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Communicate Your Priorities

Make sure anyone who wants to meet with you knows your top priorities. This will set accurate expectations for the future about how you use your time. For example, if you explain to your clients that your weekends are reserved for family activities, they’ll be more likely to respect your boundaries during those days.

Your responsibility is to then reciprocate that respect for your work connections. Intentionally set aside time where you’re able to devote your attention to work meetings and client phone calls without interruption. This way you’ll always be able to address your clients’ and colleagues’ needs as they come up without letting work spill over into your other time commitments.

Make Efforts to Reschedule

When you have to decline events, which will happen on occasion, make an effort to reschedule if possible. This will show others that their time and concerns are still important to you.

If you need to cancel a scheduled meeting, be the one to take the initiative when rescheduling. Words are empty if they’re not backed by actions. By reaching out with your updated availability, the person you’re meeting with will know that you actually want to meet with them and respect the time they’re setting aside for you.

The biggest problem with rescheduling is trying to resync calendars. This can be easily bypassed by using scheduling links. You can send over a link containing your availability in a single email. The other party can then select an available time slot to reschedule the meeting. No extensive back-and-forths are required.

Focus on Shorter Engagements

Instead of continuing to turn down meetings and commitments because you’re too busy, try focusing on shorter engagements. They will take a smaller portion of your day while still allowing you to touch base with the many important people you need to interact with.

Those long, weekly meetings can be replaced by emails and quick phone calls interspersed throughout your day. The best part is that you don’t have to tell anyone that you’re taking this new approach because you’re feeling too busy to commit to large time blocks. All they’ll see is that you’re committed to reaching out regularly and making an effort to respect their time by being brief and direct.

Improve Your Time Management

If you truly value your personal time and that of others, you’ll make a greater effort to improve your time management. Few people are actually using all of their time effectively. There are many improvements you can likely make that will open up more time for other people.

For example, you might have missed the last team brainstorming meeting because you had a few conflicting deadlines to address. How many of these conflicts could have been avoided through better time management? It might be time to start time blocking or looking for ways to fight procrastination so that this doesn’t occur in the future.

Recognize When Being Busy Isn’t Enough

An important side note is that there is a key difference between being “busy” and being productive. Being busy isn’t always a good thing, especially if you’re not accomplishing much. Not only will busywork make it more difficult to show that your time matters, but it can also lead to higher levels of stress and anxiety.

Those are good reasons to begin prioritizing your regular task list. Some commitments, such as meetings with tenured clients or nightly dinners with family, will receive higher priority. Conscious prioritization will help you to decide which tasks and events you can justify putting off or rescheduling and which ones deserve your attention the most each day.

Of course, this doesn’t mean those low-priority tasks should be completely forgotten. You can’t get out of cleaning out your inbox forever. What’s important is not allowing these smaller tasks to derail everything on your schedule, especially those responsibilities that are of greater magnitude.

Respecting your time and the time of others is one of the most important things you can do as a business owner in any industry. Keep working on it, and everything from project management to client retention will become easier for you.

Image Credit: Anna Shvets; Pexels; Thank you!

Why You Should Say Goodbye to ‘Crazy Busy’ Once and for All

By Jon Bradshaw | Time Management | No Comments

Lots of professionals like to brag about how loaded their schedules are and how many events and projects they have on their plate. While it certainly is admirable to be a productive contributor to society, this attitude can have a negative impact. It isn’t always a good thing to be crazy busy all of the time.

When you’re busy just for the sake of being busy, you’ll jump around from task to task without accomplishing much. You’re also more prone to experience high levels of stress and anxiety when your schedule is always jam-packed and you’re rushing from place to place. Not to mention, you’ll likely miss deadlines you have to meet due to the pressure you’re under.

By improving your time management skills, you can get just as much done in less time. Instead of being insanely busy, you can enjoy the same accomplishments while also having time to spend on yourself and your family. This leads to a much more fulfilling life. Ready to say goodbye to the crazy busyness once and for all? Here’s what you need to do:

Learn to Say ‘No’

It can be a real challenge to decline a meeting or an appointment, especially when it pertains to your business. What many business professionals often overlook is that firing on all cylinders 24/7 can lead to high stress and burnout. Your business will be in greater jeopardy if you’re not taking care of your mental health than if you miss a single meeting.

When your social meter is drained, don’t force yourself to accept an event invitation. If the other party has something important to meet about, they would much rather you be there when you are functioning at 100%. You can always delegate a representative to attend the event for you or ask for a reschedule while you take some time for yourself.

If you struggle with putting yourself first, add self-care time to your calendar. People will respect that you are dedicating time to recharge so that you’re always operating at full capacity. With numerous changes to the workplace, such as remote work and flexible schedules, you’ll need to resist the impulse to be always “on.” You’ll be surprised by how supportive many people will be when you openly discuss your personal needs.

Create Time Blocks (Including Breaks)

When working on several projects each day, you’ll find a lot of success by setting time blocks for yourself. This is a scheduling tactic that involves breaking down your day into set time increments. Within each of these schedule blocks, you focus all of your time and attention on the individual task at hand and nothing else.

This time management method works in two ways. First, it helps you focus your attention on one task at a time. If you stick with your time block, you won’t let distractions stop you from accomplishing your daily goals. Secondly, time blocks allow you to map out your day more effectively. If you’re trying to get less busy and more efficient, your time blocks can reflect that.

You should also include break time in your time blocks. During a busy day, it can be hard to take a step back from your labors or even justify doing so. If breaks are purposefully scheduled into your day, you’ll find it easier to step away for 10 minutes and keep your energy and morale high throughout the entire workday.

Set Goals for Each Meeting

Some people hold meetings just for the sake of having meetings. Gathering together looks like productivity on the outside. In reality, business professionals are wasting an unbelievable number of hours in meetings that could be used in dozens of more beneficial ways.

Never hold a meeting without a definitive plan. The lack of an agenda is a red flag that an upcoming meeting has no real purpose or direction. Instead of sitting in an hour-long meeting grasping at straws, you could be wrapping up projects or making sales calls.

When a meeting has a specific goal, it offers actual value. Everyone in the meeting can now work toward an endpoint, whether it’s a new tagline for a rebrand or analyzing the financial numbers from the last quarter. Once you’ve met the goal, you can adjourn the meeting without taking up any more precious time from the team’s schedule.

Get Into Automation

A lot of business is busywork. It might feel good that you’re chipping away at tasks that benefit your company, but there’s often a better way. Many of these menial tasks can be automated and completed with just as much efficacy.

Examples of automation include email marketing, employee time tracking, and even data entry. The more tasks you are able to automate, the more your schedule opens up. You can now focus your time on larger projects that require higher-level attention rather than going from routine task to routine task trying to keep your business running every day.

Try to replace busyness with enhanced productivity in the coming weeks. Pay attention to how you feel at the end of your trial period. Do you feel less stressed? Now look at your achievements during that same amount of time. You’ll be amazed to see how much you can accomplish by making this simple shift in your mindset.

Image Credit: Christina Morillo; Pexels; Thank you!