You know the cliches: “time is money,” “work smarter not harder,” “one thing you can’t recycle is wasted time.” Most small business owners work long hours (more than one in five work more than 50 hours a week) and are continually looking for ways to better manage their time. Doing so can mean running the business better and achieving a more satisfying work-life balance. How do you do it? It’s not just employing one practice; there are many that can be helpful. Following are some ideas that I derived from what some very smart people have said.
Learning from others:
Bill Gates: Don’t make the same decision twice. Spend time and thought to make a solid decision the first time so that you don’t revisit the issue unnecessarily.
Idea: Small business owners need to be decisive. This means researching a problem, thinking it over, and making a final decision…just once.
Stephen Covey: Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent, and not enough time on what is important. And Lee Iacocca: If you want to make good use of your time, you’ve got to know what’s most important and then give it all you’ve got.
Idea: Prioritize. I like to write a list each day of the things I need to do and note what needs to be done immediately and what can wait.
Donald Rumsfeld: Think ahead. Don’t let day-to-day operations drive out planning.
Idea: Plan. You don’t need complicated business plans to plot out your strategies and optimize your time.
Henry David Thoreau: It’s not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is, what are we busy about?
Idea: Learn to delegate so that you focus on planning and other owner-level functions. As Michael Gerber said in The E-Myth Revisited, you should “work on your business and not in it.”
Henry Ward Beecher: The first hour of the morning is the rudder of the day.
Idea: While it’s true that some people are early birds while others are night owls, about two-thirds of successful CEOs are up at 6 am or earlier, and 9 out of 10 are up no later than 7 am. Establishing a routine of rising early helps you to get a good jump on the day.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: The shorter way to do many things is to only do one thing at a time.
Idea: Many small business owners try to multitask. According to research, multitasking is a detriment to productivity, so don’t do.
Louisa May Alcott: Have regular hours for work and play; make each day both useful and pleasant and prove that you understand the worth of time by employing it well.
Idea: Schedule your time to include time for yourself (e.g., time for exercise, meditation, a hobby, charitable work) and time with your family and friends.
Auguste Rodin: Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely.
Idea: Don’t berate yourself for failure and spend precious time reliving the what ifs. Learn from mistakes and move on.
Warren Buffett: The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything.
Idea: This one’s simple…just say no!
Peter F. Drucker: Until we can manage time, we can manage nothing else.
Idea: Not much to add to this. As the Nike slogan says: Just do it!
Final thought
One last thing from Thomas Edison: Time is really the only capital that any human being has, and the only thing he can’t afford to lose.
Spend some of your time capital on thinking about practices you can use so that this capital is spent more efficiently…and more satisfactorily.
Additional blogs concerning productivity can be found in this list here.
