How I manage multiple businesses.
I need to do a lot of things during my day. I have many interests, aspirations and professional goals that I would like to achieve but in the past, I struggled to be consistent and manage everything. This all changed in the last two years when I started testing tools and strategies to organise my time better. Here are my three favourite.
1) Calendar
I can’t stress this enough: calendars are a Godsend for entrepreneurs. We spend our day juggling countless demands on our time, from suppliers to logistics companies. My calendar is structured in a simple manner: I block specific moments of my day for certain tasks. Every morning, for example, I try to write at least one blog post. I also time block periods of my day that I keep exclusively for my girlfriend. I’ve found time-blocking private time to be an incredible way to make sure work doesn’t get in the way of what matters most to me: my family.
2) To do list
In recent times, I’ve seen more productivity gurus downplay the importance of to-do lists. I disagree. I run two businesses, I’m a member of two very active associations, we have a young puppy, and I’m also very close to my family. All of these have a demand on my time and require tasks that need to be done. To-do lists help me prioritise demands on my time but more importantly reduce the probability that I’ll forget something. I’ve also found doing a weekly ‘brain dump’ a fantastic way of jotting down EVERYTHING that is pending in my head. I leave the organising and prioritising to another time of the week.
3) Time blocking
This is perhaps one of the most discussed about tools within the productivity space and for good reason. Time-blocking simply means penciling in blocks of time (to be determined by you through trial and error) for specific tasks. So, for example, I usually try and pencil in 2–3 hours a week to write blog posts, usually in the mornings. I’ve found that simply writing when ‘I feel like it’ just doesn’t work. I’ll either forget or just push it off to another day and never actually get it done. By blocking certain periods of time for specific tasks forces me to get my work done.
There are plenty of other tips and tricks one can use to manage everything but I truly believe the three I have mentioned above have helped me run two businesses, diversify my income streams and still be able to have a personal life!
