Do you feel like you don’t have any time for yourself? No time to devote to your side hustle or business? Have you always wanted to start a side hustle or business but think “where will I find the time?”
No time! This is one of the 5 myths moms tell themselves for just about everything. I’m totally guilty of it. Between being a mom, managing a home, and all my other responsibilities managing my time is tough. Moms are super multitaskers, we know how to get stuff done, but even we fall victim to terrible time management.
While writing the top 5 myths keeping you from starting your business, it made me realize that I have not been practicing what I preach. Adjusting after our move across the state, getting into a new routine, being sick twice in one month, I’ve been playing catch up in just about everything. I have not been in alignment with what I want to teach. It forced me to stop and do an audit on how and where I was spending my time. And I found that I was spending way more time on social media than I needed to. As an online brand, I have to work in social media. But come on, there could be worse jobs, am I right? I love social media and connecting with like minded people on there, but it’s too easy to get lost in the scroll, spending hours wasting time and getting nothing done.. Social media apps were designed to be convenient so you always want to open it. And it works. But there are ways to combat that and manage your time on the social outlet of your choice and actually come out on top!
So after reevaluating, there are 3 new things I am now doing to make sure my time spent online is well spent.
- Decide what my goal is before I touch my phone or log online. Is it to add 100 new Twitter followers? Or create a fun Insta story? Is it to do research? Why are you going online to begin with? I have been using a planner since the beginning of this year with alloted hourly time slots. I write down what I plan to do every hour of the day. Some days I do everything I say I am going to do. Other days I do not. Some days I completely change course and do something entirely different than planned. But by writing down what I plan to do, I never don’t know what I could do. Know what I mean? If I ever have a moment to think, “what should I be doing right now?”, I just look at my calendar and it will tell me – write blog post, post ad for this brand, schedule content on Pinterest, you see my point. Same goes for social media. Once you know the what and the why, stick with your plan! Log on, do what you have to do and log off. Do not get lost in the scroll.
- Set a timer and assign each task a specific time. This is how you do not get lost in the scroll. For ex. 10 minutes to add new followers. 10 minutes to answer comments and messages. By setting a timer, you are forcing yourself to beat the clock and be productive. This might take some practice and few tries, but over time you will need less and less time to do certain tasks because you have gotten so efficient. If you set a timer, you will take your time more seriously and get more done. When the timer goes off, then you can move on to the next task.
- Lastly, I get real with myself. I ask myself, is this scrolling earning me money or costing me money? I am a mother of two babies under two. Time is not always on my side. I only have about 10-15 hours I can actually spend working so I have to use my time very wisely if I want to see progress and my income grow. Sometimes you can justify scrolling if you are doing research or looking for inspiration or ideas. As creatives, we always need inspiration. This is good scrolling, but if you find yourself scrolling aimlessly then you know you are wasting time and ultimately costing you money. If you aren’t doing tasks that will help you produce income then it’s time wasted in terms of business goals.
When was the last time you did an audit of your time? Why do you go on social media? Mama, time management is important and this blog post is not me trying to be a hard ass, but instead I hope to get real with you. If you want to grow your side hustle or business you have to manage your time well. Yes life will happen, kids will get sick, you will get sick, unexpected things will come up, that’s ok. If you plan your time well, when these things happen, it will not be such a shock to your schedule or your workload. I’ve made the mistake of not managing my time well way too many times and promised myself that I will not start 2020 without a better time management system.
What is your time management goal for 2020?
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xoxo,
Nicole