How to Manage Your Time as a Solopreneur
One big obstacle stands out as a universal problem in the solopreneur world: Time management. When you start your own solo business, you don’t have a boss breathing down your neck until things are done. You don’t have to worry about co-workers whining and complaining about tasks they believe are inconsistent with their pay grade. And you don’t
have some manager posting schedules in five different places to make sure you are prompt and accountable.
You have to do all of those things for yourself.
That may seem easy as first. You just stay organized, right? False! With the large amount of freedom you get, you will be tempted to spend an entire afternoon switching over from your website maintenance to binge YouTube videos. You’ll want to sleep in late because you’re not going to be threatened by a manager for showing up two minutes late. You’ll make excuses for how it’s perfectly reasonable to go to the bar with your friends every evening because you need
social time.
Those things plague the solopreneur world, but you have to stop it from happening to you.
Here are a few tips to dial in your entrepreneur time management skills and focus on success.
1: Utilize Written Schedules
You may know that you need to work Monday-Friday from 7 AM to 4 PM to get everything done. But do you have the self-awareness to tackle back-end tasks, marketing, B2B meetings and the main functions of your business?
Set times for each of these daily tasks and write them down. It’ll keep you on track and help prevent procrastination or focusing too much on one thing while other business aspects suffer.
2: Streamline Without Reducing Quality
Speed is a huge factor in the modern business world. You have 1 billion things to achieve, but there are only 24 hours in a day. You need to accomplish tasks quickly without sacrificing the quality of your service or product. This means streamlining.
Take advantage of business tools such as AtomPay, project management software, collaboration software, etc. This will allow you to focus more on the time-consuming things such as campaign planning and managing customer service.
3: Know Your Limits
One of the ways you can mess up your entrepreneur time management the most is by becoming so enticed by the potential rewards that you bite off more than you can chew, especially in the early stages. As a solopreneur, you’re alone. You’re also human and you can’t optimize your way out of taking on a job meant for 20 people.
Develop a firm understanding of what you’re capable of and take it a little slow at first. As you get comfortable, open yourself up to more intense workloads bit by bit. And recognize you’re doing the best you can. Once you reach a comfortable point, it may be time to consider expansion.
Time Management Makes or Breaks a New Solopreneur
Being a solopreneur offers you so many amazing opportunities. You’re free enough to set your own schedule and work at your pace. However, you need to manage your time management better than ever.
At first, this can be tricky but stick with it. As you improve in this department, success will follow.