If you often find yourself feeling disorganized and overwhelmed in your business, it may be time to implement a productivity strategy. You can regain control and improve your efficiency by creating a system and structure for your tasks and responsibilities. I’m curious, friend. Do you want to explore different strategies and techniques to help you overcome the feeling of being overwhelmed and bring order to your business?
You feel like you're stuck chasing an impossible dream; every day, you turn off your computer feeling disorganized and overwhelmed. What if you're not chasing an impossible dream? What if you give yourself a road map to achieve the possible?
Everything is doable when you take the right action toward your dream.
Take my hand, sister. It's time to figure out how to stop being stuck, disorganized, and overwhelmed in your online business.
Here are the productivity strategies I use to keep the day from spinning out of control. Let's be honest; it happens to us all. You're not alone.
Tools & Tips: Strategies for Those Feeling Disorganized and Overwhelmed
Write it all down, everything that you do during your business hours. Stay with me here; track what you're doing during your work blocks. Now, I know what you're thinking; yes, it is time-consuming to write down everything you do in a day, and it is very beneficial to see where you're losing time.
This is not a fancy system. Grab a piece of paper and record your time and what you're doing.
You'll be amazed at how much time you spend in the ladies' room. Or the amount of time that you mindlessly waste on social media.
If you want to track your time electronically, Toggl is a great option. I'm tracking my time as I write this post with Toggl. What makes it easy is a Chrome extension.
Toggl for time tracking: https://toggl.com/
Plan Your Week
And now you're thinking, nope, not going to happen, Michele. I'm a fly-by-the-seat person, not a fan of structure, and I crave flexibility in my schedule. That's the perk of being an online business owner.
The solution is simple. Instead of coming up with an hour-by-hour schedule, what if you picked the top one to three things you wanted to do by the end of the week?
At the beginning of the week, you should break down those big tasks into small actions you can do quickly without much effort. If you take small actions daily, by the end of the week, you will be able to check off a lot of big things.
If you do not have specific things you want to accomplish and spin your wheels stuck from lack of clarity. I'm guessing this is when you're feeling disorganized and overwhelmed as a business owner.
Figure out how much working time you'll have to limit feeling disorganized and overwhelmed
Now, this is an essential time block all your meetings and appointments for the week. After you have blocked prior commitments on your calendar, set aside time to focus on operations, client work, and project planning.
You and I know that unexpected things come up; therefore, this isn't a detailed breakdown of the exact actions. Instead, you're creating space in your weekly schedule to work around established time commitments. Spend five to ten minutes mapping out your week.
Make Life Easier
As a bonus, plan out your meals for the week and create a shopping list. Not sure about you, but do you know what caused my feeling disorganized and overwhelmed? One simple and reasonable question is “Mom, what's for dinner?” Do you want to get ahead of this question too, but struggle with meal planning? I'd suggest the cookbook Cook Once, Eat All Week. https://fedandfit.com/cook-once-eat-all-week/
Oh, girlfriend, meal planning has been a game-changer for me.
This cookbook sparked my desire to create my own eight-week meal plan in Notion. If you're new to meal planning, Cook Once, Eat All Week lays out all the meal prep to put the meal together in under 15 minutes during the evenings. When you're short on time this is a blessing.
As a bonus time saver, the mess is made during the prep day, so my kitchen is super easy to clean during the week.
Tackling Time Management: Solutions for Feeling Disorganized and Overwhelmed
Do you want to know the easiest way to tackle time management? By planning your day the day before.
Block time at the end of each day to plan out the following day; this can be rolled up in your ‘wrap up the day' time block. Start by blocking out any meetings that have popped up since you planned your week.
Time Blocking
Time blocking keeps like items together. The tasks include writing blog posts, creating social media content, client work, and meetings. This allows you to put a time limit on these otherwise time-consuming tasks.
Set up a full day or time block for certain hours each day in your weekly schedule.
Let me guess, now you're wondering how long to block.
Double The Time For A Task
If you have no idea how long a task will take, always double the time you think it will require. If writing your next blog post takes 30 minutes, schedule an hour.
Attach Time to Each Task on Your List
Make a list of your tasks for the day and estimate the time it will take them to complete.
If you have 20 things on your to-do list, and they all take 30 minutes to accomplish, that is ten hours. In other words, it's ten hours of solid work without breaks.
Setting time in a time block will help you manage your time and eliminate feeling disorganized and overwhelmed.
If you still have over half the items on your list at the end of the day, you'll leave feeling like the day owned you. Or worse yet, you'll push through and try to finish it.
Make sure you set yourself up for success.
Do A Time Audit
This is different from the above, but you can do it the same way. If you have no idea how much time you spend doing work, it will be difficult to manage your time.
For a week or two, record the time you spend and the items you work on. This can be done by looking at the clock or using Toggl.
Buffer Time
In addition, your day should include buffer time; you may also hear me call it a fire block. Why is that? Well, you can't sit at your desk all day. You'll need to get up to move your body.
Do not overbook yourself. Leave a minimum of 5 minutes between each time block.
In addition, add an hour of buffer time for those urgent, critical things that need to be handled ASAP. Buffer time allows you to plan for the unknown so that you do not cause a further time leak.
Know Your Personal Limits
We all have personal limits on how long we can focus, and friend this can vary depending on the time of the day.
In the morning, I can focus on 50-minute sprints with a ten-minute stretch break in between.
In the afternoon, my focus personal focus limit drops to 25 minutes with a 5-minute break.
Figure out what your personal focus limits are. Keep in mind it could be different depending on the time of day.
You can also keep a journal of how effective you were at certain times of the month so that you can see when you're most focused.
Productivity Hacks to Combat Feeling Disorganized and Overwhelmed
Use the Pomodoro Method. Google it, or here is the Wiki Page for information.
I've used an app called Tide on my phone for the Pomodoro Method (which is in Do Not Disturb BTW) with the sound of a cafe. Also, my Mac has the Flow app for this same thing. If you work really well from a coffee shop, try using Coffitivity on your desktop. Here is a link to a blurb about coffee shop ambient sounds and productivity.
Commit To Your Business
Earlier, I wrote a post on committing to one project at a time. I used the example that you wouldn't stop running one marathon to run another marathon. Er, that's crazy talk. (Check that post out here.)
The same concept holds true for your business or project commitments.
If you commit to releasing a new offering, don't work on your new offer and refresh your website at the same time.
The focus will be divided, and it will take twice as long. Focus on one race at a time until you cross the finish line.
Remove Distractions
Set your phone to do not disturb while you are in your time block. Schedule time to respond to phone calls and read emails.
For the love ~ do not leave your email open all dang day. Nothing derails productivity like email. Amiright?
Remember, email is not your to-do list. Answering your email isn't committing to your business. Before you even get started with OMGoodness, I can't do that; my clients need a response.
Yes, I agree that you need to respond to your clients' emails. Last time I checked, metals were not being given out to the fastest email responders. Boundaries, people. If you do not set them, someone will set them for you. Trust me you'll not succeed with someone else's boundaries.
Set a response time expectation for your clients. In your business policies, you should clarify this for your clients in your Welcome Packet.
One of my favorite mantras is: Your poor planning does not constitute my emergency. I've said this and lived by it for years.
Learn what should be taken off your plate
Have you heard of the Eisenhower method or decision matrix? It assigns importance to your tasks. This will help you figure out your weekly schedule.
They are either
- Important and Urgent
- Important but Not Urgent
- Urgent but Not Important
- Not Urgent and Not Important
Important and Urgent
Do This – If the task is both important and urgent, do this. This is why you have buffer time in your calendar. Furthermore, it should also be an income-generating task for the business owner. This can only be done or handled by you.
Important but Not Urgent
This should be scheduled on your calendar to get done.
Urgent but Not Important
These items should be delegated to someone else to do. You begin to hand over these tasks to a virtual assistant if you've been considering hiring one.
Not Urgent and Not Important
Delete it, cross it off. If it's not urgent and not important to your business growth why would you spend time doing this?
If you'd like to read more about the Eisenhower method, here is an article by James Clear with more information. Give it a quick read.
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Wow, this was a long one; let's wrap it up with a quick recap:
- Start tracking your day
- Plan your week and day ahead of time
- Time block your weekly schedule or calendar
- Double the time you think it will take
- Attached time to everything on your to-do list
- Audit your time
- Add buffer time to your daily and weekly schedule
- Figure out your focus time
- Commit to one project at a time
- Remove distractions
- Try the Eisenhower method to figure out what you should do immediately, what you should schedule, what you should delegate, and what you should delete.
I'm going to let you in on a little secret, if you do these things repeatedly every week, you'll have a planning SYSTEM. See how simple a system can be created.
Thank you so much for reading, I appreciate you and I hope you have a wonderful week.
