call with me to find out how I can help you to save money to grow your business faster!

Click here to download my Realistic Budget template! 

Frequently Asked Questions about Financial Coaching

Click here to download my free favorite business systems and tools list to make your business more organized and to get your time and energy back, so you can be more productive and profitable!

I am very active on Instagram, follow me here for more financial tips & tricks: http://instagram.com/mandyythomas (@mandyythomas)

Do you already time block? If so, I would love to hear how you do it! If not, are you going to start time blocking? Leave me a comment in the comments below and I will respond back to you!

Click here to download my Realistic Budget template! 

 

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