Have you ever had super good intentions?
You’ve got to work and you are ready for the day, and then you get to TikTok or you get to Facebook, or you get to Instagram and you start scrolling and next thing you know, you have been there for an entire hour.
And you’re like, “where in the world? Has the time gone?”
I was supposed to be doing this and now I’m here.
Today in this article, we are gonna talk about time management tips because I know if you are anything like me, you can get down the rabbit hole.
I’m not even gonna lie and make this article like I am the master genius at this, but I will say that I do find myself getting a lot of things accomplished on the day when I am setting up these boundaries for myself.
I don’t mean boundaries or keeping other people out. I’m talking about me, being focused on boundaries in myself.
Boundaries away from me, and my phone and all the things.
So if you’re somebody and you struggle with time management, especially as it pertains to your business, then today I want to assist you with that.
I’ve got some time management tools, and let’s go ahead and talk about it.
So the first thing, which is the most important and which is why a lot of us get in trouble with our time, is you need to log off of social media during the day.
I know you don’t want to hear it, but that is the number one thing that is keeping you from getting things done during the day.
It is Social Media.
And it’s because our phones are always with us, right?
Even if we can mute the thing out, we’ll get to scrolling and watching this and watching those who are commenting here and commenting there.
On my phone, I don’t have notifications for any social media platform.
ZERO.
Not TikTok, not Instagram, not Facebook, nothing.
So the only reason why my phone would actually light up during the day or I would get any kind of a notification is if somebody texts me or somebody calls me or it’s an alert to a meeting I’m getting ready to go into at 15 minutes.
That’s it.
And this is always.
So it’s not just doing work hours. This is always.
And what this has done is it has caused me to be off of social media during the daytime and it lets me get so much done.
Because I run my own business, I create content and then I work with my clients and I, obviously, manage my team and that’s a lot of things to juggle in the workday.
Let alone being messaged by TikTok and all the people.
And so I had to learn how to set my own boundaries and to keep from the notification sounds or the blinking screen.
And so I log off social media during the daytime.
Listen, ain’t nobody really messaging you on social media like that.
If it’s an emergency, they’re gonna call you and text you because emergency people got your phone number.
Now the second thing you can do for time management is Time Blocking.
Now what does that mean?
A lot of us get caught up in the squirrels, right? We can do this thing over here and then this thing over here.
Now your block of time may be different depending upon who you are and whatever.
So yours could be that you’re like from 1:00 to 2:30. For 90 minutes, the only thing that you’re doing is that particular task.
You have it set and you’re like, “all right, it’s one o’clock. I’m going to do this task. And I’m gonna keep going until it’s 2:30”
You can set an alarm to go off when it’s that time block, like 1:00 to 2:30.
And at 2:30 you’re like, “Okay, I can go take a bathroom break, I can go walk, I can go grab lunch, I can go grab a drink” Or whatever it is you’re gonna go do.
But you knew that for that 90 minutes that you needed to focus on that particular task. That’s something that I did when I was writing my book, because I was trying to get this book done within a certain amount of time.
And I just set my parameters like, “all right, I am going to write these many words by this time.”
And I was not allowed to be on my phone or anything.
Listen, nobody was managing me but me. But I set these time blocks and I set these number of words that I had to complete.
And it worked really well.
I was able to get an entire book written.
I think it was in three weeks because I was very intentional and very determined because I needed to get back to my business.
The third thing you can do is create a list of priorities.
Now, this is something I do every single day.
When I used to have a job, I used to get in trouble with my job because I was a great salesperson, but I was so unorganized.
And one time my boss came into my office and she said, “Look, you’re a great salesperson but you’re very unorganized and it hurts the business when you’re not organized. You need to get a legal pad every day and you need to make a list of the things that you need to do”
And that was very foreign to me.
Now a friend of mine, Shannon, was very good at that.
And so I just started trying to do this.
And so when I started my business, I watched me go back to that same old, bad habit, highly disorganized.
My clients are upset and all the things.
So then I got incredibly organized with my legal pad.
So now when I come into the office, before I ever get into work that day, if I know that there are urgent things that just came up for me that my assistant doesn’t know about, then I will send her a message in Slack.
And I will say, “Hey, I have these four things that are urgent. Can you put this on my list of things and make them urgent today?”
Because I have this regular sheet that she sends me and says, “Hey, here’s your list of things that you need to do, but you told me to mark these four things urgently.”
And then as soon as I sit down at my desk, I am working on the four urgent things, and then working my way down for anything else that wasn’t urgent.
That literally has saved my life.
It saved my team, and everything is just so much more organized because there are these priorities that I have, and I’ve been teaching my team that they need to do the exact same thing.
And then the last thing you can do is set an alarm to go off when you need to and finish important tasks.
By tomorrow, I’m speaking at an event and I have to have my PowerPoint presentation done.
I know that I usually procrastinate, but if this company was wanting my PowerPoint presentation by the end of day today, then the last thing I wanna do is to try to get that thing done by five o’clock or four o’clock whenever, what time I’m leaving the office.
My goal is to be like, “All right, hold on. I’m gonna do this task over here, and then I’m gonna finish this by three o’clock because I won’t leave the office by 3:30.”
And so I will sit and go, “okay, I will turn off all notifications, even notifications for Slack.”
And I will sit down and I will focus 100% on the thing that I need to accomplish, and I will set an alarm to get that done.
And then on my phone, if it’s a timer or whatever, I can see what is happening on my phone and it’s causing me to stay focused to get the thing done.
I know that, possibly when you’re reading this, you may feel like I’m calling you a child or whatever.
That you have to put these things in place.
But the truth is if you are having a hard time managing your time, and you wanna get good at managing your time and you’re not good at it, then you have to put things in place that help you to be more organized.
That helps you to have boundaries and restrictions on yourself so that you can get things done.
There is nothing like knowing that somebody’s coming over for dinner at seven o’clock and you’re like, “All right, there’s a possibility that they show up at 6:30, I don’t get off until five”
Let’s say on Friday they coming over, you’re like, “I’m gonna start cleaning on Wednesday, cleaning a little bit on Thursday, and then only the smidget left on Friday”
Because you know your friend and they’re probably gonna show up half an hour early because if you know yourself and you know that you’re not gonna be able to get it all done at the last minute, then you can plan.
Like for me, I am headed to Europe in June for a speaking engagement.
And then I’m moving from where I currently live in San Diego into another place.
And so I’m like, “All right, the last thing I wanna do is come back from Europe, try to pack up my whole house when it’s like my birthday”
Last month, I ordered a whole set of boxes from Amazon and I got the tape and everything.
And I said, “All right, I am gonna start packing every weekend”
It’s not winter anymore here, I can start packing my clothes, my boots, and then just packing all this stuff that I know that I’m not going to wear.
And I can start going through underneath my cabinets and determining like, “Do I use these products anymore? What is outdated?”
And then just slowly, throwing out things and packing up the closets of stuff that is just there that I’m not gonna use right now.
And the next thing you know, when I get ready to go to Europe, my whole house is almost packed.
That is my plan and that’s why I bought my boxes early because I know I do not wanna do this at the last minute.
Something always comes up in life is just what happens. And for me to set myself up for success and to manage my time.
I’m starting that process right now.
I hope that you found these tips very valuable and that you choose to use them.
And if you are saying to yourself that you need help with your business.
I do one-on-one consulting. Just click here for more information about this program. You can book a one-on-one call with me and I can help you with all the things that we have talked about in this article.
We do have some courses that really walk you through all the things of TikTok, how to market your business and make money on a TikTok platform.
And also, we do have a TikTok account management service where you are able to just record the videos that we give you, the scripts, and then done. We will upload and edit the videos and we will do all the comments for you. So if you’re interested in this, just fill out the application form here and we will keep in touch with you.
We look forward to working with you.