subject: Personal Productivity: 3 Time Management Tools For The Mission Driven Business Owner [print this page] When it comes to personal productivity, managing your time and energy well is a top priority. Yet, for social and mission-driven entrepreneurs like you, the hard-core discipline of a Stephen Covey 1-2-3 prioritizing system might not work. For you, creative flow, generating new ideas, being spontaneous must be just as important as checking off your-to-do list.
In this article, Ill teach a bit more of a creative, intuitive process that will keep you energized and inspired for the long run.
First, well address what time management really means. It means that:
a) you have to transform your calendar from a slave driver to your no.1 sanity keeper
b) that you need to focus on whats most purposeful for you the leader.
To create a calendar that lets you get tons done AND helps you breath inspiration, the way to do that is by creating different categories on your calendar (I love doing that with Google calendar and then share all of them with my office manager so she can take on my scheduling).
Here is a list of items that I recommend you add to your calendar. By the way, I add them at a somewhat random time and add the word [Floater] to the task. This way I know I have time planned for them but I can move them around to accommodate other engagements since they are not time-dependent:
1. Creative time chunks
These are weekly or even twice weekly time slots of several hours that are open to be used as you see fit. Just scheduling this, will give you a sense of freedom and creative surge, I promise.
2. Email time slots
One of the biggest wastes of our generation is answering emails all day long as soon as they come in. Here is what Id recommend: Create two -hour slots and one 1-hour slot. Use the hour slots to go through your email, answer really quick ones right away and place the task-heavy ones into a to-do folder. Now you have plenty of time on your 1-hour slot to work down the emails that require you to perform a task. Result: at the end of the day, your inbox is empty.
3. Break slots
Yes, for entrepreneurs who depend on their intuitive decision-making process, you need regular breaks to recharge and reconnect. The illusion that you dont have time for breaks (which you share with many others), is the main reason why we think were productive when were just really, only busy.
Ok, I could go on but for now, just add those three floaters to your day and week, and enjoy the peace of mind, increased creativity and smoother work flow you gain from it.
Now to focusing on whats truly purposeful for you. Yes, youre at a place now where you dont have to do everything yourself anymore. You got a team to support your business growth, yet, at times you find yourself still executing on tasks that could be done by someone on your team.
The solution: Every Sunday evening, prepare your calendar for the week. Create your floaters and then evaluate all your others tasks on your to-do list. Make sure that ONLY you can work on them. Be rigorous. If you know you could train somebody else, discipline yourself to do so. Yes, it might cost you a bit more time right now but you dont ever have to do it again. Your talents are unique, identify those that bring ideas, impact and income to your business, delegate everything else.
During the week, youll find that youll be tempted to put out fires that come to you from all angles. Again, stop, breath, ask yourself if its most purposeful for you to engage in that activity. If not, either delegate right away or create a task in your project-management tool that will remind you to train someone next time. You owe it to the world, your team and yourself to be rigorous with your purpose.
