5 Things Entrepreneurs Should Do Every Day
There is no cookie-cutter way to ideate, create and grow a small business. Companies have started in every way imaginable, from quick, fortunate coincidences to an entrepreneur finally taking action after decades of dreaming. And entrepreneurs of just about every personality type and level of work ethic have helmed successful businesses.
At the same time, there are several routines any entrepreneur can adopt that can help them professionally, and personally, as they steer their businesses toward growth and prosperity.
We’re not talking about some of the over-the-top steps some business leaders suggest: Waking up at 4 a.m. or rifling through a book every week is just too demanding for many small business entrepreneurs to tackle. Instead, we have a few practical suggestions to help you in several aspects of your business, from fostering creativity to buying you more time and energy.
What Entrepreneurs Should Do Every Day
Map Out Your Day
Don’t look at each day like it’s a completely blank slate to fill in as you go. Putting together a structured schedule that designates time for all of the necessities helps ensure you’ll actually get those things without work time bleeding well into the night and weekends. By setting a schedule, you can also ensure that you tackle tasks when it makes the most sense: say, checking emails in the morning after they’ve had all night to pile up, or blocking off time for product strategy during the afternoon when you feel you’re most creative.
Be flexible when necessary — if a client can only meet during your scheduled lunch time, so be it — but have everything mapped out so that, if you’re uninterrupted, you can be as productive as possible.
Tackle One Task at a Time
For a time, the business world seemed to idolize multi-tasking because of the perception that helped people get more done. But the more we study it, the more we find out that we’re at our best when we stick to a single task.
“Psychologists who study what happens to cognition (mental processes) when people try to perform more than one task at a time have found that the mind and brain were not designed for heavy-duty multitasking,” the American Psychological Association states. “Psychologists tend to liken the job to choreography or air-traffic control, noting that in these operations, as in others, mental overload can result in catastrophe.”
This feeds into why it’s so important to map out your day. Having designated times for you to tackle each of your individual tasks makes it more likely that you’ll give them the proper attention, and thus succeed at them. If you’re forced to cram in several tasks at once, however, the results might not meet your standards.
Set Aside Time for Thinking
Check emails. Talk to clients. Review the balance sheet. These all sound like, and feel like, tasks to be checked off on a regular basis. Simply thinking critically about your business’ direction, potential new products, or ways to appeal to clients feel much less tangible, but they’re no less important.
When you’re putting together your schedule, remember that you’re not just a worker ant: You need to let the creative juices flow if you’re going to build your business.
Learn
Should you knock out a book a week? In an ideal world, you could. However, chances are you’re simply too busy (between business and life) to make that kind of time commitment. But you absolutely should read … or listen to a podcast, or watch a documentary. Entrepreneurs need to keep current with evolving trends in their own industries. So, spend at least a little time each day trying to remain connected and up-to-date with the business world around you.
Don’t limit your learning to things you’d expect to help your company, however. Inspiration can come from anywhere. Simply learning about the world around you can open up new perspectives. This can get you to think about your products, services and corporate mission in a new light.
Take Care of You
We all know what happens to a car if you don’t regularly change the oil, get the tires rotated and perform routine maintenance: It breaks down. You and I are no different. We need fuel, we need rest and we need to take care of our mental health. Otherwise, we’re not going to operate at our best.
No entrepreneur is the same, so some of what you do might change from person to person. It might mean eating three square meals at the same time each day. It might be six smaller meals depending on your diet. Maybe you need eight hours of sleep, while some people feel better with seven or six. Some people like to meditate to center their minds, while others just need a few hours of fishing out on the lake every weekend. But however you do it, take care of your body and mind.
Remember: You Don’t Have to Shoulder Everything
Entrepreneurs often overlook this final piece of advice and run themselves into the ground. Sometimes it’s because money is tight and they don’t think they can afford to bring on help, while others are simply unwilling to rely on others as much as they should. If you find yourself getting stretched too thin, talk to the small- and midsized business experts at McManamon & Co. We offer a wide range of consulting services that can help you with myriad aspects of your business … including whether it might be time to bring on more help.
You don’t have to go it alone to be a successful entrepreneur. Give us a call at 440.892.9088 or contact us online today.
Tags: entrepreneurs, McManamon & Co., small business | Posted in McManamon & Co., small business