What if you could save 10 hours/week as a solopreneur? That’s the dream, isn’t it! Because right now, you’re short on time, you are scrambling to stay on top of your work, and it’s just never enough. You wish you could clone yourself or add three extra days to the workweek, because maybe THEN you’d be able to breathe easy!
Here’s the good news: you don’t need to clone yourself or stuff more days into the workweek in order to get back on track as an overworked solopreneur.
Let’s talk about what you REALLY need to do if you want to get back your time… I have 5 time management tips for solopreneurs to get organized and reclaim your time.
5 ways for how to get back 10 hours/week as a solopreneur
Here are 5 ideas for effective time management in your solopreneur business — when you implement these the right way and very strategically, it will save you 10 hours/week, every week, in your solopreneur business:
Tip #1: Categorize similar tasks — and build out your schedule based on that.
For example, this can look like doing the same types of tasks at the same time every day, so that your brain really gets into that habit of it, or grouping together similar tasks on specific days of the week. That way you really know exactly what you're doing on different times of day or different days of the week.
This can also look like batching projects; getting a lot more of a particular task done all in one big chunk. Or this can look like organizing your tasks in terms of energy requirements and creativity. levels. So here you're essentially looking at, “What are my energy levels and my creativity levels throughout the day or throughout the week, and how can I ensure that I am matching that up to the right type of task that has that requirement of energy or creativity?”
Another way you can do this is by separating tasks into various departments and subdivisions within your solopreneur business, such as the Operations Department or the Growth Department. And in this case, you would have specific projects and tasks in each department. So here you could structure your schedule so that one day a week is for that specific department, and that is when you focus on those types of tasks that are within that umbrella of the department.
I do this with a lot of my solopreneur clients and it works like magic for them. It is so, so helpful. I actually share my full process for creating a departmental structure to your solopreneur business model, and an entire business structure blueprint, in my Productivity Powerhouse e-course:
Tip #2 AND #3: Do NOT start your workweek until you’ve looked BACK and AHEAD!
#2: Looking back:
Reviewing the past week and doing an audit to assess what you did and did not do in the previous week, and WHY (e.g. if it’s because you didn’t want to do that task, then you’ll need to assess the task itself AND/OR your approach to it, vs if you were too tired, then you’ll want to improve energy management, vs if you got distracted by shiny objects, then that could be a mindset block, etc). Depending on why you didn’t do a particular task, that’s valuable information so you can fix the correct issue.
#3: Looking ahead:
Based on what you know from looking back, you can plan ahead for the upcoming week! Block off any appointments/commute time/previous obligations; work backward from your goals to see exactly how much buffer time you’ll need; determine what time you DO have available to do a given task (be realistic — is it 3 hours/day, 15 minutes/day, etc? Be very clear with yourself about approx time allotments for each task and mark that down).
You get a full breakdown with guided questions and my signature step by step process for exactly how to do business audits in my Productivity Powerhouse e-course.
Tip #4: Know what WORKS for you and give yourself that support.
E.g. if you’re easily overwhelmed, use the 3:1 rule → choose the top 3 priorities, then choose the top 1, and HIDE the rest of your tasks from view; if you need a distraction-free environment, clear the clutter and switch environments before you even start working, etc. This is where you’re understanding exactly how your unique brain works and adapting your methods and processes to what YOU need.
…by the way, my Productivity Powerhouse e-course is rooted in personality-based productivity, so you can learn everything you need about customizing these processes to your unique situation when you join that program!
Tip #5: Time tracking.
This helps you stay on track when you’re on the clock, AND helps you understand where your time is going, AND helps you see how long it takes you to do X vs Y, AND helps you to more clearly differentiate between time vs energy.
What I often see is that a lot of solopreneurs might use time tracking for client work to keep track of those billable hours, but they don't use it as much for everything else in their business. But when you use time tracking for absolutely everything in your business, then you can start to look for the patterns. You can start to understand how your brain works on a very deep level. You can start to see when you tend to gravitate towards some tasks versus others or when tasks take you a lot longer to accomplish versus others. It can help you to understand where exactly your time is going.
Time tracking can also help you to better differentiate between whether something is a time issue versus an energy issue, and it helps you to see “how long does it actually take me to do X versus Y? What time of day am I most productive?” All of these types of things. Time Tracking can be so powerful as a tool in your business.
If this sounds intriguing to you, then stay tuned for my next video — I’m going to get deeper into using time tracking for your solopreneur business and how you can make the most of the information you get from time tracking, so that you can become even MORE productive on an ongoing basis as a solopreneur!
Now that you know what you can do to improve time management (and how to get back 10 hours/week as a solopreneur), you are ready to IMPLEMENT this:
Join my Productivity Powerhouse e-course, which is designed especially for busy, overworked solopreneurs like you to free up 10 hour/week, EVERY week, using my proprietary anti-hustle methods that are fully customize to YOUR unique needs — and which will give you back the work/life balance you crave, while enabling you to make more progress, faster, more easily, and more enjoyably, on your business goals.
