Time Management in Business: 7 Tips for Entrepreneurs to Have Time for Everything

The great management theorist Peter Drucker once said: “Until you can manage your time, you can’t manage anything else.”

Entrepreneurs often lack 24 hours in a day – there are always more things to do than time. That’s why it’s important to organize your day to understand which tasks should come first, how much time to devote to each task, how and what to delegate to others in the business to move it forward effectively. It takes serious discipline, but the reward will be reduced stress, better management and a more successful company.

In this article, we’ll look at 7 time management techniques that will help business owners manage their time more productively and remember to rest.

What is time management?

Time management is a time management technique that helps you organize your day in such a way as to achieve maximum efficiency in business and personal life. Time management helps you understand how much time is spent on each task, determine which tasks are most important and prioritized, and remove any distractions that may interfere with the completion of tasks.

It is important to realize that time management is not about working all the time without a break. On the contrary, effective time management helps you find time to relax and have fun, which are also important for the health and well-being of an entrepreneur.

So, time management is a way of managing your time to live a more organized and productive life.

7 techniques for building effective time management

Let’s look at 7 techniques that will help you manage your time so that you can use it effectively without burning out. This is especially important for entrepreneurs who always have a lot of things to do and tasks to accomplish.

Prioritize

Prioritizing will help you focus on what really matters and produce great results in the shortest amount of time.
Try the ABCDE method for managing priorities. It helps you identify the most important tasks and allows you to focus on them first.

The acronym ABCDE stands for:

A – Urgent tasks that need to be completed immediately. For example:

• Prepare a presentation for an important client that is due tomorrow.
• Organize a meeting with investors who arrive in a few hours.
• Repair equipment that has stopped working at the worst possible time.

B – Important tasks that should be completed, but not necessarily right away. For example:

• Write a business plan for the next quarter.
• Start exploring a new work automation tool that can greatly simplify business processes.

C – Tasks that are desirable to accomplish but are not urgent or important. For example:

• Update the design of the product’s branded packaging.
• Conduct market research to find out what new trends and technologies could be useful to the business in the future.

D – Tasks that can be delegated to other people. For example:

• Send out email newsletters to customers about product innovations.
• Share the post on social media.
• Call customers who haven’t bought in a while.

E – Tasks that can be removed from the to-do list. For example:

• Polishing social media at work.
• Check out the latest videos on Youtube.

To apply the ABCDE method to manage your priorities, you need to follow these steps:

1. Make a list of tasks that need to be accomplished.
2. Categorize the list into categories A, B, C, D and E according to their importance and urgency.
3. Start working with Category A tasks, as they are the most critical and require immediate attention.
4. Move on to Category B tasks and finish them before moving on to Category C tasks.
5. Delegate Category D tasks to other people, if possible, to focus on tasks of higher importance.
6. Exclude category E tasks from the to-do list if they are not necessary.

Applying the ABCDE method will help you focus on the most important tasks and use your time and energy more efficiently.

Delegate

For many entrepreneurs, especially start-ups, delegating tasks and shifting responsibility to others is difficult. Often the entrepreneur is either used to doing everything himself or is afraid of losing control.

But if you want to grow, you need to learn to delegate time-consuming, routine tasks that others can handle. This will allow you to focus on more important tasks, such as strategic planning, motivating and leading a team, and promoting the business.

How do you keep track of your employees’ tasks? It is convenient to use kanban boards for this purpose. A kanban board is a table with columns “All tasks”, “Tasks in progress” and “Done”, and the number of columns can be changed depending on the number of stages in the project. The names of the columns can also be changed as you wish.

All tasks are placed by default in the first column, each on a separate card. They are then dragged from one column to another until they are in the last column. This process of moving tasks around makes it easy to track the progress of each person and the entire team.

For example, the kanban method helps to see the pace of work and adherence to deadlines for delegated tasks.

Automate your work

Automating repetitive routine tasks helps you reduce time spent on routine tasks such as processing applications, recording financial transactions or sending emails to customers. This frees up time for more important and strategic tasks.

You can use special services to automate your work. For example:

• To record financial transactions, you can use online accounting, which automatically calculates taxes and generates reports for the tax office.

• For project management, you can use services and programs for planning and control, such as LeaderTask, which will help to distribute tasks among team members and monitor their completion.

• To send emails to customers, you can set up automatic mailings (triggers) depending on a user action or event. For example, when a customer leaves an order, he can be sent an email with the order number and a selection of products he may like. Or if a visitor has abandoned the shopping cart, he automatically receives an email reminding him to complete the order.

Of course, automation cannot completely replace the human factor. Always monitor the work of programs and applications and control that they perform their tasks correctly.

Minimize distractions

I’m talking about external factors that interfere with work, such as: scrolling social networks and news, messages in messengers not for business, notifications from applications and the like. They take away the time and attention you need to complete tasks. You end up losing your productivity.

How do you minimize distractions? The most effective way is to set clear boundaries and respect them. For example, you can specifically set aside 10 minutes every 1-2 hours to check email and respond to social media messages, so that you don’t waste your working time on it.

If you are constantly distracted by social media posts, you can install special programs that will block access to them for a certain amount of time.

The Pomodoro method can be used to maintain concentration while working. The founder of this method is Francesco Cirillo. He used a kitchen timer in the shape of a tomato to focus on his tasks. Hence, this is where the name came from.

How to use the Pomodoro method:

• Set a timer for 25 minutes and start working on the task.
• Do not get distracted by messages or other tasks during this time.
• When the timer has expired, take a short break for 5-10 minutes.
• Repeat this process three to four more times.
• After the fourth cycle of intermittent work, take a longer break for 15-30 minutes.
• Repeat this process throughout the day to maximize your time.

Complete one task at a time

Multitasking ≠ productivity. Research shows that multitaskers are actually less productive, but they feel more emotionally satisfied with their work, which creates the illusion of productivity.

Multitasking is when you try to do several things at the same time. For example, checking emails, answering messengers, and working on a project at the same time. This can cause you to work slower and make more mistakes because your brain can’t focus on multiple tasks at the same time. As a result, you spend more time on each task and lose concentration and efficiency. For example, you may misunderstand a message or miss important details in a task.

The best way to increase your productivity is to focus on one task at a time, finish it, and then move on to the next. For example, finish a project first and then check your email. This allows you to use your concentration and energy to the max for each task, which results in getting your work done faster and more efficiently.

Work according to your chronotype

Chronotypes are different types of human circadian rhythms, i.e. biological processes that repeat approximately every 24 hours. There are four main chronotypes, each characterized by its own features:

“Bears” This chronotype refers to people who are comfortable waking up and going to bed no earlier than 23 hours. Their peak productivity falls between 11 and 18 hours.

“Lions” This chronotype refers to those who can easily wake up early in the morning and start working immediately after waking up. They feel most productive in the first half of the day, and it is better to go to bed before 22:30.

“Wolves” This chronotype refers to those who go to bed late and are hard to get up in the morning. They are most alert and productive in the second half of the day – from 14 to 20 hours.

“Dolphins” This chronotype has an erratic circadian rhythm. It is difficult for such people to fall asleep and wake up, and it is hard for them to concentrate. Their peak activity falls in the middle of the day – from 10 to 18 hours.

To align your time management by chronotype, you need to:

1. Determine your chronotype. This can be done by assessing what time you feel most awake, when you are most productive and when it is easiest to fall asleep.
2. Determine your ideal daily schedule based on the recommendations for your chronotype. For example, if you are a bear, you may be comfortable waking up between 7 and 11 a.m., working from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., and going to bed no later than 11 p.m. If you’re a “lion,” you might be best to work from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and go to bed before 10:30 p.m.
3. Make a plan for the day and include the tasks you need to accomplish. Divide your tasks into important and urgent, important and non-urgent, urgent and unimportant, and unimportant and non-urgent (as in the first technique). This will help you determine which tasks are important to achieving your goals and which ones can be postponed.
4. Plan your day using your ideal daily schedule and considering how you can utilize your energy cycles most effectively. For example, if you are a “lion,” it’s best to start work in the morning, at your peak energy. If you’re a bear, you can use the morning time for exercise and personal business, and begin labor-intensive tasks in the afternoon.

Don’t forget to rest

An equally important element of successful time management is rest. Rest helps to restore energy, reduce stress levels and increase productivity.

How much and how often an entrepreneur needs to rest depends on the individual characteristics of the body, as well as the volume and nature of work. Ideally, you should allocate 5 minutes every hour during the working day to stretch and relieve tension. It is also important to get 7-8 hours of sleep and to have at least one day off a week for rest and recovery.

It can be difficult to find time to relax in the never-ending flow of things to do, but it is important to maintain efficiency and reduce the risk of burnout. We recommend scheduling time to relax in the same way you schedule time to work. For example, make time for morning exercise before you start your workday, take five-minute warm-up breaks when you’re sitting at the computer for long periods of time, and make time for hobbies and sports after work.

It is important to realize that rest is not a waste of time, but rather an investment in health and productivity. Not taking enough time to rest is fraught with stress, fatigue, and can lead to illness. Therefore, incorporating rest into your day and week plan is a must. This will help keep your performance, efficiency and health high.

Key findings of the article

• Prioritize and delegate tasks so you can focus on what’s most important.
• Use technology and automation programs to avoid wasting time on routine and repetitive tasks.
• Minimize distractions such as social media and news scrolling, unnecessary notifications from messengers and apps.
• Give up multitasking, take one task at a time.
• Determine your chronotype and tailor your daily routine to it – do the most energy-consuming tasks at your peak activity.
• Take care of your health and get regular rest. A healthy and rested entrepreneur is always much more effective than a tired and sick one.

Implement these techniques to manage your time effectively and achieve greater business success.