Cartoon Character Octopus Isolated on White Background. Vector.
Despite what courses and books proclaim, I believe that “time management” is a misnomer. No one manages time. Time marches on quite nicely regardless of how you choose to interact with it. Nevertheless, what you must do as a small entrepreneur is to effectively use your time.
Too many individuals eagerly pursue a path of entrepreneurship, only to find themselves working 25 hours a day. Not only does the “life” side of the work-life balance equation suffer under these conditions, but the business or work element does as well. There is always some formula of diminishing returns, differing slightly between each individual person, but nonetheless present, which postulates that after a certain amount of time spent grinding away, a person becomes less and less effective at a task.
Mixing together research studies, personal experience, and anecdotal evidence from clients, colleagues and friends, the sweet spot for a workweek seems to clock in at around 50 hours. Moreover, however the seven-day week was derived — whether from Judeo-Christian roots, Babylonian religious beliefs, standardized under the Roman Empire, etc. — it also seems commonsensical that the average human labors best with at least one day off out of the seven. Those who wind up working more than seven days in a row (e.g. retail employees during the end of the year holiday season) will show signs of the stress of doing so.
Obviously, we can adjust this based upon age and exigency. An 18-year-old will likely be able to toil longer than a 78-year-old. And during times of emergency or critical need, most of us can muster the will and ability to get the job done.
But, the solopreneur is by definition one person. To climb the ladder into business viability, and thereafter up to greater levels of success, the founder, chief cook and bottle washer of the entrepreneurial venture needs to be ruthlessly efficient with his or her time. Focusing upon this principle is one of the key mutable laws of our mastermind group. Let’s look at seven examples. As we have content elsewhere that goes into greater detail, we will examine each only briefly.
1. One drag upon efficiency is building a business that relies solely upon trading time for dollars. The savvy entrepreneur looks to ways in which time can be leveraged, and earnings are not solely based upon the number of hours spent engaged in a task.
2. Another surprising limitation on efficiency is multitasking. Social scientists have conducted numerous studies, most of which show that multitasking is a terribly inefficient way to do about anything. We all know the grim consequences that result from those who try to drive a car and text at the same time.
The term multitasking itself is a misnomer. Rather than performing a duo of tasks simultaneously, what actually occurs is that our brains shift rapidly back and forth between the two. Essentially, we are breaking our concentration and shifting our attention repeatedly. Not all multitasking is bad; like all of our mutable laws, there are exceptions. Feel free to experiment whether multitasking can be efficient for you in certain routine tasks. But be wary if it becomes your standard operating procedure.
3. Another powerful tool to use in your quest for efficiency is the magic of “no”. Whether in your business or in your daily life, it’s important to learn to say no. Until we do so, we will continue to be stressed and overwhelmed with too much to do and not enough time. When this happens, usually the loudest voices get serviced first, which may not always be those matters of priority. Interestingly, most children go through a phase where their favorite word is no. That’s because no is a power word. It gives you a definite sense of self.
4. Another, perhaps less familiar way to use time efficiently, is to apply Parkinson’s Law. Cyril Parkinson was an English economist who first published his “law” as a humorous essay in the mid-1950s. In its simplest form, it is expressed as:
work expands to fill the time available for its completion.
Essentially, in the world of the small entrepreneur, we often allot way too much time to complete a task. We will then expand the task to fill the time we have provided for it. We all tend to work much more efficiently when we are slightly under the gun, under a deadline to complete something.
5. Another scenario that often arises is the belief that something must be perfect or absolutely complete before it can be implemented. While striving for perfection is a necessary goal in certain situations — we all hope our surgeon or lawyer follows this maxim — in many other cases you can launch something and fix the bugs later. How often do we purchase a software program, or install an app on our smart device, only to see patches and fixes being routed our way over the coming weeks and months?
6. Managing information is absolutely key to the efficient entrepreneur. One can easily drown in a sea of e-mails and endless web-surfing. Moreover, information illiteracy is welcomed in the world of the small entrepreneur. You probably don’t need to subscribe to 100 free newsletters to glean the correct amount of information to run your business. Figure those you can eliminate, and practice a little bit of ignorance. It will save time, and usually not harm you in the slightest with respect to your business endeavor. Of course, special note to the professionals, such as lawyers, accountants and doctors, as these folks tend to require more sources of research than the average small entrepreneur might.
7. Finally, don’t be afraid to create the workday that suits you. With the exception of retail, most small entrepreneurs can work whatever timeframe that feels best. Many who become entrepreneurs after working at a corporate gig for a number of years, fall into the pattern of the 9-to-5 schedule. What if you worked better from midnight to 5 AM? What if you preferred working in the morning, taking a break through the early afternoon hours, and then returning into the early evening to finish your tasks? Some of us are morning people, some of us night owls. Don’t hesitate to find what works best for you.
The foregoing examples merely scratch the surface. Our second mutable law encourages the entrepreneur to always look at systems and ways to do something more efficiently.