If I had one wish it would be to have at least 5 more hours in the day.
The Clock is always ticking in my house!
I’d probably use those five hours to sleep and the others to get my work done.
The challenge with being a mom of a toddler and expecting another is that your energy levels are pretty low.
You’re trying to balance business, family and new life in your body.
You also have to manage the little one who’s sick, the husband who is also sick.
And yes you know it, pregnant women should NOT get sick.
So here I am trying to run an online business, manage other people’s Facebook Fan Pages, market a book, and co-manage another consulting business and I find out I’m pregnant!
Well at that point I just raised my hands in disbelief and screamed
Funny thing is I’ve been following one of my favorite younger entrepreneurs.
And he shared some really HUGE tips that I couldn’t help but pass on.
You see he also mentioned something in the end of his video about the relationship between time and energy.
Now if you’ve been pregnant before — sorry men you have no reference here — you will understand what I mean by a total lack of energy.
Basically if you’re feeling tired all the time you don’t have a lot of energy.
You’re more likely to just want to laze around and sleep.
Well what does that do?
Yup it “wastes” time.
So here are the tips (I also discuss these tips in the video below)
Tip #1 :Learn how to make trade-offs
Recognize that your choice is special regardless of what you choose. But don’t see things are trade-offs as a bad thing.
Think of them as maker the BEST decision. Not just any decision.
So if you have to choose between dinner with friends and dinner meeting you’re going to have to choose.
If you issues is time …… and you have “none” of it to work in your business ….. you’re going to have to make some hard decisions.
Sometimes those decisions are even within your business.
I first came across this concept in the book Essentialism.
Making trade-offs simple means doing one thing instead of another.
So because I work from home and very often I find days when my daughter is home with us I have to decide what is the ONE most important thing I need to get done today.
That may be scheduling social media posts, or writing a blog, or sending an email to a client.
But the reality is because of the time constraints I must pick ONE.
And just accept the fact that the other will not get done today! 🙂
Tip #2: Learn to Say No
Once I stumbled over this principle I’ve fallen in love with it.
Now I’m not saying I’ve become a “No” person.
But I’ve been able to stand my ground on so many occassions just because I’ve learned to say “No.”
And you wouldn’t believe how much it has changed the way I’m able to manage my time.
Think about it.
Someone knows that you’re really good at baking a cake; there’s a fundraiser coming up in your child’s school and they approach you to bake a cake.
Now I’m sure you know what happens in these type of situations – First comes the flattery….
“Oh Jane, you know I love that cake that you did at the last fundraiser…. What was it again… Ah yes! Black Forrest Cake”
Fundraiser lady continues…. “You know you’re really good at those cakes.”
In your mind you’re probably saying , “Women get on with it and make your request, I don’t have all day.”
Fundraiser lady says, “Will it be possible for you to donate one for our upcoming fundraiser”
There it is! The time drainer!
So you’re about to say, “No I can’t”
When you remember the tip in this blog post and you say,
“Yes, I can BUT it will have to be store bought. I don’t have the time these days to bake and decorate cakes anymore”
You smile feeling accomplished.
Fundraiser lady has two options.
Accept your counter offer or decline.
Either way you’ve just saved yourself almost half a day’s work that you can allocate elsewhere and you didn’t have to tell her “NO” out rightly!
Sometimes the hardest No’s are the ones we love the most.
Imagine having to tell your two year old daughter – No. (Who can say “no” to that cute face ?)
If you think long and hard about it, the hardest No’s are the ones that will yield you the most time.
To the people you may not want to say no to.
I’m still building up to saying “No” to my daughter.
I’ve learned to say “No” to my parents, my siblings even my husband.
And they all understand. Because they are all of the age where they can understand that I just handed THEM a trade-off.
Effectively when you tell someone “No” or use the “Yes…. BUT…” what you’re doing is giving them the choice of what they want to do.
It’s really hard for a two year old to understand that concept. (but I’ll keep you posted on that front)
Tip #3: Stretch out projects and events
The third time management “hack” if I can use that word is the concept of stretching time.
Now this comes from a philosphy where people generally underestimate what they can do in a week, month or year, but OVER estimate what they can do in a day.
So you’ve been there right.
You’ve created your list of 10 things to do today!
In back of your mind you know you can’t get all done!
But you’ve made the list.
You everyday 8 of the 10 things get moved over to the next day.
Eventually you start to feel less motivated to keep a list because heck! you never get anything done on it anyway.
So do you throw the list out?
No!
You either make your daily list shorter.
Or turn it into a weekly list.
Ten things are hard to do in a day, but maybe it’s not so hard if you decided to do it in a week.
Stretching out projects, events over time allows you to feel like you’ve created more time.
When in fact what you’ve done is just be realistic with the time you have.
For example.
If I were writing a 500 to 800 word blog post I know that will take me about 30 to 45 minutes to finish writing.
I still need to find images, do a video for the blog post, proof read…. and that’s assuming I’ve already done my research on the the blog topic.
So given that I know how long something will take I know that maybe I can only write one blog post in any given day!
The same is true for any major project you have in your business.
So I really hope these Time Hacks have given you some ideas as to how you can steal time back from the hour glass and make the most of your 24 hours!
Have a great one.
If you want to learn more about how I coach people to learn how to market their businesses online on a budget just enter your name and email to the right.
I’m Hilary De Freitas The Marketing Mom
My Mission: to bring as many moms back home and still earning a living!
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