Small Business CEOs have a variety of tasks they should be showing up to do. How do you find the time to get all of it done?
Along with managing your business, comes the job of managing your time. Feeling overwhelmed is the result of having more things to do, than we have time to do it. Some of that is self-imposed, because we’re executing on things that should be delegated, because we have prioritized incorrectly and have less time to do what should have come first, or because we didn’t do it when we were supposed to and not we’re cramming it all in a smaller space of time. Let’s tackle the latter.
The goal is to create time to do CEO tasks, honor the time set aside by actually being productive, and do it all without being overwhelmed. I recommend four strategies that build upon each other to create spaces of time to get more done.
- One Calendar System. Many business owners have more than one calendar; a calendar for your kids’ activities, a calendar for your business meetings, a calendar for your personal commitments, etc… The problem is when looking at any one of these separate calendars, you are often committing yourself to things without a realistic view of what your actual availability. Having one calendar for anything that requires your time allows you to see just how much time you are committed to doing things for others and yourself.
2. Create Template Week. As a CEO, you are involved in a lot of meetings. There are regular meetings that you have every week. Please these regular meetings on your calendar first to reveal your template week. Everything else that you schedule for your business goes around these regular meetings. Having the template week on your one calendar already, reveals the time slots you have open during your business day for other things: impromptu meetings, research, tasks, etc…
- Production Time. Adding deadlines to your calendar is not enough to be sure you that you get things done. Along with deadlines, you should be adding time to your calendar to actually do the tasks to meet the deadline. I call this your production time. If you are a speaker and your presentation has a due date, you have to add production time to your calendar to research, brainstorm, and create the presentation deck. How long does that take you: one day, two days, a week…? Then put the number of days it takes to produce that presentation deck on your calendar, ahead of the deadline date. Calendar your production time to meet your deadlines.
- Task Management. Now that we calendar your production time to meet your deadlines, let’s make the most of that time. To actually be productive enough to move the needle during the time you’ve set aside, you have to manage the tasks associated with completing the goal. A great way to manage these tasks is to use a project management system. These platforms take all the tasks associated with a project or goal and organizes them in one place where you can assign people to perform them and deadlines to have them performed by. The implications are for teams, but you can also use them for your CEO only tasks and projects as well. It’s highly satisfying to check off tasks and see the goals being achieved one executed task at a time.
I created a system to help you do all of these things and more. Check it out HERE.