To make more money is probably one of your goals. There are entrepreneurs whose business makes them $20,000 a year and then there are other entrepreneurs whose businesses makes them 2 million a year. Both entrepreneurs had the same amount of time and yet achieved completely different results.
There are two kinds of entrepreneurs — icons who whip through their day and always finish their to-do list and everyone else. The “everyone else” column holds an awful lot more mere mortals that the other one does.
It’s tough getting through the workday sometimes when you’ve got no one to tell you what to do or how to do it. Too often, this results in hours of sitting at the computer, not really accomplishing anything.
Savvy entrepreneurs try every tip they find, and use the ones that work in their daily routine to avoid the loss of income that dawdling creates. Here are 6 productivity tips to help you stop wasting time, so you can start to make more money this year as an entrepreneur.
#1. Decide to Unitask
Multitasking has long been held as the way to get a lot done in a small amount of time. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work. According to Forbes magazine, our brains don’t work that way. Concentrating on one task and doing it well to completion is the way to work most effectively.
#2. Schedule Your To-Do List on Your Calendar
You can’t get any work done if you don’t know what you need to do. Detailed scheduling will eliminate any question of what to do in any part of your day. Sit down the night before and write an hour-by-hour schedule for your work day, filling in the task you’ll complete in each time block. Do nothing during each hour but the assigned task.
#3. Try the Pomodoro Technique to Make More Money
Many people have a hard time concentrating even one straight hour without their mind wandering. The Pomodoro Technique of work training can help solve this problem. It’s a method of working flat-out for 25 minutes, then taking a 5 minute break. Use an online timer such as the Tomato Timer built for this technique or Instant Boss, and you’ll have audible and visual clues to keep you on track.
#4. Block Distractions
If social media and other fun sites are taking your attention away from work, get rid of them during your day. Download an app such as LeechBlock. These apps set a block on your browser that don’t allow it to load a list of websites. Create the list of sites from your personal distractions, set a timer for work hours and you won’t be allowed to goof off.
#5. Look for Recurring Tasks You Can Automate
There are lots of little tasks you have to do every day that could be done more efficiently. An easy one is automating your bill payments. Just as important is backing up your work on a regular basis. You can back up automatically with a cloud service like Mozy to not only secure your work, but access it from any device anywhere.
#5. Organize Your Finances
I find a lot of my clients spend upwards of 50 hours between December and January simply trying to get their business financial reports together for their CPA. That is completely unnecessary and easily avoidable. If you’re constantly searching for invoices and your taxes are a mess organize your finances by installing a simple bookkeeping program. Ones such as QuickBooks or Peachtree are designed for non-experts and have a very shallow learning curve. Make a habit of using this for a few minutes each day or just one hour per week and your finances will be much simpler to deal with.
#6. Improve Your Work Environment
Streamlining your work environment can help to streamline your work day. Get rid of everything on your desk that doesn’t absolutely need to be there. You should have as few distractions for your mind as possible, and that includes items off the screen as well as on. Create an organized work space, whether it’s a dedicated room or a corner in the den, and give it a neat and tidy look. The lack of distractions will help you keep your mind on your work.
Achieving your BIG goals starts with making a series of small changes in how you leverage your time. I challenge you to start implementing these 6 tips. Practice them on a regular basis and eventually they will become engrained as a part of your success habits.
QUESTION: What is the #1 challenge that is getting in your way to make more money this year? Please share your comments below.
