3 ways to stop getting caught up in your work and launch an online business
The time has come to launch your own business. To do that, you need to stop being busy. Learn how to manage your busy schedule to launch your business without sweating.
It's been a while since you've seen another clip about an entrepreneur who has managed to establish a profitable side hustle even while working full-time, family, and other commitments -- but you're sure you won't be able to.
There are plenty of excuses to stop entrepreneurs who want to be yourself from starting a new venture with a poor business plan to simply lack of knowledge on how to launch your own business.
Most of the time, what we hear about is the time. The people just aren't in the right place to pursue their goals.
However, as it is said it's a matter of personal preferencethe amount you're able to have (or don't) isn't necessarily the litmus test for starting your online company.
Are you able to create space on your schedule to accommodate your business? Absolutely. Does it require rearranging your life completely overnight? Absolutely not.
And today, we'll prove that. We'll start with three strategies to end getting caught up in your work and begin to be a successful business.
How to stop being busy
To stop being busy Entrepreneurs who want to succeed should study:
How to prioritize
How do they manage their time?
How to delegate tasks
For you to get the most use of your time, and to know what to delegate, your first need to understand what's a priority and what you can off the list.
Strategy #1: Learn how to prioritize
There's not much that needs attention right this minute And this comes from someone who is (in)famous for her over-packed schedule.
Being a business owner it is important to learn to prioritize tasks, so you maximize each minute to maximize productivity while minimizing low-return efforts.
McKinzie Bean , for instance, chose to stop using social media for branding tool due to the fact that her heart "wasn't involved" and she wasn't receiving the benefits she hoped for.
After six months of taking social media off of her plate, her business has grown exponentially.
Similar to McKinzie like McKinzie, you should prioritize the tasks you excel at, so that you are able to focus on them in order to build your company.
To prioritize your projects you can use an Eisenhower matrix that divides tasks into non-urgent, urgent, and essential and less important segments.
It is also possible to make use of this chart taken from Harvard Business Review to help you determine which jobs to prioritize, allow to delegate, raise, or elevate.
According to Harvard Business Review The Harvard Business Review states that tasks listed in the priority box are items that bring the most value to your company and are something you're eager to tackle.
Tasks in"the "tolerate" box should be considered important tasks which drain your time, while the "elevate" box is for things that have a lower return for your business but which you enjoy doing.
The "delegate" field is for simple tasks which can be better handled by someone else.
For extra help sequencing your tasks, breaking projects into smaller parts as well as managing your task list You could make use of tools similar to Trello .
It's an extremely popular tool for it. Both our team and GoLocalApps' CTO GoLocalApps, Ross Rojek, utilize Trello to manage upcoming projects. Ross is a particular user of Trello to manage his task list by how long each task will be.
But as you're prioritizing tasks as well as revising your list of things to do be aware of the planning fallacy.
In essence, the plan fallacy is that we humans assume that the task can be completed as scheduled and take up as much time as we can afford even if similar projects took longer or were in the wrong time.
As you could likely guess, the scheduling error can cause a tangle into people's calendars.
What is the frequency? It's about 46.2% of the time, according to one study published by MIT. Just 43.6 percent of the participants could finish their work on time.
The study also found that although students remembered times that they didn't complete an assignment in the time they had planned, only a few students had reported using their previous experience to estimate how long the assignment could take.
One of the reasons why humans may continually fall prey to this fallacy of planning is that we often don't "unpack" the tasks or divide the tasks into smaller pieces.
A study showed that when subjects were prompted to unpack tasks before making estimates of how long it were expected to take, they provided longer estimations that were less influenced by bias. .
Additionally, the study suggested that the more difficult the job -- such as selling online courses -- the greater unpacking of it prior to its completion was beneficial to planners.
That said, as you're prioritizing your priorities and planning be sure to not take too long of your time picking what should be the top priority.
Based on research, those trying to select the most effective option (known by the term "maximizers") tend to be less content by their selections than satisficers, or people who want to pick the best option.
In the end, while you'll have to select the "right" projects to concentrate on, agonizing over which are the best task to be focused on can waste time and give you unnecessary anxiety.
After gaining an understanding of how to make better decisions, let's see how some individuals in real life prioritize.
Michael Grothaus , novelist and journalist, breaks his to-do list into three sections -- "digital quickies", "work", and "the real world". He also completes his mundane chores in the first half minute after getting up.
Likewise, Liz Huber, mindset and productivity coach set aside time to work on her side-hustle while working a full-time job. She stuck to the same schedule every week like the "Marketing Mondays" or "Research Wednesdays".
Basically:
When you decide to rank your projects according to time or by the most effective return on investment, it's essential to develop a prioritization system, so you are able to focus on the tasks that will help you expand your business to the maximum extent.
Even if you prioritize tasks, however it's very easy to get distracted by the most important work when you're not able to set specific deadlines or plan your work. That's where the second strategy for today comes into play.
Strategy 2: Employ methods for time management
Want to know something absolutely astonishing?
Knowledge workers are expected to spend an average of 2 hours and 48 minutes every day performing work that is productive -- which is less than 15 hours a week, or just about two days of the typical 40-hour working week.
In spite of this it is true that there are numerous examples of business owners who have found time to spare within their work plans. In order to join them, you need to manage your time.
The most well-known techniques is one of the most popular methods is Pomodoro Technique .
By using this method, it is possible to work in 25-minute blocks and take a 5-minute break after every 25-minute chunk.
After four 25-minute blocks, you then take a longer twenty-to-30 minute break.
Although it might seem unproductive to have so frequent breaks, research has shown otherwise.
A study showed that those who took 2 short breaks during a task lasting 50 minutes did not see any decrease in performance. On the other hand, those who did not take breaks during the 50-minute task saw a performance decline.
If you feel that the Pomodoro Technique feels limiting, you might try using timeboxing instead.
Timeboxing is a method in which you set a limited period duration to complete an assignment, as in this example timetable with timeboxed tasks.
A speaker Scott Mautz said that although it is stressful to finish a task within a predetermined time, it forces the person to concentrate on a single task and creates a kind of "productive anxiety".
Timeboxing's advantages go beyond helping you focus on the task at hand, but also. According to the entrepreneur Marc Zao-Sanders the benefits of timeboxing include helping you:
Get tasks done on time to ensure deadlines are met
You can collaborate with your colleagues because you are aware of what your timeframe will allow.
Make a complete report of the activities you have undertaken
Make you feel more secure and at peace
Even if you don't use timeboxing for managing your time it is still advisable to consider single-tasking instead of being distracted and multi-tasking. your.
It's not likely that you'll, be able to eliminate all distractions. Humans are wired for distraction.
When analyzing live-streamed reports of people's thoughts, feelings, and behavior, participants' thoughts wandered around in 46.9 percent of these instances .
If you believe that you're able to power through the occasional email checkup but it's likely to be hindering your productivity, even if it seems that you're getting more pep in your step.
It is true that those who get interrupted while working are likely to tend to be more productive. Unfortunately, this quicker pace could lead to greater tension, more frustration plus more time pressure and effort.
What does this translate to you?
Eliminate or limit distractions to your best ability. Otherwise, it may increase your chances of creating mistakes in your work and can cause you to feel stressed and frustrated.
It is also possible to monitor your the flow of your work -- and also when you distract yourself -- in order to have an image of what distracts you and how often.
Around 25percent of the population make use of a time tracking app for tracking their time whereas another 25% use an excel spreadsheet, paper or pencil.
While you should use whatever strategy works for you, some time management tools that are worth checking for include:
Naturally, even the most organized time keeper won't have enough time to complete every task. What's a creator to accomplish when their list of tasks is way too long?
Simple: delegate.
Strategy #3: Understand how and when you can delegate
You can't do everything.
It's tempting to tackle everything by yourself in order to save cash Keep your head to the grindstone can exhaust you -- emotionally and financially.
An analysis of call center workers found that the more hours workers employed, the higher their efficiency decreased. .
With 29 percent of small business proprietors who work for more than 50 hours a week, and 85% of them work on weekends, it's crucial to set a limit early so that you don't get burned out or witness your business fail.
In this case, Miles Beckler and his wife took on virtual assistants so they could complete tasks that would make the most of their skills and time.
Similar to that, Jen McFarland realized that automating a portion of her tasks let her focus on the pleasurable aspects of her company.
However, you may not want to remove every single task from your to-do list.
The monotony of your work can result in increased productivity According to a report, so there may be more benefit to things as easy as cleaning the inbox of your email than you think.
Going back to our time management tips One way to cut down on time is to work less -- about every week for four days, to be exact.
A study of eight weeks was conducted. 200 employees of a firm were required to make employees work a four-day week without a decrease in salary or other terms.
Following the test, productivity increased 20 percent, and employees were happier.
Therefore, reducing your hours may make you more productive -- and be happier and that's a good thing.
It's definitely a win-win.
OK. Now that we've covered three data-backed ways to stop being busy and finding time to work at your business side Let's look at how you can put these concepts into action.
How to start your online company
To start your business with limited time, write your tasks that you have to accomplish, and then utilize an Eisenhower matrix to prioritize them and Trello for creating the project's workflow.
Next, use time management techniques to divide each project into manageable chunks and better defend your time against multitasking, distracting factors, and even the temptation to delay.
Of course, use a creator-friendly platform like to sell your digital goods. If you're looking to accomplish things easy, however.
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With tasks planned and delegated it is now time to begin creating, pricing, promoting the launch of your digital product. These are some guidelines to help you get started:
And that, in simple terms, is the best way to stop working and start your online company.
However, even though we've broken down steps-by-step how to do it and you're wondering about what time it'll take you to create your own business and grow it into a thriving enterprise.
It's contingent on the amount of you are willing to invest in what type of business you want to grow along with a host of other aspects.
A study for instance revealed that side-hustlers spend on an on average 19 months developing and expanding their business before leaving their full-time positions.
In the same study, the side hustlers worked on average 20 hours per week on their ventures while also being employed full-time.
Although it could seem appealing to leave your job full time so that you can dedicate more time and energy to your company and grow faster, it might not be the best choice.
A study showed that owners who started a new business and worked full-time was 33 percent less likely than those who chose to have a job.
It can take some creative maneuvering and sacrifice during the 19 months (or however long it takes) However, it's definitely possible to find time to manage your business even at a full-time job or with similar obligations.
It won't always be an easy path, and it might not be the fastest either however, few roads that are worth a visit have to be.
Don't be busy -- be in business
It's not difficult to get "busy" because there are multiple things competing for our attention 24 hours a day.
If you're looking to be an entrepreneur, you'll need to know how to combat distractions so you can transition from being busy to being the business's owner.
Three strategies to go back and make the most of your time include:
Reprioritizing your to-do list, so you work at the tasks that are most important first
Utilizing time management techniques to manage and make the most of your time
Delegating tasks that don't utilize your strengths or make good use of your time
After you've started operating your company, you will be able to implement these strategies by:
The tasks you must to complete to start and manage your company
Using time-management methods to accomplish these tasks in a short period of time, you are able to launch your company sooner than later
Delegating and automating tasks with all-in-one tools like so it is possible to concentrate on building your company using your current strengths
Otherwise, here's to business and not busyness.