When you’re running a business, it can feel like you’re juggling a million things, and that’s before you even start to think about the bigger picture and planning ahead.
There are client emails to answer, lessons or training sessions to prepare, invoices to send, social media posts to write, and goodness knows what else.
And then something unexpected happens, and whatever you had planned to do that day goes straight out of the window.
Sound familiar?
It seems logical that you should prioritise whichever tasks feel most urgent. And don’t get me wrong, some of them probably really DO need dealing with straight away.
But if we devote all our time to firefighting, we’re never going to get out from under the overwhelm.
We’ll also probably spend a lot more time than we realise doing things that aren’t actually helping us to earn more, work less or live more fully.
So, how can you work out what your priorities really are?
Urgent and important are not the same thing
Firstly, it’s vital to recognise that many of the most important things in our businesses are not immediately urgent.
Sometimes they’ll be fine for a while, but eventually become urgent and end up causing us far more stress than they needed to.
Hello, leaving your accounts until the day before the deadline!
And sometimes they’ll never become urgent, which means we may never get around to doing them at all.
Even though they’re probably exactly the things we SHOULD be doing.
Take emailing your list, for example.
The world isn’t going to end if you don’t send your subscribers an email this week. They probably won’t even notice.
But before you know it, it’s been months since you last emailed them, and they’ve pretty much forgotten who you are.
Then, when you finally get around to contacting them because you’ve got something you want to sell, some of them unsubscribe because they don’t even remember signing up in the first place.
And you wonder why your mailing list isn’t bringing you any clients.
This is the problem with constantly prioritising whatever seems most urgent. Important activities that could make a real difference to your business keep getting pushed aside because there’s always something else demanding your attention.
And the longer that goes on, the more likely you are to find yourself stuck dealing with the same problems over and over again.
Look at the bigger picture
However busy we are, we need to consciously set aside time to look at the bigger picture and prioritise tasks accordingly.
Partly this is about being clear on our overall goals.
What are you actually trying to achieve with your business over the next six months or year?
Perhaps you want to attract more of a particular kind of client, develop a new offer, increase your income or reduce the number of hours you’re working.
The more clearly you understand what you’re working towards, the easier it becomes to decide whether a particular task deserves your attention.
And the less likely you are to waste time chasing after the latest shiny object.
Oooh! Pinterest looks fun…
One simple rule of thumb is to ask yourself:
What difference would it really make to my business if I did this? And what would happen if I didn’t?
You may find that some actions could have a huge impact, while others won’t matter very much at all.
For example, spending time improving the sales page for an offer you know people want could have a direct impact on your income.
Spending three hours choosing the perfect shade of blue for a social media graphic probably won’t.
That’s not to say that small details are never important, but it’s worth considering whether the time you’re spending on them is really justified.
You may have heard of the Pareto principle, sometimes called the 80/20 rule. The idea is that a relatively small proportion of what we do often produces a disproportionately large share of the results.
It doesn’t mean that exactly 20% of your activities will always produce exactly 80% of your results, but it’s a useful reminder to look at which activities are making the biggest difference.
And give those activities more of your attention.
Identify and remove bottlenecks
Remember that the impact of a task can be positive, such as attracting more people to your mailing list, or it can involve reducing something negative, such as the amount of time you’re spending on admin.
And this second type of activity can be particularly important if you’re constantly struggling to find time to work on the things that will help your business grow.
Because sometimes the best way to make progress isn’t to add yet another task to your to-do list.
It’s to stop doing something that’s taking up far more time and energy than it’s worth.
So, have a good look at the activities that are eating into your working week.
Are there things you’re doing out of habit rather than because they’re genuinely useful? Could some of them be automated, delegated or even eliminated altogether?
One question I find particularly helpful is:
If I wasn’t already doing this, knowing what I know now, is it something I’d choose to start doing?
It’s quite revealing, isn’t it?
Maybe you’re still plugging away on a social media platform that has never brought you a client, and where you’re not even sure the people you want to work with are particularly active.
Or perhaps you’re spending hours preparing completely individualised materials for every client, when you could develop a core set of resources that you adapt as needed.
And what about your admin systems?
Are you still creating and sending invoices manually, chasing payments or spending ages arranging appointments by email?
How much time could you save in the long term if you automated some of those things?
And what could you do with that time instead?
Of course, setting up better systems might take a few hours initially, which is probably why you’ve been putting it off.
But if it saves you an hour every week afterwards, that’s a pretty worthwhile investment.
Choose a few things that will make a real difference
Once you’ve identified the activities that are likely to have the biggest impact, the next step is to actually make time for them.
And this is where I’d encourage you to be quite ruthless.
Rather than coming up with a list of 25 things you really ought to do, choose three to five actions for the coming week or month that could make a meaningful difference to your business.
And make sure they’re realistic, given the amount of time you actually have available.
If one of your priorities is something fairly substantial, such as creating a new offer or improving your website, break it down into smaller actions.
What’s the first meaningful step you could take?
For example, if your goal is to start emailing your list regularly, your first action might simply be to decide what you’re going to write about and plan the next four emails.
Or if you’ve decided you need to improve your admin systems, perhaps your first action is to investigate whether your existing software could automate your invoicing.
The important thing is to turn a vague intention into something you can actually do.
Put your priorities in your diary
Once you’ve decided what needs doing, estimate how long each task is likely to take and put that time in your diary.
And try to be realistic about this.
If something normally takes you two hours, don’t convince yourself you’ll somehow squeeze it into half an hour because you’re feeling particularly motivated.
You can use a digital calendar, a paper diary or a planner, such as my Earn Learn Thrive Productivity Planner.
Whichever system you choose, treat that time as an important appointment with yourself.
Because it is.
Of course, genuinely urgent things will sometimes come up, and you’ll need to be flexible. That’s part of running a business.
But if you’re continually cancelling the time you’ve set aside to work on your priorities, it’s worth asking yourself why.
Are those tasks actually a priority? Or are you allowing other people’s demands, and your own habits, to determine how you spend your working week?
And is there anything you could change to protect that time a little better?
Review what’s working
Finally, after a few weeks, take a little time to look back at what you’ve achieved.
Which actions did you actually complete? What impact have they had on your business? Are there things that are starting to improve, even if you haven’t seen the full results yet?
Perhaps you’ve finally got your email marketing back on track, or you’re spending less time on admin, or you’ve made progress towards an offer you’ve been meaning to develop for months.
And if something didn’t work out as planned, that’s useful information too.
Maybe you underestimated how much time it would take, or perhaps you’ve realised that it wasn’t really the right priority after all.
Use what you’ve learned to decide what to focus on next.
Because prioritising isn’t something you do once and then forget about. Your business will change, your circumstances will change, and the things that deserve your attention will change too.
But the habit of regularly stepping back, looking at the bigger picture and making conscious decisions about where to spend your time can make an enormous difference.
As a freelancer, you’re also a business owner, whether or not you particularly like thinking of yourself that way.
And that means you’re responsible for driving the direction of your business, rather than simply getting through whatever happens to be on your to-do list.
So give yourself the time and space to do that.
And hopefully, you’ll spend a lot less time firefighting and a lot more time making progress towards the business you actually want.
Want to get more done without working harder?
If you’re constantly busy but struggling to find time for the things that will really move your business forward, I’ve brought together some practical resources to help.
In my Get more done without working harder Resource Centre, you’ll find articles, videos and tools to help you manage your time, identify your priorities, improve your systems and work more productively.
Explore the Productivity and Systems resources
(Also available on your local Amazon site)