Good time management makes all the difference in business. I regularly work with business owners who want to improve their time management skills to lower stress levels and unlock more free time in their daily lives. 

By doing this, it has a real and tangible benefit both to business performance but also to the personal lives and satisfaction levels of the business owner. Such as the business owner I helped reduce their working week from 85 hours to 45 hours and enabled them to take their first family holiday in five years!

In this blog, I’m going to run through a few of my top recommendations and time management strategies that business owners can use to increase productivity and achieve some freedom at work. 

1 – Define your goals 

Before embarking on a time management quest, it’s important to understand the goals you want to achieve. 

Are you hoping to free up more time for leisure outside of work? Or, maybe you’re feeling stressed about not having things in order and you’re always having to fight fires due to having no real schedule?

Perhaps you want to spend more time on directing and progressing the business rather than doing the day-to-day operations of it?

Once you’ve understood what you’re hoping to achieve, it becomes much easier to create meaningful change in order to accomplish it. 

2 – Stick to your schedule 

Project management is one of the most important aspects when it comes to effective time management. The two go hand in hand!

Getting to work with a plan in place is one of my top time management tips simply because, if you’ve not got a plan to work to, how can you effectively maximise the time you have?

I like to set out my daily tasks in order of importance and urgency. Important tasks come first, or whatever time of the day you feel you work best during the day! 

It can help to set aside specific days each week for specific tasks, as this helps to build up a routine and also sets expectations for your team. Similar tasks can be completed in blocks to

maximise time. Perhaps Monday is set aside for phone calls, whilst you handle emails at the end of the week on Friday – whatever works best for you and your team!

There is a tool I use called a ‘balanced diary’ which could help you with this.

3 – Avoid Multitasking

Multitasking is one of the greatest myths in the world of work, and I think it should be avoided whenever possible. Instead, it’s much more efficient to focus all of your attention on completing one task at a time. 

Not only will the quality of work improve, but by focusing on one task at a time, you’re very likely to find yourself working much more efficiently.

4 – Delegate when you can 

Good time management can only get you so far, and sometimes it’s best to delegate tasks to the rest of your team if you’re in a position to do so. 

As a business owner, I know it can be difficult to take a step back and let someone else handle some of the workload, but having the trust in your team to run without your direct supervision is a very empowering thing. 

It’s easy to get into the trap of ‘it’s quicker if I just do it’. But how are you ever going to stop just having to do it, if you don’t create a process and system for that activity and train other people on it?

It is unlikely you can just give over activities and tasks straight away to your team. There needs to be a repeatable system and process which is documented for them to follow. There is also a careful positioning piece here in how this is communicated to the team so that they look forward to additional responsibility and challenges.

Delegation also helps to prepare the business for an exit, if that’s the path you’re hoping to take, as it allows you to start stepping back from the day-to-day running and focus on big-picture decisions. 

How can UK Growth Coach help with time management?

I’ve been helping business owners take control of their time for years now, and I understand how to teach you the good time management skills you need to succeed. It’s one of the many aspects of running a business that I cover in my regular business coaching sessions. 

If you’re interested in having more control over your time in and out of work, why not book a complementary business review with me?