The most common thing I hear amongst business owners is that “I just don’t have time”  I have been hearing this so long, I already wrote about this topic a few years ago titled: What Do You Have In Common With The President?

Now, I am going to take it up a notch and tell you one of the biggest secrets to getting more time in your day is to:

Just Say NO!

Seriously.

A common thread I see is that people don’t know how  to stop piling things onto their plate. If you are already strapped thin, then close the flood gates. Stop letting more and more come into your life.

EXAMPLE:
I have a pet sitting coaching client who started pet sitting ten years ago. She only made $12,000 last year and has 3 ICs. Her business ONLY brought in 12K last year! You read that right!

That figure should have at LEAST two more zeros in it. How could she be working her pet sitting company for a decade and only be at $12K?

Admittedly, she didn’t say NO to things. She didn’t prioritize the responsibilities in her life. She started doing voice over work, selling real estate, and numerous other things. The fact of the matter is that she didn’t make sure one thing was stable before jumping to the next lily pad so she just SANK!

So now she is working with me to help her get refocused and we are making progress! So how can you do this too?

4 Ways To Manage Your Time Better:

1 – Say NO:

I don’t care if you just need time to sit down and watch your own trashy reality TV show. Tell your staff, your clients, NO. You are booked. It doesn’t mean that you are booked with pet sits. You can be booked

You can be booked with personal time.

Your personal down time is super important and I am giving you permission! It will help you not feel burnt out and will re-energize you to do the things you have been meaning to do!

2 – Don’t open it!

Do not open your email, mail, facebook, voice mails, anything!!!!! …until you are ready to actual respond or file them. I don’t think you realize how much time in your day that you waste by opening things once and the going back to them later to follow up. OR… things slip through the cracks because you mean to come back to them and forget. What happens when you don’t take action when you open? They get added to your TO DO list. Last I checked, that list was probably FULL!

3 – Stop learning and start doing.

How many more self help books, podcasts, blogs, webinars, conference calls are you going to listen to and NOT take action. There are two types of people in this world.

Spongers and Drenchers!

LOL… Are you going to keep being a sponge and hold in all the liquid or are you going to squeeze it out over your harvest so it can grow? It is time to start taking action. all the absorbing will end up holding you down and again, adding more things to your to do list. There for overwhelming you.

4 – Create a priority list

If it isn’t on your list, do not SPEND your time doing any of it! Simple as that. Stop going in 14 different directions until you have one direction paved out. THEN you can go to other. Do you want to do many things half way or a few things really excellent?

Now it is your turn:

What are your secrets to managing your time? Is it easy to you or hard? Are you a sponge or a drencher?