Successful entrepreneurs are busy. That is just a fact. For most of us success is forged with hard work and long hours that are very full of activity. Finding ways to make the most of each moment and save time where we can is an essential part of maximizing our efforts each and every work day. As hard as you’re working, it is likely that taking the time to evaluate your modus operandi will reveal some time drains that you can eliminate, thus saving valuable minutes or hours. The result will be more efficient use of the clock, which might lead to a bit more free time. Fat chance, huh? You never know. But let’s not waste any time getting to the top 7 timesaving tips for entrepreneurs.

1. Know your goals and your game plan: If you don’t know where you’re going, then any path will do. But if your destination, your goals are defined, you will have clear direction about how to spend your time. You’ll find it much easier to rule out certain actions, freeing valuable time for those things in your game plan which must be done. If you haven’t written down your goals, do so today. It will sharpen your focus tomorrow and every day beyond.

2. Schedule everything: Time has a way of leaking. A short break to check email turns into 30 minutes away from important tasks. Ditto for phone chats, sports news, a look at this weekend’s weather, etc. Schedule a short discretionary session online a few times a day and stick to it. You’ll pocket a surprising amount of time to spend in better ways.

3. Learn the power of saying no: This flows from our first point. When you have clear goals and a plan for getting there it is easy to see which work related “opportunities” simply don’t fit those goals. This makes it so much easier to rule out a half day seminar that sounds great but isn’t consistent with your current direction, for example. Four hours saved is precious!

4. Focus on the top of your priority list: The old saying is, “make the main thing the main thing.” That never hurts. While an entrepreneur must wear at least a few hats, know which one is most important and which are secondary. Wear that primary hat 80% of the time, whether it is the product development hat, the network building hat or the sales hat.

5. Outsource wherever possible: In the early days entrepreneurs may not have the money to outsource anything! When you grow beyond that phase determine what is worth paying someone else to do, especially if it saves time that can be spent in greater productivity. Determine the monetary value of your time and you’ll have a guide for deciding where outsourcing will save you money. If you have employees then outsourcing becomes delegating.

6. Document your time saving practices and make them part of your routine: It might have been Zig Ziglar who first said, “Work every day like it’s the day before vacation.” When a holiday is just a few days off we go into productivity overdrive. If we can harness that attitude it will energize us. Even if we can’t function at that level indefinitely, it will help us get a great deal of work done in short bursts. With dedication those bursts will become longer, more sustainable. That attitude also gives us razor sharp focus in determining our tasks for the day.

7. Schedule time off to refuel and achieve balance: The counterpart to the previous principle is that maintaining high productivity requires down time to regroup and restore our energy. Schedule “axe sharpening” as Stephen Covey would say. You will return to work swinging a sharper axe with more energy. A sharper focus, a keener attitude and a renewed vision will translate knowing what things you need to do and getting more of them done. You won’t feel guilty about time away if you know it will improve your performance when you are back in work mode.

Entrepreneurs who succeed point to their time saving/time usage skills as a major contributor to achieving their goals. Start today by recapturing your vision and then using that to sharpen your goals and your game plan. You’ll be refreshed and energized. You will enjoy your work more. You will be doing the right things for the right reasons and the next rung of your success will be closer than ever.

Author Information

James Adams works at an online ink supplies store where he covers the latest tech releases, reviewing products such as the T0715 and posting on his favoured topics of art and design on their blog.

Hitting The Road

Heading out of town for a conference can be very refreshing and professionally rewarding. Preparing well in advance can ease the stress while you're freelancing on the road.

Because I only make these kinds of trips 2-3 times each year, I look forward to getting away and doing something different. I like my home office, love my family, yet I usually come back from these types of conferences refreshed and bursting with creative flair. Importantly, I can thrive on those productive fumes for the next few months.

What I dread, however, is trying to maintain my other work while I skip town. Sure, planning in advance knocks out some projects, while others must still be managed while I’m gone. I’m a sole proprietor which means I have to do everything myself, but if I plan well in advance I can minimize my work while away from home so that I can enjoy the conference.

Getting Prepared Now

How do you handle road trips? I’ve come up with five tried and true methods to help me work better, faster and smarter while I’m away, including doing the following as I prepare to leave or while I’m on the road:

Write Ahead – My writing schedule requires that I write daily for some clients which means that I have to plan well in advance to have those jobs out of the way before I leave. On occasion, I’ll write on Saturday mornings which is generally a no-no for someone who values his work/family time separation. If my wife is on board with this plan, then I’m free to write, but if a family responsibility comes up I’ll have to double up my writing in the evening or in the early hours of the morning. I’ve written 7-10 days in advance before, successfully scheduling my blog posts to appear at designated times.

Bring the Laptop – Obviously, if you own a laptop you bring it with you wherever you go. The day before I leave I make sure that all of my files are backed up to my external drive (or off-site with Carbonite), complete my virus scanning, and place a battery back up and extension cord in my carrying case. I never check my laptop – I claim it as my carry on bag – and I don’t let it out of my site. Ever.

Carry a DVR – I own a tiny Olympus digital voice recorder (DVR) which I bring with me to conferences. With fresh batteries included and a back up set on hand just in case, my little DVR comes in handy when I’m listening to a long speech or needing to confirm a quote. Still, I routinely jot down notes on paper and compare everything in my hotel room or in the conference’s press room.

Plan for Emergencies – One trip I took two years ago nearly turned into a nightmare when my email connection fizzled in my hotel room. I had to pack up all of my stuff, head down to the hotel lobby and purchase wi-fi access for the evening. Even then, the connection wasn’t that fast which meant that surfacing the ‘net took longer than expected. I finally finished up my work around 3 a.m., which meant I had just four hours of sleep before the next big meeting at 8 a.m. Next time, I’ll stay in the press room to finish my work, where the internet connection is fast and reliable.

Email, Cell Phone, Contact Information – No, I don’t own a Blackberry nor do I own an iPhone. What’s wrong with me? Well, I have a family to support – luxuries can wait. Before I head out, I answer all of my email messages, but I don’t indicate that I’m away from the office. I do recharge my cell phone and I bring my recharging cord with me. I also update all of my phone contact information and, just in case I lose the phone, I jot down key numbers and keep them in my wallet.

Less Stress

If I keep these five things in mind, then I’m less stressed while away from home and I actually enjoy the conference. I may still have to handle a few client tasks while on the road, but I keep these to a minimum. My time away is usually on my dime which means that I don’t have the luxury of going on the road knowing my work is covered back in the office or my trip paid by a client.

Photo Credit: Ronald Schuster

See Also — Should You Schedule Your Blog Posts?

That was no consolation for people in Europe who were just starting out or in the middle of their day or for folks in Asia who were finishing up their work or checking email at home. For 2 1/2 hours the vaunted email system was down, causing more than a little bit of an inconvenience for many.

For some businesses, reliance on GMail is exclusive as they have replaced their in-house emailing system with an advanced, paid version of GMail. The way that the advanced version works is that companies can set up GMail accounts for $50 a year per user account which also gives users access to messaging, Google Docs, video and more. No longer the worry of an internal I.T. department, Google handles everything for the customer.

I use the freebie version of GMail because that is all that I need. Though I am a sole proprietor, I don’t rely on GMail exclusively nor do I use its advanced applications. Yes, I use GMail as my email gateway, but if it should go down, I can send many of my messages out via Yahoo or private accounts I have with my web hosts. But, like everyone else, I cannot access my email archives which houses mission critical data.

On the Official GMail Blog, Google offered the following explanation for their recent outage:

This morning, there was a routine maintenance event in one of our European data centers. This typically causes no disruption because accounts are simply served out of another data center.

Unexpected side effects of some new code that tries to keep data geographically close to its owner caused another data center in Europe to become overloaded, and that caused cascading problems from one data center to another. It took us about an hour to get it all back under control.

The bugs have been found and fixed, and we’re in the process of pushing out changes. We know how painful an outage like this is — we run Google on Gmail, so outages like this affect us the same way they affect you. We always investigate the root causes of rare outages like this one, so we can prevent similar problems in the future.

Quite honestly, I would be upset too if my reliance on GMail caused me to miss a critical deadline as some people have been reporting. These days we’re so well interconnected that any outage or glitch can adversely impact the way that we touch base with people perhaps losing business in a very short period of time.

I have no idea how many of my own clients communicate with me exclusively via GMail, but I think that number must be quite large. Still, I believe using GMail for business can be an attractive option, one that shouldn’t be avoided even with this recent outage. After all, how many of us have endured lengthy email outages that our company’s I.T. team took hours to fix and at what cost to the company?

Do you curl up in a ball and cry in a corner when your workload becomes too burdensome? All right, maybe you don’t take the actual steps to run away from your work, but that doesn’t mean you don’t find yourself stressed, harassed, pressed down, wrung out, or otherwise overwhelmed by your work.

Whenever I take on a new project, I carefully examine how that task will impact everything else I do. Some projects look quite daunting, but if it is something I really want to do, I’ll find a way to get it done. Hell, high water, and hassles cannot stop me!

Those Deadly Time Wasters!

Time wasters are efficiency killers and the only way to work better, faster, and smarter is to control those things which take up too much of your time. I bet you can name a few, but I’ll kick things off by listing the following:

Email: Many people praise the reality that email has essentially replaced snail mail. It has also brought junk mail from the mailbox to the inbox.

To avoid excess solicitations, I do not share my email addresses as readily as I once did. I ignore the majority of the messages and I only respond to those inquiries which are of interest to me.

Social Media: I am active with a handful of social communities, but I do maintain accounts with many other ones. I’ll take a decent free link where I can get it, but I won’t waste my time where little benefit can be derived through my participation. I tend to ignore people on social sites who are overly zealous with their sphinn and/or stumble requests.

Phone Calls: Before I conference over the phone, I strongly prefer to make an appointment via email to arrange a mutually convenient time to hold our discussion. Brevity is essential, though a lengthy conversation can be beneficial when multiple points must be covered.

Customers: Customers who are a good fit, I keep close to my side.

I know what they want and I respond in a timely manner with work that meets or exceeds their expectations. These are people who trust my professional expertise and are confident that I am a man of my word. Penny pinchers, doubters, and people who aren’t trusting are one time customers.

Personal Marketing: I don’t mean social media (mentioned earlier), rather the marketing of my personal brand as noted by me yesterday. As a freelance writer, I can spend hours on a daily basis soliciting new business, writing proposals, and doing whatever it takes to bring in new work. Blogging is part of my personal marketing strategy as this blog is usually the first page my future customers land on when they visit my site.

I do not engage in memes, respond to tagging, or write special “blog day” articles just because everyone else does. On the other hand, I am generous with my outbound linking and blog commenting. Guess which method takes up the least amount of my time?

Control Your Time and You Control Your Financial Picture

When you are the master of your time you work better, earn more money, and you can chase other pursuits. Burdens sap you of your energy, steal your peace, and make you highly unproductive. The choice is yours — how well do you manage your time?