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Entrepreneurship part-time is one of the most complicated tasks for those who want to gain financial freedom, mainly because their day has to be divided in two to be able to fulfill their multiple tasks.
Time is always one of those things that we wish we could extend, but it is usually the scarcest resource and therefore the most valuable.
The journey of an entrepreneur can begin with a great desire to work to achieve what he always dreamed of, but the lack of organization, stress and family are factors that influence him to want to throw in the towel.
It is very clear that starting your own business requires time and above all money. As you work to achieve your financial freedom, you have to find a source of money that allows you to inject capital.
But it is certain that this situation of undertaking part-time while keeping your office job has made you lose your temper more than once. Calm! He who perseveres, wins. Here are some tips that can help you manage your time.
1. Discover your most productive moments
According to Workmeter studies that have been updated annually on Time Management at Work since 2015, of the nine hours or more that people usually have to work, the average reflects that only six hours and 34 minutes are worked actually. That is, they are only in that amount of hours that people are usually really productive, so you should analyze yourself and know at what time of the day you feel most inspired and dedicate that amount of hours to your endeavor.
There are people who are in overdrive during the morning, they can easily get up at 4:00 am to work and be energetic and productive until the arrival of the afternoon. On the other hand, there are those who feel more concentrated during the night hours.
To be more clear about what your biorhythm is, take into account these aspects that the aforementioned study proposes to know with what time you feel most inspired:
- The mornings: are those who wake up early in the morning without needing an alarm and their inspiration declines as the hours go by. It is said that three in the afternoon is the worst time for these people to try to be productive.
- The evenings: it is hard for them to wake up early and it is even estimated that they take hours to activate, so after six in the afternoon they reach their maximum energy capacity.
- The intermediate ones: the study affirms that these are the ones that make up 60% of the population and that therefore, noon is their ideal time to work on what they are passionate about.
Once you have identified your profile, organize your day to work when you are most productive.
2. Set smart goals
In marketing we work with defined goals based on an indicator and a period of time. If we didn’t do it this way, there would be no way forward.
Set yourself SMART-type objectives, that is, they are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and respect a certain time. Instead of “contacting potential customers”, a SMART goal would be “contacting 20 potential customers by July 30”.
It is also key that you have different planning horizons, that is, that you set goals annually, and that you divide them into quarters, months and weeks.
In the case of monthly goals, I recommend using the MTD (Month to Date). This indicator allows you to know what the goal is per day based on the monthly goal. For example, if your goal is to contact 30 prospects a month and you are on the 15th, you should have already contacted 15 prospects, because you are in the middle of the month.
The MTD helps you know if your progress for the day will allow you to reach the goal at the end of the month or if you have to accelerate.
3. Avoid multitasking
It is really of great value that you can develop several tasks at the same time, it is a skill that few can develop. However, when it comes to two such serious projects, it is best to take a break and spend the prudent time on each one separately.
Define the times, that is, if your work is in the morning until lunchtime, try to put your heart into each office task and, when you leave there, dedicate yourself only to your entrepreneurship.
Focusing will allow you to move forward more quickly.
4. Delegate
You may be able to do everything yourself at first, but after a while you feel overwhelmed.
Your venture needs you to put your heart into it and for that you have to be in good mental and physical condition, or else the project will be delayed even more.
That is why the recommendation is that you allow yourself to outsource some of the tasks in which you are not an expert or those that are simple and in which investing your own time does not make a difference.
Maybe you need help with the whole marketing plan ? For whatever you need, and if you have the budget disposition, delegate tasks to professionals to accelerate your project.
5. Learn to organize yourself
As an entrepreneur and dependent worker, you probably don’t have time to waste, but what if I told you there might still be time?
For example, let’s say you have a flight at 5:00 p.m., but it has been delayed and has been postponed to 7:00 p.m. During that time you can do something.
Maybe talk with your first client, read about companies you want to hire to move your project forward… I mean, there are a lot of things you can do in lost times like this.
On the other hand, you can also take advantage of methodologies for your own organization such as GTD, which for its acronym in English is Getting Things Done or in Spanish “make things happen”.
The term and method was coined by the North American productivity consultant, David Allen, who claims that memory is inefficient and when it should remind us of something because it is useful, it does not.
Unlike other methods that go from top to bottom, that is, they focus first on the macro purpose of life and then meet small objectives, GTD goes from the bottom up, making a definition of what is done from day to day. day to achieve an organization such that medium and long-term goals can be reached.
So it’s all about control and perspective to get there.
Controlling the mind is not an easy task, but outsourcing everything in the head can be. For this you must:
- Collect: make a count of all your worries and tasks and write them down in an email.
- Process: all concerns and tasks must be taken into action.
- Organize: everything you have taken action must have a certain organization; That is, define which ones have helped you achieve your goals, if it’s on the next action list or if it’s something you can get rid of.
- Evaluate: After processing and organizing, you must decide what to do in terms of reviewing other things.
- Do: it is about everything being done, once processed, organized and reviewed.
Once you have everything under control, it is necessary for your mind to achieve a new perspective to know if everything you have done is going in the right direction:
- Actions: Make a list of all the things that can be done in one go.
- Projects: it is about leaving everything in advance with time in advance.
- Focus and responsibility: it teaches you in everything that you are committed to, both with yourself and with the people around you.
- Goals: where to get and how to get there.
- Vision: what you want to achieve in the long term in your life.
- Purpose: ask yourself why you do what you do and if it is aligned with your values and principles.
6. Focus on your entrepreneurship
Patience is a factor that you must keep in mind from the moment you decide to undertake part-time, because obviously you cannot split yourself in two to meet all the demands of office work and your project.
Therefore, patience is your best ally when you want to obtain results and you have not been able to see them due to the time factor.
Even though outages do happen, you need to focus so much on your goal that they happen less and less or less frequently in your productivity cycle, that as the study mentioned, it depends on what time you get up and feel comfortable.
For this it is necessary that you forget your cell phone and your email during these hours when you are most motivated and only check them when you have a break.
It is recommended, also according to the study, that these breaks be 20 minutes; one motivation is that you remind yourself every day why you do what you do to gain perspective and focus.
It is not about letting things go, but taking a deep breath when, due to situations beyond your control, things are delayed more than you planned. Patience! Everything happens, everything changes, in less than you imagine you will have achieved what you dreamed of.
Undertaking is a path full of stumbles, falls and sudden lifts, but without a doubt when you work with passion many of those burdens can be alleviated.
Whatever happens, if you have faith in your project, work hard to achieve your dream. I promise you it will be worth it.