Hello everyone, thank you for joining me for this blog post. I hope you’re all having a fabulous day. As the title suggests, we’re going to talk about freeing up time today. This is something we continually work on with both ourselves and our clients. There will be multiple posts related to different aspects of this topic, but right now we’re going to focus on how to get the most done in the least amount of time. More specifically, we’re going to discuss blocking your calendar. This works for people in all different levels in business, whether you’re just starting out or run a company worth millions.
I want you to think about one week in your calendar. It’s crucial to start with the most important parts of your life when filling your calendar. You might want to think about relationships first. Is there a relationship (with a spouse, child, best friend, or parent, for instance) that you want to reserve time for? If so, just block it out. For me, this includes a weekly date night with my wife, so we lock that into our calendar for Friday nights. We’re only going to look at what you want to accomplish in the span of a week, but this would be something you put on auto-repeat for your calendar so that you don’t have to manually schedule it every week.
After that, you’ll need to think about the next most important thing in your life. Maybe there’s something spiritual you want to work on, like going to church every Sunday. We work with someone who runs a small Bible study, so we have them put that on their calendar. After covering spirituality, we look at things like health. If you want to run four times a week, we go on the calendar and decide specific times and days for it.
In essence, you look at your personal life first when you’re blocking your calendar. After that, it’s time to look at the business side of your life. What are the most important things for your business that need to be blocked off? Your answer will vary depending on the size of your company, but think about working “on” the business rather than “in” it. What do you need to work on in the business regarding strategy and marketing development? If working on sales is the most important thing, you’d block off time on your calendar for that. You might decide you need to work on marketing two days a week for eight hours at time. You would then pick specific times on your calendar that work for you. It’s best to create chunks on your calendar. Ideally, you’ll have two big chunks a day for the things you’re working on. When you start with the most important things and work your way down, you’ll get more done in less time. You’re automatically prioritizing the things that are going to give you the most bang for your buck.
If you haven’t blocked your calendar, try it for a week and stay within the rhythms you create. You’ll notice that you’re getting a lot more done with less time because you’re not bouncing back and forth between different activities. So go ahead and apply this strategy today. Thank you again for taking the time to read this post, I hope you’ll join me again for the next one. Until then, take action with blocking your calendar and make it a better than amazing day!
