What’s your relationship with time? Do you see it as your friend or your enemy?
Most of us feel like time is something we’re working AGAINST, not with.
But guess what? Time isn’t our enemy. It’s neutral (much like money). We just have to choose what to do with it.
At one point or another we’ve all feel like we need more money, more knowledge, more connections, more resources to grow and scale our businesses. But remember that there is one thing that we have complete and total control over: how each of us spends the 24 hours in our day.
Here are 4 things NOT to do when trying to be most effective with your time:
Don’t subscribe to other people’s philosophies
One of the things that’s so important when making time your friend rather than your enemy is to figure out what works for YOU, and not what everyone else is doing.
Some of my clients work best in 30 minute spurts, some in 2 hour blocks. Some do best with scheduling EVERYTHING onto a calendar and some need more flexibility.
- It’s about trying different strategies and figuring out what works best for you.
- It’s about execution, action-taking, and showing up in your business.
- It’s about self-care, slowing down, and giving your brain some serious space when needed.
Sometimes it’s best to not challenge ourselves to “go all in” but to try different strategies and to figure out what works best.
Don’t try to multitask
In my experience as a coach, I’ve seen that what eats up a lot of my clients time is decision fatigue.
I’ve realized that one of the best ways to minimize fatigue is to do similar tasks together. That way, you don’t have to put on different hats or make lots of decisions. This concept of batching similar tasks together helps you to be IN whatever you’re doing. Plus, it minimizes your fatigue and maximizes your time! Most entrepreneurs fall into fatigue when they’re trying to SWITCH between tasks, not when they’re actually DOING them.
By doing this they save time and energy and dramatically increases productivity!
Don’t create unrealistic to-do lists
One of the reasons we often feel like time is our enemy is because we’re making SUPER unrealistic lists of what can happen within the time we have.
I used to be the queen of the 12 item to do list, and always felt like I could never “get it all done”. I was giving myself more to do list items than could be completed in a week to do in one day.
When you create realistic expectations time stops feeling like the enemy and you actually get MORE done.
Don’t try to do all the things in your biz
Although it’s essential to cultivate a positive relationship with time and learn to manage our time effectively, the truth is that time IS a limited resource. When your time is maxed out, you have to think about delegating. Because there comes a point in business where the cost of doing everything yourself becomes greater than the cost of passing those things off.
The hardest part about managing our time is to be honest with ourselves about how we spend our day. Be very aware how your 24 hours are spent and take active steps into trying different strategies to find what works best for you and your biz.