As an entrepreneur of 16 years, I know all too well how time just gets away from us. There’s so much to do every day, and we do it all over again every week. You can’t stop or slow down time but you can try to organize it.
One concept that’s popular is time blocking. Take your average week and block out days or hours for certain activities. Sounds pie in the sky? It takes some testing to get the right formula for you.
Let me give you a hint of what I’ve made work for me. 
I have an office manager who is sensational. She helps keep me on track with lots of things and I’ve made her life easier by letting her know my time management rules. A big rule is Fridays are ME-Day. No client appointments, no prospect calls are to be scheduled on any Friday. I start with company operations like banking and QuickBooks and blog writing. Then I take the rest of the day for self-care and for visiting family. I even manage to visit the most important man in my life, my 2-year old grandson. He’s still at the age where he’s actually excited to see me, so I have to take advantage of this age because it won’t be this way in 12 years or so!
Do it or lose it, there’s no time like today!
How do I manage to take Fridays off? My Mondays are my heavy–duty 12 hours days. At least 2 consulting sessions plus marketing work plus even some networking. I feel as though Monday lasts a day and a half, but I feel completely productive at the end of the day (8pm).
Time blocking is deciding your operating hours ahead of time, and letting your team know about it. Yes, I answer my Slack messages from my top clients on a Friday, but that’s because I’m excited to work with them.
Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays are for networking, too. I’m hard-pressed to go anywhere on Thursdays because I need to devote my time to more client sessions and catch up on any projects that didn’t get done from earlier in the week.
My time blocking is not perfect yet, but I’m getting to understand my own energy flows and when’s the best time to do which kind of work. And I’m glad I devoted my Fridays to ME Day, because I hit a wall last year when I realized I was exhausted every day.
Time blocking is part of your success in building repeatable systems, and that’s one of the ways I help my clients. Systems and processes are an essential building block of your company’s Sweet Spot. Who wants to wake up every morning, experiencing Ground Hog Day, where you have to create everything from scratch, as though the work you did the day before never existed?
Having a process, a list of things you do the same way every time, not only saves you time and helps you work more efficiently, it helps your team do their jobs better. Building my processes is something I share with my office manager, so we’re rowing the boat in the same direction at the same speed.
Can I help you develop your repeatable processes? Can we work together on time blocking to start the ball rolling?
I offer weekly and semi-monthly strategic consulting sessions, working steadily with you to clarify all that needs to happen to make your business consistently profitable and to make you feel that you’re living your best entrepreneurial life. As you can imagine, it takes more than a session or two, because building a successful business is not an overnight affair.
If you’re not ready for ongoing sessions, you can begin with a One Month Deep Dive. We work through 4 weekly sessions along a pre-set agenda for a definitive outcome.
It all starts with a simple phone conversation. Email me to schedule yours: susana@clearpathstrategy.com