Today, we’ll hear from Emma Siemasko, the Content Marketing Specialist at Grasshopper, the entrepreneurs’ phone system. Next week on March 24, Bhavin will be a panelist for one of their fireside chats called “How to Scale Your Business: From One to Many”.
Take it away, Emma!
As if making time for family wasn’t challenging enough, making time for oneself as a busy entrepreneur can seem downright impossible. However, the most thriving moguls will tell you that investing in themselves, especially with their most coveted resource—time—has been one of the greatest contributors to their success.
According to Barron’s, BNP Paribas Wealth Management and the Scorpio Partnership recently joined forces to discern exactly how the wealthiest business owners are investing their resources. Unsurprisingly, they found most of them are essentially investing in themselves, as well as in their own brands and businesses.
Finding ways to invest in oneself is easy; it’s finding the time to do it that can be challenging for so many entrepreneurs. Read on for three ways you can make time for lifelong learning—no matter how hectic your schedule may be.
1. Keep a Detailed Agenda
Even the savviest accountant cannot tell you where to cut corners if you do not know where all your money is going in the first place. Just as companies need a detailed budget before they can start saving money, you need a detailed scheduled before you can start finding time. Entrepreneur reminds readers that keeping track of their daily tasks will help guide them down the road to success—and it will soon become glaringly obvious where they can trim some fat.
2. Schedule Appointments—with Yourself
One of the soundest financial concepts, pay yourself first, can carry into the world of time management. If you really cannot find the time to finish that book you have been meaning to read, or attend that business seminar because you are bogged down with menial tasks related to your brand, you might need to rethink your priorities. One of the best ways to ensure you always have time to pursue new opportunities is by scheduling appointments with yourself—and refusing to cancel them.
3. Outsource Whenever Possible
Many small business owners work from the ground up, which means they take on all the administrative duties from the start. Though this may be necessary in the early stages of developing a company or brand, a good entrepreneur is always assessing the situation and delegating tasks whenever possible. It is easy to fall into a frugal mindset and refuse to pay someone to do a task you can complete yourself; however, there is always a tipping point, and there will come a period when the time it might take to complete the task is worth more than the money you will save by doing it yourself.
Virgin encourages entrepreneurs to find the day’s elusive “25th hour” by outsourcing tasks whenever possible. There are essentially two kinds of tasks: those that result in gains, and those that prevent losses.
Gain tasks have no deadline, but those that prevent loss, like processing payroll, typically do. A good entrepreneur will outsource tasks that prevent loss whenever possible so he or she can focus on those that lead to gain—and become an even better entrepreneur in the process.
Plan to take a little time out of your schedule next Tuesday March 24th at 2 p.m ET for a free online event: “How to Scale Your Business: From One to Many”. Bhavin Parikh,Co-Founder and CEO at Magoosh, is bringing his practical experience and knowledge of entrepreneurship to the discussion as one of the featured panelists. Learn how to take your small business to the next level!
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Emma Siemasko is the Content Marketing Specialist at Grasshopper, the entrepreneurs’ phone system. She writes about startups, small business, marketing, and a host of other topics. She has written for KISSmetrics, Entrepreneur Magazine, Shopify, Yahoo! Small Business, and more.
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