Prioritizing Your Day: Part 3
More Prioritizing Tips
Tip #1
Start with the most important item on your list each day. Once you are able to mark that off your list, you can be proud that now you accomplished one major thing that day. And I know as a small business owner and soloprenuer that often things come up as your day goes along that throws your plans right out the window. This small shift in how I structure my time has made a huge difference in how I feel about getting my work finished.
Tip #2
Close your email tab and turn email notifications off on your phone. A few months ago I started checking my email twice a day. It sounds really hard to do but it is so freeing that once I started I never looked back. I check it in the morning and deal with any major issues adding the other tasks to my worksheet for the day and I close it. I focus on my work for the day and then I check it about an hour before I finish working for the day and deal with any additional communications at that time. I’m able to focus on the tasks at hand and not feel like I’m a slave to my inbox.
Tip #3
I recently saw somewhere that you should always work on your own stuff first. This may sound counter-intuitive especially when you are trying to get your head above water in your business. But this is a very important step. You can’t serve your clients to the fullest potential if you don’t spend the time working on your own stuff whether it be working on your branding, writing blog posts, or sending out thank you notes to past clients. If you wait until after all the other work is done, you will either have run out of time or you will not be offering your own business the best of you.
Bringing It All Together
At the end of your week look back on what you were able to accomplish how you did at prioritizing your efforts, what you can tweak to make the process work better for you and your business.This step is going to be really important because often, while we are in the thick of these tasks, you may not see how the process is working for you. And at the very least you may not be able to see what isn’t working with the process. Awareness is the first real step in making positive changes in your life. And knowing where you are, and how the process is working for you, will allow you to make these changes for you and your business.