As a business owner, how often have you got so busy operationally that you haven’t had time to do any marketing or selling?
You finish the busy operational period and find you haven’t got any new work. Suddenly you find yourself scrabbling around trying to win some more work while worrying about your cash flow again. This “feast to famine” experience is not unusual for SME business owners with limited team resources. Here is a way to reduce or eliminate this problem with time-blocking techniques.
Time-blocking is a popular productivity technique that involves scheduling specific tasks or activities during set time periods. This technique can be especially useful for business owners and entrepreneurs who need to juggle multiple responsibilities and manage their time effectively.
Default Diary for time-blocking
There are several different time-blocking techniques. ActionCOACH clients simply use the highly effective Default Diary to time-block and organise their week. The Default Diary is the weekly plan for the allocation of time to the various activities that are required to keep the business running smoothly. It can be used by everyone in the business who has multiple tasks and responsibilities. Here is an example of what a Default Diary might look like for an SME business owner. Time is allocated between key tasks in fulfilling the business owner’s role and responsibilities. These might include:
Some personal tasks such as admin/emails, exercising, learning, and personal development;
Some team and operations tasks such as a weekly LION meeting, the daily huddle (short team meeting at the start of the day), team 1-2-1 meetings, client reviews, and planning.
Some marketing and sales tasks such as sales calls, sales meetings, social media posts, content creation, and mailshots.
This is going to be different for every business. It is important to work out how each individual allocates their time to make sure everything that needs to be done, gets done.
How do you implement a Default Diary?
The first step is to audit what you are currently doing. Where is your time being spent? On what tasks? Most of us rarely do this unless we have a business that is booking time directly to clients. Every client who does this finds it reveals patterns of time use that they were not aware of, which is then followed by the obvious questions, why am I doing this? Who should be doing this instead of me?
Having spent a couple of weeks building your time log, do the analysis and establish where your time is being spent. Then sit down and ask yourself the question what is my role and what are my responsibilities? How do I need to balance my time to fulfill these fully?
Planning your time
From your analysis of your time log, how much time do you currently spend in various activities such as marketing, sales, operations, finance/admin, team management, planning, and learning/personal development?
Then look at what you believe is an ideal split of your time, initially in percentage terms to keep it simple. For example, 20% marketing, 25% sales, 20% operations, 10% finance admin,10% team management, 10% Planning, and 5% learning/personal development. Next, determine how many hours per week you would like to work each week as a target. Then break this down into the more detailed tasks that need to be done in a spreadsheet similar to the one below:
When you do this analysis it is likely that to fit everything into your ideal time use, some tasks you are currently doing will have to be given to someone else. So look at the low-value tasks that you are carrying out and ask yourself… “Who else could be doing these, are they worthy of my time?” Is there someone internally who could do this for you? Or could you outsource some of these tasks to a Bookkeeper or Virtual Assistant for example?
Once you have completed this analysis, start looking at the actions required to change to this new time allocation. It will likely be that you require several months to achieve the level of change you have designed for yourself, so break it down into month by month, or three-month targets for the changes. Take it on in bite-sized chunks, you are more likely to make it work.
Reviewing progress
When you are implementing a new system of working such as a Default Diary, it is important that you keep monitoring progress. Keep doing your time log and measure how it is going against your planned changes. Be prepared to challenge yourself in delivering on the new Default Diary. If it is the right thing to do to improve how you are running your business, then tweak the plan, but don’t change the goal.
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Are you a business owner looking to take your business to the next level? Join our innovative community of like-minded professionals and gain access to a wealth of valuable resources, including a community portal to chat with other business owners, ebooks, business development software, and growth events that will transform the way you do business. Best of all, these resources are completely free and will be available to you forever.
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Creating new good habits
To make your Default Diary work, you may need to create new good habits around your discipline. Identify from your time log where you are not achieving the plan. What disciplines do you need to put in place to strengthen the delivery of work to your Default Diary.?
One of these might be the habit of daily planning. At the end of each day, plan what you need to do tomorrow. Set out your key activities in your diary, schedule the important follow-ups, things to delegate, and must-dos that are left over from today or that you know are required tomorrow. The great thing about planning tomorrow as the last job of today is that once you have written these things down, you will not be thinking about them in the evening when you are away from work. Additionally, when you arrive at work you have a plan, so work the plan and you are in control of the day.
Train your team to use the Default Diary and daily planning system
Once you have implemented and mastered the Default Diary and daily planning and seen the benefits, would it be even more helpful if your team operated the same time management system? If you are so much more effective using the system, surely they will be too.
Conclusion
In conclusion, time-blocking techniques by using a Default Diary can help business owners, entrepreneurs, and their teams to manage their time effectively and significantly increase their productivity on the most important tasks. It takes time to implement effectively, but persist, add a daily planning good habit and you will find you and your business are significantly more effective.
If you need any help implementing the Default Diary or determining where your time is best spent, reach out to your coach.
By Tom Allchurch
Join the NoLimits Business Community
Are you a business owner looking to take your business to the next level? Join our innovative community of like-minded professionals and gain access to a wealth of valuable resources, including a community portal to chat with other business owners, ebooks, business development software, and growth events that will transform the way you do business. Best of all, these resources are completely free and will be available to you forever.
But the benefits of joining our NoLimits business community don’t stop there. By becoming part of our community, you’ll have the opportunity to connect with other business owners, share insights and ideas, and build valuable relationships that will help your business thrive. Don’t miss out on this amazing opportunity to supercharge your business and join us today!