As so many of my clients are also small business owners like me, I thought I’d share my thoughts on how to use your time. The problem isn’t managing your time, it’s prioritising it.

Time is our one personal non-renewable resource. We can make more money, we can make new connections, we can buy new cars, find new homes, apply for new jobs. But we can’t make more time. The time we have is what we have, and we don’t even know how much time we have because tomorrow is never guaranteed.

Time is precious.

And rather than managing it, which smacks of having some sort of authority over time, I prefer to think in terms of prioritising how I use it. So, this is my take on how to prioritise time as a business owner.

My premise is that we generally have plenty of time for our priorities. I remember John Demartini saying in a talk one time that you could tell what someone’s priorities are from what’s on their night stand. Well, what’s on mine? A journal, a pile of books, my eye mask, sleep headphones, and a whole bunch of herbal potions and lotions and crystals. And that does indeed give you a good idea of my priorities – which tend to be personal development and wellbeing oriented. I wonder what’s on your nightstand?

And if we feel that we don’t have time for our priorities, it may be time to reassess our choices.

So here are my top tips for prioritising your time for your own satisfaction and sense of purpose in life:

1. Put the big things in first.

For me that means:

• My wellbeing. So art class, exercise, maintenance appointments like physio, rest (yes I do actually schedule rest), go in first.
• My time with my partner. We might agree on a specific night of the week, weekend activities, but mainly for me this actually means scheduling communication time during the day so that he doesn’t only get the slightly tired version at the end of the day, especially if we need to discuss something important!
• My fixed business elements. I run two businesses, both of which have fixed elements like classes, workshops, retreats and networking events.

2. Budget your time

A super simple measure of whether you have a good balance of time in your business and time for yourself and your other passions, is to work only 2 out of 3 parts of the day (thinking of morning, afternoon, evening). It doesn’t matter which two and you don’t need to get into hours, minutes and seconds!

• Then, identify the categories of task required for your business – my rough guide is
• Marketing (includes email marketing, socials, ads etc)
• Networking (online and in-person)
• Prospect development (discovery calls, new client correspondence)
• Admin (meh! I delegate as much as I can)
• Finance (both planning and book-keeping)
• Delivery time (for me that means clinic, classes, events)
• Development (new offerings, refinement of existing offerings)
• Continuing professional development

Assign an amount of time you need to and/or are willing to devote to these different aspects. This is where regular time tracking can be helpful so you have good estimates of the time required for different elements, even if you just do it for two weeks once a quarter.

Some things are more interesting to me so I might have to put a time budget on them so I don’t disappear into them and ignore bits I like less! Similarly, other tasks can feel endless, so you may also need an upper time budget so that you do stop and rest.

3. Know yourself

Then I will consider when my energy seems to flow best for what type of work… for example, I’m writing this blog at 7.15pm because for me, the quiet after-client hours are much better thinking time than first thing in the morning. But for you, 7.15am might be best!

Personally, I need a lot of flexibility because there is already a structure imposed by classes, clinic times, etc. So I don’t schedule tasks in any more detail than having a little white board with the three core tasks for the day, decided based on what action right now would most move me forward. But you could schedule in more detail, if that would work better for you.

That’s the best bit – as you start to get a sense of when you work best on which things, and you’re clear what tasks need to be done regularly to keep the business where you want it, you begin to have peace of mind because you know you put your priorities in first.

To sum up

When we have a handle on prioritising our time, we can stop battling with trying to manage it. This allows us to honour what is important to us, our overall life satisfaction and sense of purpose.

Would you like support and guidance? We can work together to help you let go of what no longer serves you and reconnect with yourself, your intuition and your purpose. Find out more about life coaching with Joanne Sumner to discover how.