getting 25 hours out of your day
Managing time is the one of the biggest challenges for any business owner… the ‘to do’ list is infinite… and there are lots of different hats to wear if you’re just starting out or if you’re a solo-preneur.
Over the years I’ve searched for a ‘magical’ solution to give me more hours in a day, but I’ve discovered there is no magic answer and the best solutions are the simplest.
The system that works for me is ‘chunking’ my activities together in an organised way. When I stray from using the system, my days become full of ‘busyness’ but with no tangible outcome or advancement toward my business goals.
I take the week ahead in my diary and break my days into different activities and colour code the day accordingly. For example;
Green days; these are the days I spend on the money making activities – making sales. These activities create today’s money. When you’re starting out in business there’s lots of green days!
Blue days; these days are spent ‘clearing’ up stuff– activities that have to be done as part of running a business; paying bills, administration, compliance, staff reviews, meetings and so on. Blue days create a clear space to allow me to focus on the other days without interruption.
Red days; these days are more strategic; they’re spent planning and working on future income. Tomorrow’s dollars. As your business matures, red days should increase as you delegate green and blue activities to your team.
I keep three different notebooks; one for each of these activity days. So when I’m in the middle of something and remember I need to query an account, I make a note in my ‘blue’ notebook and on a blue clearing day (or blue half-day) I refer to my blue notebook and attend to it then.
The most important day of all though, is the ‘yellow’ day. These are my days off! No work, thinking about work, or carrying around work. A yellow day is for rest, relaxing and rejuvenation – building up my energy for the week ahead!
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I’m passionate about social media – I founded the online community entrepreneurette in 2006 and flokka, the blog network in 2008, after a decade and a half in magazine publishing. A typical ‘maven’ I love to share what I’m learning, researching and implementing - as well as what’s working for my clients, my students and my network members, in the worlds of social media and business in general. I’m Fiona Powell and this is my blog. 
