My Top 6 Time Management Tips for 6-Figure Business Owners
As a six-figure business owner, your time is strained in every aspect of life. People are constantly wanting your attention or need something from you. That’s why time management skills are so important. You need to learn how to balance business and your personal life to create stability and maintain your sanity!
The following tips have greatly helped me manage my time as a six-figure business owner. I know things can get a little crazy sometimes, but these time management tips help me stick to my boundaries and reduce the chance of burnout. I hope they help you, too!
1. Set Office Hours (and stick to them!)
This is a huge boundary for me. I always make my office hours clear to potential and existing clients. They know when to expect a response from me and when I’m out of the office.
It’s my job to stick to my office hours. My clients can contact me anytime, but I need to be disciplined in how and when I respond. It’s so easy to respond to “just one message” because you have a minute to spare. However, that starts to set an expectation with your clients that you will break your boundaries and respond after hours.
I know it sounds a little harsh, but not sticking to your office hours does you and your clients a disservice. You could start to resent your clients and business because you feel like you’re working all the time. Unplug after hours and give yourself a break!
2. Outsource Professionally and Personally
Hiring support in your business is the best decision you can make. I love my team members and how they contribute to the success of my business. These are the positions I recommend hiring first for six-figure business owners:
- Virtual assistant
- Bookkeeper
- Project manager
- Fractional CMO
- Content manager
You can also hire support in your personal life! As a six-figure business owner, your business is your main source of income. Hiring support for things in your personal life gives you more time to grow your business and therefore, your income. Here are some ideas of things you could outsource in your personal life:
- Grocery shopping
- Babysitting
- Meal prep
- Errands (post office, school dropoff/pickup, dry cleaning, etc.)
- House cleaning
You’d be amazed at how much time you spend doing these things! Decide if you can outsource any of these tasks and how much more money you would make with the time saved.
3. Automate Your Business
Automation saves so much of your time! This is one of my favorite time management tips! When you automate parts of your business, you earn time back into your day. Even a task that takes 10 minutes adds up to almost an hour a week you could spend doing something else! These are some easy things you can automate in your business:
- Appointment reminders
- Calendar bookings
- Proposals
- Contracts
- Invoices
- Testimonials
- Welcome emails
- Posting on social media
4. Understand Where Your Time Goes
I encourage you to do a time study to figure out where your time goes. If you feel like you constantly run out of time, this will help! For one week, track the time everything you do in one day takes. The results were eye-opening for me when I did a time study. I was shocked at how much time I spent going through emails! You’ll see where your time truly goes, whether it’s spent cooking, on social media, responding to emails, completing client work, doing laundry, etc.
You can then use this information to analyze where you can be more productive. It could also show you opportunities to outsource! If something takes way too long for you to complete and it sucks your energy, have someone else do it.
5. Work When You’re Most Productive
Are you a morning person or a night person? It makes a huge difference in your productivity. Understanding when you’re most productive allows you to schedule your day around these hours. Do the hardest tasks during these hours and save things like responding to emails or taking certain calls during the hours your mind isn’t as sharp.
6. Get Organized
Staying organized allows you to find what you need faster. I’m mostly talking about your digital files and platforms, although this could also apply to your physical office space! When you have digital documents organized, you can easily find what you need instead of scanning through all the folders on your desktop or Google Drive.
It’s worth the effort and time to organize your space. You want to make it easy for you to find what you need, but also for your team members. If they have access to your file storage system, they need to easily find what they need, too. Clearly label folders and documents for searchability to make everyone on your team more productive.
What other time management tips do you have? These have made a huge difference in my business and how productive I am during the day. Try them out, let me know your thoughts, and share your tips with me on Instagram!
About Solution Integrators
To keep it simple, I’m Ashley, a Chief Systems Officer. I take your complex problems and find ways to simplify them. My goal isn’t just to save you time (saving you time is the easy part!) – I want to fully level up the way you interact, manage, and fulfill offers for your clients. I want to help you provide a cohesive experience. An experience that not only feels like quality but looks that way too. From onboarding to offboarding – I want to transform each phase of interaction from lead to signed client. Let’s work together!
