The term entrepreneur insinuates that anyone with this label does more than the “average” businessman. In a way, entrepreneurship is like being in a perpetual state of work, with an avid desire to improve everything. Some such as Business News Daily have described entrepreneurship as a constant hunger for making things better. But with this insatiable desire comes a lack of time to achieve everything that an entrepreneur may set out to do.
In this sense, the entrepreneur usually has no shortage of two out of the three physical constraints in life. They have an exceptional level of energy and, often, an adequate pot of money. Yet the third constraint, time, ends up suffering. This classic triangle of constants perfectly depicts the issues we all need to address — for the entrepreneur, this means adopting better time management.
Entrepreneur Energy
Perhaps by nature, entrepreneurs have a large capacity tank of energy that stems from their internal drive to “do good”. Take one of today’s top entrepreneurs, Elon Musk, for example. Musk has been known to get very little sleep as he bounces back and forth between his two major companies, SpaceX and Tesla. These two powerhouses may be spearheading some life-changing projects, but Musk’s sleep deprivation (which can be fatal) is as a result of poor time management.
Money-Making Entrepreneurs
This type of self-destructing drive is common in entrepreneurs. Many of them will not start off rich but end up making mega money by making sacrifices most of us wouldn’t dream of. Staying with the Elon Musk theme — he built his first company by renting out an office and sleeping on the sofa. He took showers at the YMCA to save time and initial startup money on rent. As we know by now, this method paid dividends — his current net worth is estimated at $23 billion (without taking a single paycheck from Tesla).
What About Entrepreneur Time?
This is where entrepreneurs get tripped up if they don’t consciously develop time-saving strategies to assist them. Entrepreneurs often deal with work that they are passionate about, which sometimes results in them avoiding delegating tasks to other people. Despite that entrepreneurs are often likened to superheroes, they are, in fact, still human like the rest of us.
If you’re an entrepreneur struggling with this issue, you’ve landed in the right place. In this post, we take you through three of the best time-management tricks that will give you, as an entrepreneur, some freedom from the clock.
1. Learn How to Outsource Basic Tasks
If you’ve been involved in a project from its conception, it might be hard to delegate any of your responsibilities away to another person. This is especially true if you fall under the personality type of “the improver” — common in entrepreneurs — as this can mean that you tend to be over-critical and a perfectionist, as advised by The Balance Careers. To be able to have an effective impact across the board, you will first have to learn to trust others to do some of the work.
At first, this might mean delegating basic tasks like admin and communications that don’t interfere with any major part of an overall strategy. You can do this by hiring a virtual receptionist, who will take control of organising any incoming calls. Taking advantage of virtual receptionist services will give you extra time to work on more complicated processes or get some well-needed rest — although, we all know that as a true entrepreneur, you’ll likely pick the first option!
2. Inject Some Normality into Your Daily Routine
No matter how successful you come to be as an entrepreneur, there is nothing wrong with a bit of normality. Catching a plane every other day to make face-to-face business meetings will offset your natural body clock and isn’t always the most productive use of your time. Highly acclaimed entrepreneurs swear by the use of a strict schedule that dictates what is normal to them.
This doesn’t mean that you have to work in a rigid routine with no room for flexibility (with a varied role, that just won’t work). Instead, adopting a few daily habits that you can carry out in the morning will help you to regain some stability in your workday. Your daily habits should be personalised to you, but there’s no reason why you can’t take inspiration from established leaders. Apple CEO Tim Cook likes to clear out his inbox at 4 am, for example, while Editor in Chief for Vogue Anna Wintour starts off the day with an hour-long tennis match. By adopting a daily routine that gets you into the frame of mind you need to be in to perform at your best, you’ll be able to focus better and effectively accomplish tasks in order to save time.
Some common habits include daily meditation and creating a new to-do list each day, as these types of activities help you to remain present and keep your brain engaged on the task at hand.
3. Make Use of Automation as a Time-Saving Tactic
There is a difference between working hard and working smart. Finding ways to automate some of your processes will save you time for tasks that require a human touch. Non-emotional work like data management is now often automated, as it’s much easier to allow analytics software to compile a report, instead of spending hours plotting graphs by yourself.
If you’re an entrepreneur who finds it difficult to relinquish control, this is a great solution, as you can make sure that the software you use is regimented and tested — such software also comes with the benefit of not suffering from personal bias or exhaustion. If it’s your inbox that is causing you trouble and getting you up before sunrise, you should consider automating it using Gmail filters. The same thing goes for Skype call meetings — a robot may not be able to take your meetings for you (yet), but you can integrate automation using apps such as Calendly to make scheduling more efficient.
