Top 8 LifeHacks for Successful Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs are expected to be extremely frugal with their time and money consumption. Entrepreneurs must wear many hats, and the diversions and context shift that comes with managing various startup jobs present a significant time management difficulty.

A normal day for an entrepreneur can include a few meetings, a large number of emails, and working through a never-ending to-do list. Days like these pass quickly, yet tracking and standardizing progress can be challenging.

There are a ton of productivity management tools available, like Trello and Asana. Even with a large number of tools, entrepreneurs still continue to struggle with time management. Is it necessary for us to be so busy? 

We learn to ask ourselves in life, “Did I get my money’s worth?” Do we ever ponder whether we have gotten our money’s worth? Business owner wants to get the most out of every action they do.

To be successful, we must choose the proper actions to take and carry them out in the most efficient way possible to have the greatest influence on our businesses. That entails prioritizing, measuring, and optimizing vigorously.

Here are eight of the top productivity tips to help you get more done faster and have a bigger personal effect if you’ve never measured the return on investment of time spent on tasks.

1. Automate and Delegate Tasks

As a business owner or entrepreneur, you likely have a long list of tasks that need to be completed on a daily basis. However, not all tasks are equally important, and some can be automated or delegated to others.

By automating or delegating routine tasks, you can free up your time and focus on more important aspects of your business.

For example, if you Download FAX App from the Store, you save a lot of time in order to send materials to your subordinates or colleagues. After all, using the fax app is very convenient and practical.

You can also delegate tasks to employees, contractors, or virtual assistants who can handle tasks like administrative work, how to send a fax from your cell phone, customer service, and data entry.

By automating and delegating tasks, you can increase your efficiency and productivity, allowing you to focus on the big picture and strategic planning for your business.

2. Make a plan

Five minutes of planning at the beginning of each week and each day can help you stay organized and get a lot done. All business owners have a lot they could be doing, and simply contemplating everything that needs to be done can be exhausting.

The first crucial step in winning the war on time management is making a list of the tasks that need to be done immediately.  Even if the list is still very vast and daunting, there is now some sense of clarity.

Spend the first three to five minutes of each morning, as soon as you enter the office, writing down your daily activities and considering how they relate to achieving the weekly goals. 

All activities must be carefully considered and discarded if they are not directly related to achieving any of the week’s goals.  You might believe that these pursuits are a component of a long-term objective. 

If so, such a task ought to have been on your list for the week.  If the activity wasn’t included on your weekly list, it doesn’t have enough priority, or it was added by someone else, you need to construct a new list for the week. 

3. Calm Down Your Rage

As business owners, we enjoy working quickly and getting a lot done in a short amount of time.  One of the most important characteristics of a genuine entrepreneur is the ability to accomplish more with less. 

But the line between being proactive and being unrealistic is really narrow.  If you’re the type of person who makes plans but nearly never follows them, you’re probably giving yourself unrealistic deadlines. 

A few elements that contribute to arbitrary deadlines are as follows:

As long as it is done correctly, being ambitious with deadlines is a terrific character.  Pushing the envelope and frequently missing deadlines, however, might have long-term detrimental impacts on motivation.  Be realistic and less aggressive as you create your plans for the day and the week.

4. Set ruthless priorities and use the power of “no”

Because saying “no” is the hardest thing for most of us to do, our to-do list expands quickly.  Why?

 

Both of these factors may result in a loss of concentration on the current job.  This is not mean that we should never provide a helping hand to someone else or attempt something new along the way. 

A “no” does not need to remain a “no” indefinitely.  You can always say that you have a very busy week and will be pleased to assist the person in a few weeks if they need it.

When it comes to passing up the chance to try something new, consider whether it really is a chance or just a covert distraction.  What applies to one product, group, or market segment might not apply to another product, group, or market segment.

You could determine whether something is even worth doing with a little forethought.  The ability to say “no” is the first step toward maintaining attention, which is essential for achieving goals.

5. Follow the Totem Pole

First, Email

Next, Phone/Web Call

Last, In-Person Meeting

We frequently get requests for meetings.  But is constantly attending meetings realistic?  Without a doubt, meetings are the biggest time wasters, especially when the travel time for external meetings is taken into account.

If you go to four of these meetings in a day, all of a sudden your day is gone.  Are all of these meetings really necessary, is the better query.  Meetings can be cut down and a lot of time can be saved by adhering to the communication totem pole.

When scheduling meetings, start at the top of the totem pole and work your way down.  In other words, organize a phone conversation or web meeting utilizing Skype or your preferred calling technique if you can’t respond to a request over email.

Only then should you organize an in-person meeting if you are unable to handle a request over the phone or in a web meeting.

If you can respond to a request through phone call or email, decline an in-person meeting. Just received a call or a new meeting request? 

Before setting up a time, ask your partner to list out their worries. You’ll find that you can address the majority of them via email, and if you do attend the meeting, you’ll have a clear agenda.

Meetings in person are usually beneficial for bargaining or developing relationships with clients, partners, advisors, and potential workers.

You will be able to convert at least a few of your in-person meetings to web meetings or perhaps email exchanges as you go through your meeting list.

You might be able to do more tasks in a day with just just one small tweak and save a lot of time.

6. Establish the Goals of Each Activity

Establishing a specific objective for each activity before prioritizing it is one of the finest ways to do so. Ask yourself, “Why do I need to be doing this?” or “What do I intend to accomplish in this task/meeting?” before scheduling a meeting or project.

The query “Am I required for this task/meeting?” is made better with the help of these queries. Try to complete the statement before beginning each action.

I’m participating in this activity because I want to reach [my objective], and I’m the best person to do it because of [some necessary circumstance].

The first portion of the statement aids in defining a specific goal (such as effectively onboarding a new employee or raising money for my firm), and the second part of the sentence aids in determining whether you can delegate it.

In particular, the second portion of the line encourages one to start delegating more and break the tendency to want to do everything themselves.

7. Choose the proper timing

You must specify the task’s timing at the same time that you specify its purpose. When your firm’s viability at the end of three months is uncertain, it is not a good idea to schedule meetings or tasks that could assist your company six to eight months from now.

Ask yourself, “Is this task necessary now?” or “Does this task help us accomplish any of our objectives in the next three months?” as you create tasks. If the response is “no,” it is obvious that such duties or meetings should be dropped.

8. Never compromise

In order to keep things running well when we work in teams, especially among co-founding team members, we occasionally make concessions.  We take on tasks without questioning “why” and “when”?

It is inefficient to accept an assignment or schedule a meeting merely on the advice of a founding team member. It never hurts to respectfully debate the goal or the deadline of the assignment, even if a co-founder offers a suggestion.

These conversations establish a good cadence for prioritizing tasks in the future with your co-founding team.

9. Assess, Refine, and Repeat

As you implement this approach, evaluate it and make the necessary adjustments as you go. Here are a few pointers for assessment and modification:

I am a more productive professional as a result of these productivity tips. As a fellow business owner, I’d like to hear about the difficulties you’ve had with time management and the strategies that have helped you. What is your most effective time-saving advice for running a business?