How to make more time:
I love this time of year.
You’re looking to the new year where everything feels so fresh, so new and so exciting. You’ve got your plans and lists of things you’re going to do differently.
You’re so ready to start the new year and start all over.
Then a couple of weeks into the year and you find yourself right back where you were before the holidays kicked in. You’ve got this list of all the amazing things you want to create and you’re trying to figure out how you’re going to find the time to get it all done.
I know you’ve seen this problem before.
This isn’t anything new about being in this place except now that it’s a new year and it’s finally time to find a solution to find more time.
Other than hiring someone to outsource part of your work to, what else can you do to get more hours in your day?
1. Make a Better List
It’s one thing for you to make a basic list. It’s another thing for you to make a list that’s more like a braindump where you write down everything that’s circling around in your head.
Let me show you the difference between the two types of lists using one of my friends that we’ll call Mary { her name has been changed to protect the innocent and list-making challenged! }.
Mary was doing her version of creating a list by signing up to Evernote. She heard this online app would help her stay organized. She loved the idea that she could use it on her laptop and it would sync up to her phone.
And so every morning, Mary logged into Evernote and set up notes.
She posted notes with her daily to-do list. Notes for the action steps she needed to do create her new workbook. Notes from a webinar that she attended with ideas that she wanted to try.
Mary was so proud of herself for setting up the program and that she was taking all these notes.
Three weeks into this process, Mary went into information overload. She had so many notes and lists that she couldn’t remember where anything was or where to find her daily to-do list.
There were notes on top of notes with even more notes. There was no plan or organization.
When Mary finally asked me for advice to sort this out, she let me know that there really wasn’t much that I could do to help her. She claimed that she was lacking the ‘organizational gene’ and “This is just me and my personality. This is the way I am.”
SIDE NOTE == > If this sounds like you, just know, you’re really not asking for help. You’re just asking for someone to listen to you talk about your stuff.
Let me be the first one to bust that ‘it’s my personality’ excuse. Your personality is not something that you’re born with and can’t be changed. What we call personality is just a collection of your thoughts and how you react to them.
Change your thoughts, change your reactions and you’ll change your personality.
Making a better list – whether it’s using Evernote or writing it out in sticky notes – is about clearing your brain from the overload and stopping you from trying to figure out what to work on next.
Having all of this stuff in your head just takes up too much mental space and will distract you from working on the things that you need to do.
When you make a better list, it’s all out in front of you to review.
And when you have all the bits and pieces of the projects and everything you have to do broken down in a better list, you’ll find that some of these items that you’ve been putting off may only take a few minutes or can be batched together.
2. Spend Less Time on Social Media
Ever go on Facebook to check something really quick and and then an hour later, you’re knee deep into friend’s trip to Europe and reading an article about why you need to do these 10 things to stop doing that one thing you think that you’re not doing but not really all that sure.
I get it. We’ve all done it.
Social media sites are set up to draw us in and keep us there, clicking and scrolling and pinning for hours. It’s the way the programs are set up and the way our brains respond to the draw of getting another social hit.
If you want to get serious about adding more time into your day, it’s time to set some limits to your social use. And notice that I said LIMITS, not to cut it off completely because there truly are good reasons to be using Pinterest and Facebook.
I want you to spend a few minutes thinking about the sites you log into regularly and the reasons that you’re logging in every day.
Ask yourself, “Are these activities bringing you closer to your goals? Is this action going to make you money?” Depending on your answers, think about how you can log in with a purpose.
Think about it like this – if you had two focused hours every day for your social media marketing, what is the most important thing that you can be working on to grow your business?
If it’s not bringing you any money or connecting to your goals, resist the urge to click on the app in your phone. Then do something that will bring you more income and make those great big hairy dreams you have come true.
Trust me, that Facebook group conversation will still be there when you have some downtime. But right now, shut off those notifications and alerts and get back to the work that’s going to make you money.
3. Decide When You’re Done
Know when it’s time to be done for the day. Accept that you only have 24 hours in your day and that you can’t do everything you need to do that you think needs to be done.
Tell yourself when you’ll stop and stick to your time limits.
Make a choice about when you’ll be done on the weekends with your cleaning and laundry so you can spend more time with your family and friends. Decide you’re done at a certain time every night to be with your partner or to walk your dog.
Choose when you’ll be done for the day to shut off social media at night to have some time to yourself to read that book sitting on your night stand or get more sleep.
Take a deep breath, hit the pause button and call yourself done for the day.
Need more ideas to help you find the space to work on your business?
You want to reach more customer but you feel like this:
- I feel scattered when I’m coming up with content ideas for my social posts and I feel like I’m all over the place.
- This whole business development process feels frustrating – I just want someone to tell me what I need to do, something that easily flows that I can follow every month.
- I feel unorganized when I’m trying to share my marketing messages – this takes up so much time that I just end up posting whatever.
If you want to learn a process to get more organized, subscribe to the Create Your Business box and work through the creative exercises to help you think through your marketing plans and how to use your messages to reach more customers.
