Before we dive deep into the practical strategies of time mastery, if you haven't checked out the first part of this series, you might want to give it a read. In that post, we chatted about the essence of time, understanding its true value, and the art of setting clear priorities in our entrepreneurial journey. Got that under your belt?

Awesome! 

Now, let's move on to the nitty-gritty: making the most of each day without burning out. Dive in as we explore hands-on strategies for time management, the underrated art of self-care, and some techy tools that might just be the game-changers you've been looking for.

Time Management Strategies

The Power of Choice

The time management strategies that make sense to you, might depend on your goals and priorities, not to mention your personal preferences. The most popular strategies are time blocking, the Eisenhower Matrix, and the Pomodoro Technique. The one you try first might not work for you, and some of them can be used in conjunction with each other.

You might find that time blocking works with the Pomodoro technique. This is where you would block off big chunks of time in your day for a specific theme of tasks (e.g. socials or email), and then setting Pomodoro timers for individual tasks within that (e.g. engaging on IG, or replying to yesterday’s incoming emails). 

Parkinson’s Law and its Implications

Parkinson’s Law states that “work expands to fill the time available for its completion,” which is a fancy way of saying that if you put 4 hours in your calendar for doing a task, it’ll take you 4 hours to complete it (or in reality, you’ll procrastinate for three and a quarter hours and get it done in the last 45 minutes). The inverse is also true, if you put it in your calendar for 30 minutes, you’ll get it done in half an hour. If you use a time tracker, rather than guestimating how long something will take, you can time block better because you have concrete figures on how long it took last time.

If you have a team, you might be able to delegate tasks to them so you have more time and flexibility in your schedule for self-care time, but we understand this isn’t always possible.

The Daily 3: A Game Changer

It might help to have a list of your top 3 priorities for the day written down (Daily 3), this can be on paper or in a project or task manager. These three should be your “if I do these three, I’ve been awesome today” tasks. If you already have your big goals and weekly objectives, it can help to have one of the three related to that. That way, you know you’re moving the needle on your big projects every day. It doesn’t matter how big these three tasks are, they just need to be the most important ones for the day. You could even time-block these into your calendar. This doesn’t have to be set in stone, but a recurring 2-hour time block could be helpful to make sure that you always have time scheduled to get them done. If you find you overrun, edit the block and make it longer for today, if you find that you get them done quicker, use the extra time remaining to journal, stretch, or do something else that’s nourishing your mind and body (not doom-scrolling IG!). 

Protecting Personal Well-being

Self-care is vital for everyone, but as entrepreneurs, sometimes it falls by the wayside. Self-care covers a variety of pursuits and will look different from person to person, but what isn’t different is its impact on our physical, mental, and emotional well-being. 

Calendar Blocking for well-being

If you’re struggling to protect your well-being, you could block out time in your calendar for it. The title of the time block doesn’t have to be specific, it can simply say ‘unavailable’ or ‘sacred time,’ whatever makes sense for you. If you have a shared calendar, it might be more acceptable to call it ‘unavailable,’ on the other hand, if you’re sharing your calendar with like-minded peeps, calling it “Protected: well-being” in your calendar might make sense.

At the Rootvik Agency, we put our health and well-being tasks in our calendars first, then work around that. Sure, there are some times when we get it wrong, and things need to change, but we start out with the intention of being good to ourselves first.

We know it’s hard to prioritize yourself when there are so many other demands on your time, but if you don’t protect your well-being, there’s a very good chance that it’s going to impact other areas of your life.

Tailoring your well-being choices to schedule around your energy

Your choices for your well-being are personal to you, but it could look like exercising, meditation, journaling, or taking restful breaks. It’s important to remember that well-being activities are productive. Have you ever been in the shower and a great idea came to you? That’s because your brain has the space to have a great idea because it’s not being pulled in a million directions at once. 

When considering your well-being you might like to think about the types of tasks you’re putting on your calendar, when they’re happening, and what’s going on before and after. If client meetings on Zoom wipe you out for the rest of the day, and you know you can’t do heavy tasks afterwards, it would make sense to put them at the end of the day, rather than at the start. If you know you’re at your most creative at 3pm, put you creative work then. Capitalize on your natural rhythm, don’t try and work against it. Keeping a mood journal or diary allows you to note these changes in capacity so that you have data specifically tailored to you, that you can use to inform future decisions around your calendar.

Leveraging Technology and Tools

Technology can help with time management, don’t be scared to try something new with advancements in technology happening at a mindboggling rate!

There are to-do list apps that have the Eisenhower Matrix built into how they present your information back to you. You put tasks in however you like, but depending on a specific set of parameters, the information will be displayed to you based on priority. This can be helpful if you know what you have to do, but don’t know how to prioritize it to get the most important things done first.

The power of time tracking

If you’re not sure how long something will take you, and you can’t correctly estimate your time, you might find that a time tracking app is helpful. Not only will you track your time, but you’ll be able to use that data to inform your time blocks next time a similar task comes up.

Automation can also save you time in the long run, although depending on the complexity of the automation, it may take some time to set it up the first time and test it. 

Optimizing your calendar and scheduling

Depending on the calendar application you’re using, you can set yourself as busy or free, even on entries not just on white space. If you’re using the Daily 3 (above), it could be beneficial to have this time block as busy so that no one can book a meeting with you over the top. Likewise, scheduling apps will allow you to set your working hours. These are 100% defined by you, so if you want to have your Daily 3 9am until 11am every day, when setting up your scheduling app, start your work day at 11.30am. You could even have your availability for meetings to start after lunch, giving you the whole morning to get stuck in and get things done. Or you take a more leisurely approach to your morning after your Daily 3 and make time for some meditation or journaling after your big push first thing in the morning.

What your morning or daily routine looks like is totally up to you, just make sure that it’s reflected everywhere; your calendar, your time blocks, and your scheduling platform. 

Self-care tech: mood and journaling apps

When considering self-care technology, journal, and mood-tracking apps often have alarms or reminders that can nudge you to record your mood and feelings or pause to journal for a moment. These can be invaluable when reclaiming your well-being, especially if you find yourself getting into a flow state and working for longer than is healthy in one sitting. Not that we’re suggesting that the flow state is a bad thing, far from it, but if this is something you experience, a small reminder to take a few deep breaths or to stand up and stretch might really benefit you.  

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In the entrepreneurial journey, time is a resource that, once spent, cannot be reclaimed. By harnessing effective time management strategies, we can ensure that each moment is used to its fullest potential. However, it's equally essential to remember that our well-being is intertwined with our productivity. By leveraging technology and tools tailored to our needs, we can create a routine that not only drives business success but also nurtures our mental, emotional, and physical health. After all, a well-balanced entrepreneur is a successful entrepreneur.