Self-Mastery of Your Schedule Step 1 of 11: A Guide for Overworked Business Owners

Self-Mastery of Your Schedule Step 1 of 11: A Guide for Overworked Business Owners

Self-mastery of your schedule is important when figuring out how you can maximize your time for your business. The first step to mastering the schedule, according to our Minneapolis coaches, is to keep a time study of your day.

By the end of the study, you can better assess the following questions:

What am I normally doing with my day?
How many hours am I spending on my business?
In order to actually grow and build a business, business owners need to spend 10 to 20 hours a week doing it. Where am I going to find that time?
How many hours am I spending each day?

WHERE TO START?

We recommend keeping track of how you spend your time on a seven day calendar. Why are there seven days on it? Because most small business owners are working more than five days a week. Most owners want to take the weekends off, however, they will probably be doing something on the weekends that is filling up the time. So, what are you actually doing?

On the calendar, keep track of how many hours you are spending each day of the week in and on your business. Yes, “in” and “on” are 2 different categories.

Working in your business includes going to the office to work. Doing the tasks that keep the business running — paying bills, scheduling clients, helping customers, ordering inventory. This is the normal business hours during the week, and what you would think of as a work day.

Working on your business is the ongoing planning for growth and for the week ahead. This includes any time you spend in the office or at home working on things that are for your business or about your business — marketing strategies, sales process, leadership growth, hiring needs, and so forth.

HOW AND WHAT SHOULD BE RECORDED?

We are looking for time blocks for each type of work you are doing. For example, record the time you respond to emails, the time you take a coffee break, the time you work on a report. You will really be amazed at the times you get caught in conversations with coworkers! Yes! Record those times, too. Use 15 minute to half hour time blocks. If one or a group of items takes less than 15 minutes, just name as miscellaneous. We’re looking for the big time tasks. This entire exercise is about determining WHERE you spend your time and WHEN. Record this for two weeks.

With this calendar, you’ll start to notice many things, like how much longer it takes to do certain things, or what you like to spend your time on. All of this information is great, especially when looking into mastering your schedule.

In our next blog, we will talk about how those times when you are multitasking might actually be hurting your productivity.

Find out more about how you can stay productive by contacting us. We would love to help you find the passion in your business again.

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