You have a limited amount of time each day to cross all those pesky items of your seemingly endless to-do list. No matter how inspired you are, working on your project for 12+ hours a day will bring you more harm, rather than greatness.
Feel like you constantly lack hours in your day? Lets have a look on the common time-wasting habits most entrepreneurs are guilty off.
The Super(wo)man Syndrome
As a company leader you often feel obliged to personally overlook everything, try to be everywhere and manage everything at once. Yet, trying to be a super human will likely bring you no good. Scientists have already proved that multitasking damages our brain, while micro managing keeps your team frustrated. Living the always-on lifestyle and setting no time to unwind will quickly result into a burnout and your inability and/or reluctance to pursue your goals.
Solution: learn to delegate. It may be hard for A-type personalities specifically, so here’s a quick nagger to help you make the right decision: How much value will I bring doing task X? Am I really that great with social media or should I better focus on the market research, which I have immense experience with? Keep your focus on doing the tasks you are truly good at and those, which bring the most impact for your business.
Will you hire a $100 per hour sales rep to answer your emails and do the office chores? Unlikely. Yet, that’s exactly what you are doing when you refuse to outsource the routine.
Waiting for Perfection
If you sit around waiting for perfection, nothing good will happen to your business in the meantime. Yes, you can always “do it better”, but no, it will never be “perfect”.
The strive for perfection is what often keeps us from starting a new project, tackling a new major task or launching a new feature/product. When most people say they are trying to perfect something, what they actually do is procrastinate.
Imagine if Lyft or Airbnb founders set there waiting for the perfect moment for expanding to a new market or up till they polish their functionality till perfection. They definitely would not have grown into unicorn companies. Ditch perfection and settle for “good enough for me and my customers” mindset.
Staying Glued to Your Email Box
While some people just can’t stand a cluttered inbox and have this immediate urge to check each email they get, this is definitely not the most productive usage of your time.
When it comes to your email, set a systems of simple rules for yourself:
- Set the times of the day when you check and reply to your emails e.g. at 10 am; 2 pm and 18 pm. Resist the urge to peek into your email outside the timeframes.
- Create folders and rules to sort out all the incoming emails into respective tabs.
- me is an excellent tool to manage your subscriptions and send them out to you once a day as one newsletter with summaries.
Saying “Yes” to Everything
Saying “no” is one of the hardest things to do. As an entrepreneur and team leader you will get constantly bombarded with various requests – a quick chat; an outreach request; a potential vendor letter etc. Attending all of them is merely impossible, thus you need to master the habit of saying a firm “no”.
Learn to politely decline opportunities and requests, which will not benefit your business and brand at the moment. Don’t be afraid to disappoint people and learn to value your personal time over someone else’s requests.