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Time management to increase productivity as an Online Business Owner

Time management to increase productivity as an Online Business Owner

by | Online Business, Planning-Organization-Productivity

How do you think about your time? To better your time management to increase productivity, first, you need to consider it your most valuable, non-renewable resource.

Why time management is so important

Now, this is important do you know where you're spending your most valuable resource?

Why is it your most valuable resource?

We overlook our time as a valuable resource, in truth once it’s gone you’ll never get it back. Have you thought about it like this before? It can be surprising how many people don’t. If you get it, good for you!

How to improve in time management

Stay with me here as this may sound daunting, but you need to keep a time journal or track your time somehow. Not forever, unless you want to, but for at least a week or two.

Here’s how to do it yourself online with a few applications. Toggl is for time tracking and has a chrome plugin.

RescueTime is an app that runs in the background to track your time. 

Timeular is what I use for my time management/tracking because I like to have the physical tracker on my desk to flip. ← This is NOT an affiliate link, maybe someday but not yet. (:

You’re not able to improve what isn’t measured.

The only way to know where you're actually putting your time in is to keep track of it.

But here’s the thing once you’re aware of where your time is spent. This is when you’re able to improve your time management and productivity as an online small business owner.

Tracking time is a huge eye-opener into how long you’re actually spending your precious time on different tasks.

This allows you to make the decision if the tasks that are receiving your time are worth it.

Once you get really great a knowing exactly where your time is going and how long those different tasks are going to take. You guessed it time management becomes a ton easier.

Be sure to give yourself grace in the beginning, not everybody knows where they truly spend time wastefully.

It's a matter of keeping track of your time and shifting your mindset to viewing time as valuable.

Time management to increase productivity

How time management helps you to increase productivity?

How? Simple it keeps you out of doing the tasks that aren’t providing you a return on your investment.

With your time journal in hand figure out the return on investment (ROI) on each task.

Or another way to handle it if figuring the ROI feels difficult, ask yourself “Could I outsource this for under $20 per hour?”

put the dollar amount next to the task in the journal.

You need to make sure that the tasks you're doing are tasks you should be doing.

As a small business owner, you need to know that the tasks that you invest time into are actually connected to revenue in your business.

If you're not able to connect a task to an ROI, it may not, let’s be bold, it should not be an activity that you are doing in your small business and would be better served to hire a contractor for a few hours a month to do that.

Hey, we get it at Miss Task as we’ve been in your shoes when you're first starting out, you're like, no way am I going to outsource.

In order to increase your productivity, you must become a steward of your time.

Time management to increase productivity

How time management helps to reduce stress

And the best part is as an owner time management helps to reduce stress when you’re not getting caught in all the low returning, high energy tasks.

As a result, it feels really good when you can invest the time to focus on tasks that only YOU can do in your business, the tasks that bring a true return on investment in your small online business.

If you're stressed out about a $10 task that somebody else could do and handle for you, then you’re not going to have the ability to grow and scale your online business.

Time management strategy

One of the best time management strategies is repeatedly performing a mind sweep.

If you’re not familiar with the term mind sweep, it is the same as a brain dump.

In other words, making sure that you're going through and clearing your mind by doing a mind sweep of everything that you have going on and the things that need to happen?

Here’s how it works take that mind sweep and figure out the return on investment.
“Ask yourself is this the best investment for my time or could I hire somebody else to be doing that for you.”

Owner do not forget this applies to your personal life, as well as your business life.

Outsourcing

Next, pull out that time journal again of all the things that you’ve been doing, what are the things that you could easily outsource?

What are those things that you just cannot stand to do and you want somebody else to do?

Because it drains you completely of all your energy.

And it takes you a lot of time, a lot more time to do than it should.

You can either spend your time being busy, or you can spend your time being productive.

It necessary you're spending your time on productive revenue-generating tasks that are moving your online business forward.

A few other tricks to time management

Another great trick for your time management, making sure you're planning things well. Take the time up front on a project and break down everything that needs to be done.

Put all those tasks on your calendar in focused time blocks. Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither will your next great idea.

It gets better putting those tasks on your calendar lets you know when those tasks are going to get done.

Then if you’re not able to get to it for some unplanned reason, because you know, things come up that we aren’t expecting they always do.

Well, you need to take those non-essential tasks that you may have on your day and move them over to another day.

So it's very important that you're actually taking and planning out time.

In case you have a whole bunch of tasks that will take five or 10 minutes for each or a couple of minutes here and there, put them all into one time block so that they're all getting done all at once during a single time block.

That's a great way to manage your time and your tasks as well.

Similarly, one point that Brooke Castillo made in her YouTube video on tips for time management make sure you schedule your free time.

Why is that? If you're taking longer to do something, it's gonna cut into your free time.

Guess what happens it puts a little bit more fire underneath you to actually get it done in the time in which you have scheduled it for.

And on top of that, track your time leaks. A time leak is some unforeseen event that causes your schedule to get completely out of control.

For example, a poodle or a golden doodle who do things that you don’t anticipate and requires giving them an unplanned bath.

Bottom line, keep track of your time, what are the things that take the time that you didn't plan for in your schedule, and took away from doing the things that would have been more productive.

So where do you spend your time?

Given these points, you need to figure out where you spend your valuable time so that you can make sure that you're completing the tasks that only you can do.

Thank you so much for reading, I appreciate you and I hope you have a wonderful day.

 

l

Little Side Note

We either pay for things in time or money. Which is more valuable is up to you. Here’s the big secret you can earn more money you’ll never be able to earn more time.

✁ Just a Snippet

Here is just a snippet of the important points for time management to increase productivity, you know for the skimmer in you. 🤪

Easy Tips To Declutter Your iPhone

Easy Tips To Declutter Your iPhone

by | Planning-Organization-Productivity

Is your iPhone in need of a digital declutter? With apps so quick and easy to download. Cameras that snap multiple pictures for our convenience. All the messages that come in daily. Leads to an iPhone full of distracting clutter.

Are you ready to clean out all of that distracting clutter that we have on our iPhones today? Not yet, no worries save the link I’ll be here when you’ve blocked time on your calendar.

Let’s declutter your most-used device

Decluttering anything can be an overwhelming task. You can take this as fast or slow as feels comfortable to you, keep in mind it’s probably going to be a bit of a longer process.

Give yourself grace as it may not be something that you get done today. Although all you need to do is schedule some time in your calendar, and make sure you're doing a little bit every day.

Five minutes here, five minutes there and your iPhone will eventually be cleaned. Think of it more as a marathon than a sprint. Unless you’re into sprints my friend then go for it and get it decluttered now.

Contacts

How many contacts do you have on your iPhone? With our iPhones with us all the time, it so simple to add a contact here or there. We gather them up but do not always clean them out.

Oh my goodness, do you wonder how you ended up with so many contacts? Do you quickly find yourself wondering if you have the correct information or when was the last time you needed to reach out to the person?

Do you have a few duplicate contacts?

Not sure if you’re in a similar boat as me, with a collection of contacts from parents of the various club teams and groups that my children have been in over the years.

Now it’s decision time, do you want to delete them or take the time to reach out to that old contact to figure out if you even have the correct contact information for them.

To help with the decision here is a simple decision tree.

Ask yourself have you used this contact in the past year?
Yes, I’d say it’s a keeper.

No, ask yourself if you feel like you will ever need it again.

No is a delete.
Yes, keep it.

Easy Tips To Declutter Your iPhone

Messages

This may or may not need to be clean up on your iPhone. I’ve heard that people actually do delete messages as they come into the iPhone?

Is this a real thing?

If you’re a keeper of messages, this is the time to do back and delete all those old messages that you’ve been saving. How many do you actually need?

Should you need information for future reference. You could take a screenshot and same the image along with notes in your electronic storage. Such as OneNote, Evernote, or Notion.

Selecting one central location keeps from the constant need to search or rack your brain asking where you saved that nugget of information.

Photos/Videos

If this is a difficult one for you, start with the random screenshots. C’mon, I know you’ve got a few of these in your camera roll. Why is it so easy to take these? 😳

Really, are you deleting them? If I were to guess you’ve got your photos backing up automatically in the cloud someplace. If that is the case do you need to keep them all on my iPhone?

Don’t forget about your recently deleted folder in your photos. Any photo you delete will end up in your Recently Deleted Folder, make sure to select and delete all for the ultimate decluttered feeling.

Safari

Delete all the safari tabs or chrome browser tabs.

Turn Off Those Notifications

Do you really need to get a notification for each and every app you have on your iPhone? Do you want to clutter up your mind and keep getting all those distracting notifications?

Turning off notifications can be done bit by bit when it’s on your lock screen or it pops up, if you find yourself thinking do I really need to be notified by this? Go in and turn off the notifications.

It will feel so good when you pick up your iPhone and you only have a shortlist of notifications that you actually care about receiving.

Do you want to know one of those notifications that I have deemed to be not important?

Social Media.

I'm not sure what your feelings are on it, but receiving zero notifications for any sort of social media is very freeing. It allows you to stay in the present moment.

Fall in ❤️ with Do Not Disturb

If you find yourself getting off schedule and not getting the tasks done that should be done. Put your iPhone in do not disturb. With your iPhone in do not disturb it allows you to control your day and your time.

If you’re easily distracted and taken off course use Do Not Disturb. One of my weaknesses is people-pleasing, therefore my iPhone is in Do Not Disturb pretty much all the time.

It keeps me focused and not worried about activities that will distract me from my task list.

All the Apps

Everything and everyone wants you to download an app. Do you even know how many apps you have on your iPhone?

Friend, this is a great time to go through and delete all those apps. Heck, maybe delete all your apps on your iPhone. If you need it, it’s sitting in the cloud waiting for you. Easy peasy, it’s like decluttering 101 if you can easily replace it, declutter it.

With just a handful of apps, organize them with the most used apps in one location.

If you’re not wanting to start with a clean slate, you can easily see all your apps and the last time they were used by going into

  • Settings
  • General
  • iPhone Storage

Scroll through and really look at all those apps. What can be deleted? You also have the option to Offload App. This will free up storage used by the app but keep its documents and data. Reinstalling the app will place back your data if the app is still available in the App Store. This is a safes option if decluttering makes you nervous. It is so easy to add it back at any time like the app wasn’t even decluttered.

One more thing

Delete your call logs, all the recent iPhone calls, missed iPhone calls, and voicemails. Can you think of one reason why you’ll need them?

Easy Tips To Declutter Your iPhone

iPhone Wallpaper

Here is a cute iPhone Wallpaper for your phone. 

Here is just a snippet of the important points, you know for the skimmer in you. 🤪

Here is the quick checklist:

  • Contacts
  • Messages
  • Photos
  • Screenshots
  • Notification
  • Delete Apps
  • Organize Apps
  • Do Not Disturb
  • iPhone Call Records
Digital Declutter Of Your Inbox

Digital Declutter Of Your Inbox

by | Planning-Organization-Productivity

Is your inbox overflowing with unread emails, read emails that you have not done anything with yet, and the effect is causing you to miss important emails or opportunities? If this is you, it’s time for a digital declutter of your inbox.

Overflowing and Overwhelming

Do you feel your heart start to pitter-patter anything you even think about having to log into your inbox? It shouldn’t feel like that. Do you dream of someday reaching inbox zero?

Do you feel the current state of your inbox is overflowing and overwhelming? Let’s discuss small steps you can take every day to clear your inbox.

Gmail

While this will be specific to Gmail, you can apply these principles to most email applications.

First Steps In A Digital Declutter of your inbox

Friend, let’s tackle your inbox. We are going to filter your inbox to view unread messages, beginning with older than 30 days.

Do this by typing is:unread before:2021/3/15 into the search mail at the top of Gmail. is:Unread will filter all the unread messages, before:date will filter your date.

An example → is:unread before:2021/3/15

A few things I’d like you to keep in mind,

If it hasn’t been significant enough in 30 days to read it, will it ever be?

I get it; a month flies by, but after 30 days, if you haven’t found the time to respond, how important is it?

Do they even need your response any longer, or did they figure it out or ask someone else?

If you would feel better, glance through the first 25-50 message and see if you absolutely feel called to respond to any of the messages?

For the email that you definitely need to respond to, start it out with, “Thank you for your patience. I’m a little embarrassed it’s taken me so long to respond to you.” Enough said, move on to your response.

Digital Declutter of Your Inbox

How to handle all of those unread messages

We can handle this in a couple of different ways.

If you think that you will ever plan a day to go through all those unread emails, then create a label aka folder named To Sort.

Did you just LOL and think, I’d like to say I’m the person that will sort through those emails someday, but I know me, and I’ll never make the time. I give you permission; just delete them, let them go.

Are you think nope not going to delete them and pretty sure I’ll never take the time to review them. For the love, do not leave them in your inbox. Create a label aka folder named Delete on 10/14/21 or whatever the date is six months from now. If those emails are still unread six months from now, just let them go. Delete the whole folder, gone.

If you do go to that folder for an email, move it out and file it appropriately.

Read older than 30 Days

Jump to the read messages older than 30 days—the same process.

An example → is:read before:2021/3/15

What do you want to do with them? Move them in the To Sort folder? Delete after six months folder? Or just delete them all? Follow the same process as above. If you read it and just left it in your inbox, why? What was the reason?

Now to 30 Days

You’ve dealt with all the unread and read emails older than 30 Days.

How do we want to handle the remaining emails? We are now going to create our workflow process.

I’m a big fan of David Allen’s GTD model for email processing. David recommends if the email can be completed in less than two minutes, do it now. Here is a link to David’s Getting Email Under Control Process. 

The two-minute rule is simple, if it takes more than two minutes, create the next action on your task list, where you put things that need to get done. Do not leave it in your inbox. Do not leave it in your brain. It needs to either be on a paper or electronic task list.

My workflow is to create a task in my master actions inside of Notion. File the email in my ✔️Action Items Folder. If it requires immediate action by the end of the day, it is sorted into the 💠Win The Day Folder.

Marketing Emails

Marketing emails, oh how I love to sign up for marketing emails to check out the sales funnel. Therefore, I sign up for a ton, and I unsubscribe to a ton. But, I’m not going to do that during my valuable work time. Nope, I put them in a Read At Leisure folder.

When I have a few minutes here and there, I’ll start to go through that folder. Yep, I’m that person with my face in my phone while waiting in line. No shame, I consider every minute valuable.

If it sparks a creative idea, it will go into my folder name Marketing Inspo. If it does nothing, deleted it, and if it doesn’t feel aligned, I’ll unsubscribe.

Are you over marketing emails altogether? Sign up for unroll.me. Unroll.me will filter all those marketing emails before they even hit your inbox, and you can unsubscribe in bulk.

Calendar/Travel

Anything that I will need until a specific date goes into my ⏰Waiting Room folder. Yes, with the emoji and all.

The folder contains information I’ll need for meetings, travel arrangements, online orders, any type of information that I need to hold on to until a specific date, and then delete it.

Waiting For

Are you waiting for someone else? It goes into this folder; you know you need to follow up. Or you can use Boomerang for Gmail for this too. Boomerang for Gmail is an add-on to Gmail.

With Boomerang For Gmail, you can schedule emails to come back into your email at a specific date if you haven’t received a response. It’s pretty slick. Check it out here.

 

Create Your Inbox Workflow

My inbox workflow has been fine-tuned as I’ve gained knowledge and experience clearing out inboxes with tens of thousands of emails. This is how I keep my inbox clutter-free.

  • By creating a workflow for handling your inbox, you are no longer constantly looking at the same emails repeatedly, trying to decide what needs to happen next.
  • Actively work inside my inbox twice per day, midmorning and end of day wrap up.
  • Spend up to 25 minutes or one Pomodoro sorting my inbox; if I’m done sooner, it’s bonus time.
  • Handle in under two minutes. Do it now!
  • Action required to put it on the action list filed in action or win the day
  • Email that I have to do with events, date-specific it goes into the waiting room and added to my calendar if it’s not already
  • Emails that I need something from someone – waiting for, or you can use Boomerang for Gmail
  • The marketing emails they get sorted immediately into the read at leisure – unread are deleted no questions asked if they are over 30 days old

This workflow helps to get through your inbox quickly.

l

Little Side Note

 If you’re the CEO of your business, should you be the one clearing out your inbox? This is a great first step to outsourcing. 

✁ Just a Snippet 

Here is just a snippet of the essential points you know for the skimmer in you. 🤪

  • Repeat the small steps daily to clear your inbox.  
  • Clear out unread – If it hasn’t been significant enough in 30 days to read it, will it ever be?
  • Clear out read – if you’ve read it, why is it still sitting in your inbox? 
  • I recommend reading this: David’s Getting Email Under Control Process.
  • If it requires immediate action by the end of the day, it is sorted into the 💠Win The Day Folder.
  • Marketing Emails – delete or Read At Leisure folder.
  • Emails with specific dates go into my ⏰Waiting Room folder.
  • Create a workflow for handling your inbox