As a business owner, it’s easy to fall into the trap of wanting to do everything yourself. We get it, it’s hard to let go of your baby and let other people run things; they just won’t take care of her as you would.

However, if there’s one thing that the lives of all successful business owners will teach you, it’s that taking a backseat on the day to day running of your business is highly beneficial because it gives you the time to work on expanding your business and improving your product. Here are five reasons why you should consider outsourcing.

1. You Have Time to Work on Growing your Business

Outsourcing for your business frees you up to work on things that actually move the needle in your business. If you want to grow your business, you need to work on your business and not in it, so you need to be working on tasks like networking, sales, marketing, and other things that are going to grow your business.

If you spend your time working on the more mundane day to day tasks, you’re going to struggle to grow. Consider outsourcing tasks that take a lot of time but don’t necessarily and directly contribute to the growth of your business.

2. You Can Get Experts to do the Tasks for You

Another reason to embrace outsourcing is that it gives you the opportunity to utilise the skills of an expert or someone who’s better qualified for the task than you. For instance, you could outsource your administrative needs and get someone who is specialised in that field and enjoys doing that type of work.

This is guaranteed to make your business run more smoothly and effectively. You can also outsource your marketing needs, branding, video production, editing, and other business tasks as you deem fit.

If it’s something you know would be done better by someone else, consider outsourcing the task because doing a shabby job yourself can actually hurt your business. In some cases, you’re better off using someone more qualified than you to take your business to the next level.

3. You Eliminate the Tasks you Don’t Enjoy

The third and in my opinion, best reason to outsource your business needs is that it eliminates the tasks that you don’t like doing. We’ve all got tasks in our businesses that we hate doing, it’s just the reality of being an entrepreneur.

Personally, I hate administrative work and suck at it, so being able to outsource it is a breath of fresh air. If you’re able to outsource certain mundane tasks that you don’t like doing to someone else who perhaps loves doing them, then it’s a win-win.

4. It Allows You Take Some Time Off

Outsourcing some tasks enables you to step away from your business from time to time. A lot of people get into owning their own businesses so they have more control over their time and can allocate more time to their families and leisure.

Then they get into it and realise that owning a business is actually tougher and more time consuming than working a 9-5. Being able to outsource and delegate certain tasks will give you the opportunity to have better freedom and to perhaps go on holiday and do those things you’ve always wanted to do as well. While you may be all about the hustle, we also need that R&R as well, and outsourcing can help do that for you.

5. You Can Get Things Done Without Hiring Full-Time Staff

Outsourcing gives you the opportunity to try a lot of people for the same task without any commitment, so it’s a great bridging solution before hiring full-time staff.

If you’re going into business on your own, and you’re not yet big enough to hire full-time staff, but you can’t conveniently do everything yourself, outsourcing or perhaps hiring freelancers could be a very good solution for you.

This will enable you to bridge the gap between getting a little bit more wiggle room in your business and not having the overhead of employing full-time staff. Doing things this way can also give you options for when you’re ready to hire; you can convert willing freelancers into your full-time staff.

Conclusion

Outsourcing is a 21^st Century tool you should consider if you’re looking to grow your business. You can outsource anything from administrative work to customer service, to proposal writing. Getting these tasks off your to-do list allows you to focus on growing your business and getting more time to yourself and your family.

Outsourcing also helps you get fresh perspectives on your business. Freelancers can help you with new ideas or help you refine those you already have. So, you not only have more time to put into expanding your business, but you also acquire fresh ideas and insights.

Let me know what you think in the comments below.

The post 5 Reasons Why You Should Outsource Your Business Needs appeared first on Crewdo.

We often get into business to have more of our freedom and choice; however, soon after fully getting into the business, we realize without a doubt that self-employment can be the toughest job to handle. 

In this post, I will share with you some insights into the world of self-employment and how business owners can smoothly run their business according to what their lifestyle is. I will also write about the some of the most common misconceptions concerning the lifestyle business that you must ignore. Keep reading.

1. A Lifestyle Business Doesn’t Have to be an Online Business

The first misconception about lifestyle business is that it has to be an online business. This is not true. What I understand a lifestyle business to be is a business that can be run from basically everywhere. Of course, I agree that we need a laptop and a smartphone.

But, the business will operate from my location anywhere in the world, and it is not an online business. I have a business where I relocate medical equipment, everything is onsite, and we take things out of hospitals, put things in containers, and ship stock all over the world. In my other business, Crewdo Media, we help businesses create social media content, and it can be run from anywhere.

I made the choice of how my businesses should be run because, I personally like having the freedom and being able to choose where I can work from, having the freedom to take my family on holidays where and when I want to; and these are the most important factors to consider for me. So, I built and shaped my business with these in mind, and you can too.

Yes, You Can Delegate Tasks

So, if you do not run an online business, and you feel like you are a slave to your business, consider options around delegating. Basically, consider if you can delegate to other companies, contractors, or if you can employ more staff to delegate more work to them.

If you want to micromanage all your work, and basically being a control freak, you need to consider delegating your work if you are struggling with it. You need to understand that you can let go of some of the littler tasks in your business so you have more time for your personal life style.

2. Staffing is Highly Feasible and Viable

Another misconception about lifestyle business is that you can’t have staff in the business. Obviously, this is far from the truth. Contracting staff for your business will actually give you the much needed and essential time to take a break from your business. It’ll also increase your competitiveness.

If you feel you’re not in a position to get employees, you should consider the option of hiring freelancers. Upwork is a pretty good tool to use for that. Essentially, you can use the platform by putting up a description of the task that you need to get done, and available freelancers on the platform will contact you and bid for the job.

It is now left to you to take a look at their resumes and learn about the freelancers’ past working experience. Once you make your decision and hire a freelancer, Upwork does a lot of the work for you by ensuring the freelancer is actually working, and then ensuring the payment is made at the end of the project by automatically debiting you. So, this is a really fast, easy and secure way to hire employees if you feel like you can’t handle it locally. And, it is actually a method we used in the early days of our business.  

3. Definitely, You Can Grow a Lifestyle Business

The third misconception surrounding the lifestyle business is that you can’t grow the business. And in some cases, this is true. If you are planning on starting a business, and you do not properly calculate how much funds to take out for your personal expenses, and how much to invest back in for the growth of your business, then you will probably hinder the profitable growth of your business.

But, if your business is fully functional, with employees and you have outsourced or delegated your business; you have software that is automating a lot of manual processes, your work is versatile enough to be handled from anywhere, then your business should be getting a large amount of profits invested back into it, to enable the proper and successful growth of the business.

So, the idea that you can’t grow a lifestyle business is definitely a misconception.

In a Nutshell

There they are; the three most common misconceptions about a lifestyle business. I really hope reading this article helped. I will be creating a load of Business for Business Owners series, particularly on how I run my own business to allow for my freedom. Also, I will release fresh articles on using content and video marketing to grow your business.

If you haven’t already checked out my social media channels and pages, do so on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. And don’t forget to like, follow, and subscribe. Thanks for reading.

The post 3 Common Misconceptions about a Lifestyle Business appeared first on Crewdo.

If you are looking to grow your business online, then no doubt you would have heard about content marketing. It’s a buzzword that gets frequent use, but sometimes, it is misused, and its meaning can be somewhat confusing. It is an ever-changing and evolving trend that can be difficult to keep up with; particularly when social media and technological changes are so frequent these days.

In this post, I will discuss the five methods we have used to grow our own businesses and also clients’ businesses, so keep reading.

1. Inbound Marketing

The first method we will discuss is inbound marketing. Inbound marketing is fundamentally the exact same thing as content marketing. It was actually started by a software company; HubSpot, who designed their services and software around the methodology of inbound marketing.

What is inbound marketing? Essentially, inbound marketing is basically creating content that is solution based. The main objective should be creating a solution for your target audience.

For example, if your ideal customers are looking online for a solution to fix a specific problem, principally, you create content that puts forth answers to those problems. Then, you format that content to ensure that Google places it at the top of their search results; so when your target customers go on Google looking for a solution, they will find yours.

In a nutshell, you are providing solutions and answers to your customers, and ensuring the answers are easily displayed on search engines like Google. This is a very good and strategic marketing method to adopt, especially if you have a product or service that has a long consideration period.

So, if your customers have to go through a long buying journey before finally purchasing your product or service, or there is a long research period involved, then I recommend you implement the inbound marketing strategy.

2. Utilise the Power of Audiovisuals

Another method you can use is creating videos or creating long-form videos. For long-form videos, it could be tutorials or vlogs, it could be a Q&A show, it could be an interview show or a podcast; the list is long. Essentially, it would be a long video that should give a lot of value; a lot of successful entrepreneurs in this business use this method.

One of the more popular entrepreneurs is Gary Vaynerchuk, who makes daily vlogs, and films a weekly Q&A show that doubles as a podcast. You are more or less using the platform of video to give a ton of value to your customers.

3. Re-purpose Your Content

The third method you can use is repurposing your content. On what I said about long-form videos, one of the best things you can do to maximize them is by chopping it down to micro-content to be posted on Facebook and the likes.

The microcontent you can find on social platforms is more or less snippets of what your service offers because people on Facebook will not want to sit and watch the full length of your videos. The best way to get the most essential parts of the video is by identifying the parts of the long form video that might really resonate with your audience.

The length of the videos could vary, but it should remain brief. Your video length could be 15, 20 seconds, or even a minute long, as long as it talks about something valuable to your audience.

And then, you can bait your audience into going to your page, your channel, or watching your long-form videos to know more about what you offer.

You can also repurpose these long-form videos into graphic cards, taking out quotes, tips, statements, tricks, facts or anything else you have mentioned in the video that seems worthwhile.

Or, in interview videos, you can take whatever the person you interviewed has said, and put it into graphic cards. Employ the help of a graphic designer to create good pieces from the show. This way, you are taking a one-foot long piece of content, and turning it into multiple pieces of content.

4. Determine Your Buyers’ Personas

The fourth method you can implement is familiarizing yourself with your buyers. The buzzword for this is ‘buyers’ persona,’ it can also be referred to as ‘customer avatars.’ But, what it is, is understanding who your customer is, all the way down to giving them names and building personas around them.

So, instead of you saying ‘I want to create content for 30 – 45-year-old males who are interested in so and so…’ you can make your end goal more personal by building personas around people and giving them names.

It is so much easier to create content for a specific persona or person than creating content for a very wide, diverse audience.

5. Implement a Sales Funnel

The fifth method you can use is implementing a sales funnel.  Now, you should be well aware of what a sales funnel is if you are in business and advertising online.

You are probably well familiar with the term ‘sales funnel’, and probably already have a funnel set up for yourself. So, I just want to touch on some of the things that have worked for our customer service.

A traditional sales funnel is where you put up an ad on Facebook or an ad on any other platform, promoting a service or product, and getting people to click on it. The click takes them to a landing page where they get a free piece of content, and then they essentially start getting a series of emails.

With this way being the traditional method, basically, every random person jumped on the bandwagon. So, a couple of sales funnels that we have implemented for our clients and us have been using Facebook ads to create a funnel by having cold audiences, warm audiences, and hot audiences.

While doing this, they still maintain a way that they provide relevant content to the right people and also doing that in conjunction with the traditional sales funnel by utilising email marketing.

What that means is your sales funnel is built up of you showing up on people’s timelines, and their inboxes. And one other thing that has been working really well for us other than emails is chatbots. If you didn’t know this already, you could implement a chatbot into your Facebook Messenger.

So, rather than sending someone off to a landing page, they can essentially click on your ad and be automatically sent a message within Facebook messenger. The benefits of this are that it takes away the excess hassle of having to first go to a landing page, put in their email, and wait for the piece of content or whatever it is you are offering, to be sent to them. They just click on the ad, and it goes straight to the Facebook messenger.

And, one more tip regarding the use of sales funnels. As I said, you put a video up, and some will go through a landing page, but what is happening now is the trust factor for online marketing is dipping fast. So, you need to create a more personal touch with your audience. The best way to create a good rapport with your audience is by staying relevant and maintaining consistency; two vital things.

A lot of people talk about engagement on social media; like someone liking your post, sharing your post, or commenting on your post. All these are very good, but there are many passive Facebook and Instagram users. You might be showing up on their timeline and resonating with them, but they are not liking, commenting on, or sharing your content.

But, this does not mean that you are being longer relevant to them, or that you are building a rapport with them. However, they might still become a customer eventually. So, it is all about maintaining relevance and consistency. And one of the best ways to do that is by giving value without trying to sell anything.

And also, just maintaining a steady and consistent delivery of content. So what I do is that I’ll film once a month and then it will go through a Crewdo Engine. The editor will edit the video, and the graphic designer will also do his part with the graphic quotes and all. So, we do that for our customers often, and I’m a bit slack on it because I’ve just been too busy.

But, implementing and being strict on making content once a month is something I shouldn’t have any excuses to slack off on.

So there you have it; five marketing methods that have worked wonderfully for us and our clients and hopefully will work for you too.

If you want to learn more about video and content marketing, or just learn more about me, feel free to make a visit to any of my social media channels like Facebook, Instagram or YouTube. And, if you haven’t already done so, please like, follow or subscribe. Thank you.

The post 5 Surefire Methods to Grow Your Own Business appeared first on Crewdo.

Thinking about things step by step and how it all flows together is the secret ingredient to becoming an efficient and productive entrepreneur.
 
 

As an entrepreneur and business owner, the benefits of documenting processes as you go is a great practice to master and an even better one to mould into a routine habit.

Overcoming hurdles and problem-solving is a daily practice, facing new problems for the first time in particular.

Systems and processes are essential in not only streamlining your business but in guaranteeing growth as well.

Simply put…documenting procedures are the answer to the common question “How to build a business?”
 
 
In this article, I share all the tips and tricks that I have learnt and implemented using an 11-step process creation procedure.

So what is the best way to start creating processes for your business?

Have you ever tried to explain to a team member how to complete a detailed task from memory on something you did only once?

I have and, unfortunately, it didn’t work well for me.

If you have the ability to document how you overcome these problems, then not only will you have valuable resources for next time but so will everyone else within your company, minimising the amount of time spent on solving this problem again in the future.

In other words, creating processes is like leaving a trail so you can go forward and lead the way for staff.

Procedures should be documented as you go, enabling you to break a process down and get an accurate step-by-step account of exactly how you achieve the task.
 
 

Most entrepreneurs plan to go back and document the technique after overcoming a problem or completing a job.

But guess what? They usually don’t get around to it and all that hard work and effort disappears entirely!

Trying to write a process later often misses out crucial steps, leaving pitfalls for the next person that follows the procedure, causing more problems and costing more time in productivity.
 
 

What if you had the discipline to write a complete guide step by step as you went through the task the first time?

Also noting any errors you made so that the next person could complete the task again with little or no errors.

Yes…I know what you are thinking!

Documenting a process does take a lot of time and attention to detail.

I even bet that you have attempted to create processes and given up purely because of the time involved.

However, the time you get back, in the long run, is certainly worth far more than 10 times.
 
 
the investment initially.

Here are a few good reasons why you should document everything as you go:
 

• Thorough problem-solving process;
• Automated knowledge transfer;
• Fewer questions are asked;
• Saves you from making the same mistakes again and again;
• Consistency;
• Increases productivity and saves time;
• Decreases costs;
• Provides business agility;
• Team and Freelancer compliance;
• Helps you and your business grow;
• Ease of outsourcing tasks;
• Eliminate flaws;
• Improves overall quality; and
• Frees you up!

Using a business process example this is the 11-step documentation procedure that I go through:
 
Step 1: Process Title

Write a precise title for your procedure so that the reader knows exactly what the process covers and what they will achieve by completing it.

For example:
 
Step 2: Process Brief

Write a quick paragraph that provides context and insert it underneath the title.

Step 3: Process Boundaries

Identify the precise start and end points.

• What triggers the process to start?
• And how you know when it’s complete?

 
Make sure that your process concentrates on one aspect from start to finish.
 
For example:
 
If the guide describes how to write a blog article it would need to be separated into a few different processes like “How to select a focus keyword for your blog post”, “How to research a topic to write a blog post”, etc.
Step 4: Process Steps

Take note of the steps that need to be followed to get the process from start to finish as you go through and complete the task, solving your problem.

Get detailed! Use links to helpful resources if necessary and screenshots where you can.

I do this in a Word Doc so that I can easily edit steps as I go forward or backwards solving the problem and completing the task.

I also use PicMonkey to edit any screenshots adding things like arrows and comments. Best of all it’s free!
 

For example:

Step 5: Process Organisation

Take all the steps you identified and make sure the sequence flows and the identified decision points make sense and cannot be confused.

The process documentation template that you use to create all of your procedures should be simple but effective and very easy to follow.

This is where I spend more time editing screenshots with PicMonkey and adding further links to the process to provide any valuable resources as references should the reader need clarification or education.

Step 6: Process Review

Take a look at the sequence as a first quality check.

Does it look complete based on the boundaries you defined in Step 3?

Step 7: Process Roles

Identify the roles that will be completing each step. If a specialist team member is needed in any of the steps throughout the process be sure to outline this so that the person following the guide knows who they need to collaborate with.

Step 8: Save Process

Categorise your procedure and save it in the appropriate category of your process hub.

I use Google Drive as my process management system because it is simple, straightforward and works well for collaboration with my team.

Step 9: Final Process Review

Get anyone that will be following the process to trial or review it and make any further suggestions or comments.

Step 10: Approve Process

Should the procedure need further clarification or editing after your teams review make any necessary changes and secure approval from all team members.

Step 11: Update Process

As you and your team complete the procedure repeatedly over time, make sufficient changes and updates improving the process.

The other reason I use Google Drive for this is that my team can highlight a section of the process and make comment without changing the procedure. I will then be notified by email and can access the process and comment from a link within the email to reply to the comment, make the necessary changes or instruct team members to make the necessary changes.
 
 
So what other process documentation best practices are important?

How your processes should be stored:

Make sure your procedures are centrally stored on your internal drives. Google Drive will do this automatically but will also let you select which files are synced and which are not should you choose too.

Organising your process and information system:

Segmenting your procedures by departments for example sales, marketing, operations or administration and by level of role within your company is a great way to organise your process database if you run a large company.

You don’t want your whole team having access to all of your resources for security purposes. Make sure only the people that need to have access to those procedures, get access to those files.

Focus on Collaboration:

Emphasise the importance of processes with your team. With more and more team members working off site, your system should enable users to collaborate seamlessly.

Your team needs to access files simultaneously without having to log out, and they need to track revisions and document versions in detail. Make sure that the system you implement catalogues all changes and lists document versions in logical order so that your team can reference previous instances quickly.

If you found this process documentation guide helpful be sure to share it with those who may find it useful also!

The post How Process Documentation Made Me A More Efficient Entrepreneur appeared first on Crewdo.

Highly self-disciplined entrepreneurs:

• Follow through on ideas and commitments to self and others.
• Are persistent in their work routines.
• Prioritise extremely well.
• Are efficient at completing tasks that need to be done and out of the way on a daily basis.
• Focus on the task at hand and do not allow them self to be distracted from their planned work.
• Systematise routine work so they can spend their prime time on critical activities.
• Delegate routine tasks that don’t need their entrepreneurial expertise.
• Put in the time necessary to get the job done.
• Record and analyse their progress

Entrepreneurs who LACK self-discipline:

• Are easily distracted.
• Struggle with consistent action.
• Are disorganised in their work.
• Have no established work plans or routines.
• Forget tasks and miss appointments and deadlines.
• Fail to track their activities and results.
• Have difficulty executing.

Below are the strategies I have used to hone not only my entrepreneurial self-discipline but also increase discipline in other areas of my life so that I can grow and get the most out of everything I like to do!

First, How to Understand Self-Discipline

 
To get a better understanding of how discipline works in your life try this:

Write the name of a person you know who possesses great discipline?

Describe the evidence for choosing this person?

Outline where you lack self-discipline?

Write your own definition of the Self-Discipline success factor?

Now describe how you can apply this self-discipline in your life?

How You Can Practice Self-Discipline

Now that you understand more about self-control and have a clearer picture of how it might work for you as an entrepreneur, it is time to practice what you have learned by creating specific affirmations for self-discipline and spending time visualising that it is already creating success for you.

An example of an affirmation focused on a self-disciplined entrepreneur is:

“Day by day I am building the foundations of a business that will bring me long-term success”.

If you identified areas that you lack discipline then try writing an affirmation for each one.

For example: If you lack discipline in getting the most important tasks completed on a daily basis:

“First thing every workday I complete the most important tasks and don’t allow myself to be distracted”.“I set work priorities on a daily basis and stick to them”

“My systematic way of planning every workday is paying off in productivity”

Remember to keep them short and simple and to phrase them in the present tense as though you were describing your current reality.

How You Can Create a Daily Practice of Entrepreneurial Self-Discipline

 
Now that you have written and visualised your affirmations, the next step is to practice them regularly until they become second nature to you.

Adhering to the following steps will greatly increase your ability to incorporate and apply self-discipline successfully in your life as an entrepreneur. Set your intention, affirm and visualise.

Take a few moments at the beginning and ending of each day to write your affirmations down repeatedly (at least 10 times).

This sets your intention to incorporate them into your life, and visualise yourself happily applying them.

I find the best way to do this is in a journal where I can also make notes of any additional thoughts.

Review it daily to make sure you are on track. Reassess, Reward, Revise, And Repeat!

After practising your affirmations for a few weeks, reassess how you are doing on the core behaviours of your self-discipline. If you feel that you now use all aspects of the core behaviours effectively, reward yourself. If you need more work, write a new affirmation to target the core behaviours that are still weak. Then begin the cycle again.

The secret to rewarding yourself is to make it something that is beneficial to succeeding further. I used to train under the guidance of a very wise holistic personal trainer Dave Cheyne who would always say…

“why is it that when we reward ourselves, we treat ourselves with something like an unhealthy meal? Doesn’t it make much more sense to reward yourself with a healthy meal?”

Those comments have stuck with me. Why undo your hard work with something that is going to take you back a step. Sometimes it only takes one area of your life to destroy the discipline in all the other areas of your life.

One way in which Dave’s comment resonated with me the most was the amount of alcohol I was consuming. Binge drinking is certainly a culture where I grew up. Through our 20’s a lot of us make the most of living a very social lifestyle but at the expense of a lot of personal growth, productivity and achievements.

This area of my life is where I lacked the most self-discipline, an area that took me the longest to hone and an area that let me down the most because of my lack of self-restraint.

When we are young the world is your oyster and it’s then that we really have the opportunity to try things and head in any direction we choose. Yet we decide that going out late, drinking excessively and socialising is our biggest priority, all while expecting something great to happen.

Well, guess what I never found it there and most never do.

Great opportunities only present themselves when you have the discipline to:

Focus

Prioritise

Take Action Consistently

Execute

Be Resilient

Hold only yourself accountable!

The end result is 10x more personal growth and the skills to manage yourself with every opportunity that does arrive.

Without honing your entrepreneurial discipline, opportunities will slip by without you even noticing.

Nothing Will Happen Without Execution and Consistent Action

 

In the early stages of entrepreneurship you may not know where to go next. So you either search for the wrong information or you aren’t time efficient enough in finding the right information and during that time waste energy and learning capacity by taking in the wrong or useless information.

Without commitment you’ll never start, but without consistency you’ll never finish.
The greatest entrepreneurs filter through information to find the right content to self educate and do so at a phenomenal speed. These entrepreneurs are like a sponge, they soak up all the good stuff and put it to use immediately.

This skill won’t happen overnight but as you develop discipline as an entrepreneur you will gain a knack for knowing exactly what to do next and how to find exactly what you need to self-teach so that you can go further in the right direction.

I am fortunate that my business partner Dane Shelford is one of these entrepreneurs. With his ability to filter through information and take in all the important pieces of gold at a great speed, he can provide a lot of valuable direction and insight.

Surround yourself with these types of people and learn all you can from them. Remember people with entrepreneurial drive and discipline have high self-esteem, which enables them to ask for help without embarrassment.

Make a practice of seeking help and advice whenever you can and in particular whenever you get bogged down or you encounter a seemingly difficult obstacle. Test your ideas with others to get help in thinking them through and to gain support.

More Tips for Developing Self-Discipline

Observe a person whose self-discipline you admire. Talk with this person about his or her attitudes towards work. Ask to see the tools that he or she uses to manage time, administrative activities and collaboration.
Use a planning calendar to set priorities and to plan and record your daily and monthly activities. Hold yourself accountable to your plan.

Plan an effective office routine and make it a habit. Begin work early every day and aim for creating a common pattern for each week. Some people including myself do this by planning an ideal work week schedule.
Keep your office and desk neat, well organised, and free of distractions. Make a place for everything and keep everything in its place.
Say “no” to distractions.

In your journal, write about some common “time wasters” in your daily schedule, then create a plan to eliminate them. Use the extra time to devote to activities that promise the best return on your time and effort.
When you catch yourself being self-disciplined, give yourself some credit! Take the time to experience how good you feel about what you have done and encourage yourself to do it again.

Think of sometimes in the past when you have shown self-discipline. Try to identify common elements in those experiences. Seek opportunities for similar experiences in the future.

Become aware of your self-talk and make an effort to eliminate any negative thoughts that erode your discipline. Consciously substitute one of your affirmations and repeat it over and over instead.
Increasing discipline in one aspect of your life triggers a flow on effect to other areas in your life. Starting small is the key and when you start to see the benefits of the increased discipline you have created you will gain momentum and seek higher levels of discipline.

The rewards really are unimaginable; there is no better time to start than right now. Ease is a greater threat to progress than hardship, so keep moving, keep growing and keep learning.

Do you have the self-discipline to take action right now?

The post How to Become the MacGyver of Entrepreneurial Self-Discipline appeared first on Crewdo.

The good news is that with the help of technology and information sharing, there are now more ways than ever to tackle the issue of time management and productivity so that you can answer the question of how to manage time and start thinking big!

Everyone operates and functions in different ways, what works for me may not work for you, but the end goal is likely the same; personal growth and fulfilment.

So, are there more effective time management strategies that can help you do things better?

Do you know what time management techniques entrepreneurs and everyday people are utilising to get the most out of the hours in their day?

Here are 46 time management strategies that I utilise as part of my entrepreneurial time management system.

1. Start Now!

 
Doing is better than perfect. You can waste too much time trying to make something perfect. Start now get it done and the next time you do it you will be better, eventually maybe even perfect.

“Someday is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you” – Tim Ferriss

2. Forget the Excuses

 
The best time wasters have every excuse under the sun. They are only fooling themselves!

Control your mind and don’t let it trick you into believing excuses. Next time an excuse pops into your head stop and create some awareness around it.

Think for a second:

Hang on where is this excuse coming from?

Am I just using an excuse to trick myself into not having to do something Be aware of the decisions you are making and how they will impact you in the long term.

A good friend of mine Nick Mannix was in a horrific accident that left him a tetraplegic. He works his arse off every day to give himself the chance to walk again one day.

I think of him on a daily basis, especially when I find myself fabricating excuses. In that context, there aren’t many excuses for me to not get it done!

You can’t change the situation, the only thing you can change is how you deal with it!

-Nick Mannix
 

 

3. Prepare Yourself

 
Don’t hope you’re going to have a good day, prepare yourself to have a good day by going through a morning ritual. Get yourself ready in a way that works for you, so that you’re in the right place to have a great day and be as time effecient as possible.

4. The Importance of Daily Rituals

 
Rituals help you find your rhythm and prepare you best for your next task.

Although your day can be made up of many different rituals, the main two to focus on are your morning and night rituals.

Morning Ritual is the process you go through upon waking to prepare you for the day ahead.

What is crucial here is knowing yourself and what works best for you personally. I feel the best if I get up when I first wake usually around 5.30am. If I sleep in I feel sluggish for the rest of the day.

My morning ritual:

The first thing I do is make the bed and I cheat a little bit here. I only use a sheet on the mattress and then a duvet (no top sheet).

The reason for this is plain and simple:

I don’t like top sheets; they are a pain in the arse and too much work.

It’s so easy to get up, grab your duvet and fling it in the air – bingo your bed is made. First easy win for the day!

Whenever you wash your bottom sheet you wash your duvet cover at the same time. Simple logic; to me anyway. My girlfriend hates it but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Hydrate, put on my shoes, grab my headphones and head out the door for a stroll. I go for a walk because it’s low intensity and an easy way to get the body going without the pressure of having to push yourself first thing in the morning.

It also gives me the opportunity to listen to a podcast, making the most of my time, stimulating the mind and gaining inspiration. I usually listen to Marketing School by Neil Patel & Eric Siu.

Then I either do a rehab session consisting of stretching and self-massage, go for a quick flat-water paddle or skate some bowls.

This ritual really pumps me up for the day and gets me excited about what I am going to do next. In fact, this article was a result of a mornings walk inspiration. Starting the day with small wins helps you structure your day, find your rhythm and make the most out of every minute in your day.

Night Ritual is the process you go through before going to sleep to wind down for the day and prepare yourself as best as possible to wake up refreshed the next morning.

Finish the day with something that is going to set you up for tomorrow!
For me this is yoga. A session of bikram or hatha flow to sweat out all of the stresses from the day. If I don’t do a yoga class I will spend some time foam rolling in the living room.
After yoga I have a late dinner that I have usually pre-prepared. Then I sit down and identify the 3 most important tasks I have to complete the next day and put them at the top of my Trello list “DOING”.

While doing this I have a hot cup of water with 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar and 1 tablespoon of manuka honey. This hot drink is well known and commonly used by the likes of Tim Ferriss and helps you sleep like a log. I certainly notice a difference and will most often have an uninterrupted sleep.

Although I never have problems with going to sleep this night ritual makes a massive difference when I wake up in the morning and jump out of bed rather than crawl out of bed. I need 7 hours of sleep every night.

A ritual or routine shouldn’t be forced. It’s about finding what works best for you to maximise your time management and productivity so that you can operate in the most efficient way on a regular basis.

5. Priorities

 
There is always time. Time is priorities.

“Focus on being productive instead of being busy.” – Tim Ferriss

6. Organise Your Tasks

 
The “To Do List” is the nuts and bolts of your daily productivity and time saving measures. With a lot of different apps and methods to choose from, your To Do List is still more than likely cluttered with little structure meaning you’re less efficent than you could be.

Find a simple method that is organised, saves you time and stick to it.

Trello is one of my favourite time management tools. It works extremely well for me purely because it is very simple to use, can be partially automated and integrates with Gmail.
 

 
You can create as many Trello boards as you like, however, my main board for organising the day and week ahead is labelled TASKS. I add any tasks as a card to the list WAITING as they come to mind and from there I can drag and drop the task into THIS WEEK, DOING or DONE.

On my board TASKS, I also have a list TO PAY which is where any manually paid invoices are easily added as a card to the list from Gmail.

Manage it on your laptop or desktop but also be sure to download the mobile app so you can add tasks on the go and manage anything from your phone quickly as need be.

7. Use Trello With Google Calendar

 
Using pre-made recommended zaps in Zapier you can automate the copying of any events scheduled in your Google Calendar to create new cards in your Trello boards and lists of choice.
 

 
I run this zap to add any events scheduled in my Google Calendar for the day ahead automatically to the list DOING in my Trello board TASKS.
 

 

8. Schedule All Events in Your Calendar With a Reminder

 
Don’t rely on your brain to remember everything. Always take notes.

9. Manage Your Email Inbox Effectively

 
Do you have a system in place to manage your emails?

Or is it just deal with it, as you need to?

Having a process in place to deal with your emails can save you a world of hurt and embarrassment when you forget to follow up or reply to important emails.

Since I use Trello I can add any email as a card to any of my lists on my Trello boards by simply clicking the “Add this Gmail to Trello” icon above an opened email.

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I use this for things such as manually paid invoices that are emailed to me and save it to the list “TO PAY” in my TASKS Trello board.

This is also great for emails that require attention later on. Simply add the email as a card to one of your other lists WAITING, THIS WEEK or DOING. Then once it’s ready to be taken care of you will have dragged and dropped the card into the task list DOING. This is how I plan for my next day, by dragging and dropping the tasks I want to complete before heading off to bed.
 

 

 
To integrate Gmail to Trello for maximum efficiency download the extension in Google Chrome.
 

 

10. Create a Trello Board for Your Assistant and Collaborate

 
I manage my assistant’s tasks in Trello by creating a board for her which we both have access to. It outlines all the re-occurring weekly tasks as individual cards from Monday through to Friday and I add any tasks I want to assign to her on a one-off basis by creating a card and adding it to the list for the relevant day.

Every morning she logs in and sees what is scheduled for the day ahead on top of the re-occurring tasks.
 

 

11. Use Google Chrome

 
 

 
It’s fast and does not have the compatibility issues that most other browsers have with some software.

12. Utilise Extensions on Google Chrome

 

 
By enhancing the functionality of your Chrome browser Chrome Extensions are the micro time management strategies that save you a whole lot of time. Here are 100 Chrome Extensions that you should install!

13. Download an Ad Blocker Extension

 

Advertising is slowly becoming a thing of the past.

People are trained to ignore ads in this day and age and downloading an ad blocker extension is just one of many ways to cut out unwanted messages and delays in productivity online.

I use Adblock Plus and have been running it for almost 2 years. In that time it has blocked a staggering 25,109 ads on my Mac so far! In other words, it is simply a must in regards to automated time management technology.

14. Google Drive

As far as cloud based storage goes, Google Drive is excellent for collaborating, storing, syncing and sharing files with ease. You can edit Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint and Microsoft Word files without converting them. Or save them as a google doc with various formats such as docs, sheets, forms, slides, etc.

Again, make the most of Chrome Extensions and download the Save to Google Drive extension to save web content or browser screenshots to your Google drive quickly and effortlessly.
 

 

15. Work is the Best Way to Get Working

 
Break large tasks into little chunks.

Start with small tasks to get the ball rolling.

Work through one at a time.

16. Stop Multi-Tasking at Work

 
Multitasking at work kills your focus. Larger tasks should be broken down into smaller tasks and concentrated on one at a time. Its a tried and true time management technique.

17. Start Multi Tasking Outside of Work

 
Outside of the office, you perform a lot more mundane tasks that don’t require a whole lot of concentration. I usually try to get a surf in three mornings a week and make the drive from Melbourne to the coast which is anywhere between 1 hour 20 minutes and 1 hour 40 minutes depending on where I surf.

I use this time to listen to long-form podcasts and take any notes using a voice recorder so that I am not distracted from driving and can refer back to them later for further study or organisation.

18. Create a Routine That Works

 
If you’re an entrepreneur you really are working all the time, however, create a routine where you have identified hours to get the important tasks completed and stick to it.

I like to be in the office by 8.00-9.00am and from then until 12.00pm is the timeframe I concentrate on getting the 3 most important tasks I organised the night before done and out of the way for the day.

After lunch, I can be in the office from anywhere between 1.00pm to 7.00pm. This is my time to work on tasks going forward. Whether its strategies, planning or content creation I can cruise along and get things done at my own pace.

Sometimes I might wrap it up and be done by 5.00pm. Each day is different from the next but the main focus is getting those 3-4 most productive hours complete at the beginning of my workday.

A typical well time managed routine for me looks like this:

– 05.30am Wake

05.30 – 07.30am Morning Ritual

07.30 – 08.00am Breakfast & Shower

08.00 – 12.00pm Uninterrupted Work

12.00 – 01.00pm Lunch Ritual

01.00 – 5/7.00pm Work

5/7.00 – 07.30pm Free Time

07.30 – 10.30pm Night Ritual

10.30pm – Bed

But remember more work hours doesn’t necessarily mean better time management and more productivity.

19. Don’t Slack Off Today Because You Had a Productive Day Yesterday

 
“Yesterdays home runs, don’t win today’s games.” – Babe Ruth

20. Embrace Change, Pivot & Adapt Quickly

 
Instagram began as Burbn combining elements of Foursquare (check-ins) with elements of the social network game Mafia Wars (hence the name Burbn). Throughout the process the creators saw mobile photos as an awesome opportunity and decided to pivot, strip everything back and focus solely on photos.

This example of pivoting and adapting quickly proved to be a wise decision considering the 2 founders sold the app to Facebook 18 months after launching for $1 billion ($300 million in cash and the rest in Facebook stock).

“You have to be able to adapt quickly. If you aren’t able to adapt to market changes, someone else will.” – Neil Patel

21. Block Out Distractions

 
I no longer have the Facebook app on my phone, its a trap! It’s just too easy to get stuck in the Facebook vortex and waste 20 minutes going through your news feed while you forget what the real reason was that you had to get on your phone for.

Since I have a password manager I generate custom passwords so I actually don’t even know my password to be able to log in from my phone using Google either! And I don’t use the password manager app on my phone for that reason also.

I still have the Facebook messenger app on my phone, however, I don’t allow notifications so I am not interrupted by a message and will check to see if I have any messages in my own time.

Same goes with anything else on my phone that isn’t business related; “Allow Notifications” is set to off.

Blocking out distractions in this day and age is crucial in the realm of time management strategies.

22. Record Anything That Distracts You

 
New Ideas

Thoughts

Searches

This way you can revisit it at a suitable time. When you do, you won’t have to spend time trying to remember what it was that popped into your head.

23. Keep Mornings / Afternoons Contextual

 
Switching between projects or clients is unproductive and wastes valuable time.

24. Organise Meetings and Calls Early in The Day

 
Get them out of the way early so that you have to be prepared the day before. A lot of the time leading up to meetings is wasted if they are set later in the day.

25. Group Similar Calls

 
Grouping calls in the same context save a huge amount of time compared to having them placed sporadically throughout the week and it also helps you refine your skills.

26. Leave Time in Between

 
You know when you’re late or rushing to be on time, whatever you were doing gets cut short and you say to yourself “I will finish that later”. Well, do you really finish it later? Usually, if you do come back to it later it takes twice as much time as it would have if you had a few spare minutes to complete it when you were working on it.

Make sure you give yourself realistic time between meetings and tasks. Having an extra 10 minutes or so up your sleeve lets you complete tasks thoroughly. That way you can pride yourself on being on time and cut down on the time used going back to complete tasks.

27. Move Your Body!

 
It doesn’t matter what you do, just do something. Do something every day! You will feel ten times better for it, expelling toxins, increasing energy levels, clearing the mind and accomplishing more in allowed time frames.
 

 
With fitness it doesn’t have to be about pushing yourself all of the time, it’s about getting it done.
Sure some days you aren’t going to be in the mood to exercise but don’t let that determine your decision not to do it. Even if you turn up and get it done at 50% intensity you are still winning the day. On the days when your energy levels are at their best, you will automatically push yourself without having to find motivation from deep within.
Over time the more exercise you do the more you will feel like pushing yourself.
If you can turn up and get some consistency then, in the long run, the results and gains will surpass what you imagined possible. For example: Obviously, with my work commitments I can’t get out and surf every day, so instead if I can’t get out for a wave I will shoot down to Elwood 10mins away and jump in the bay with my surfboard and do some flat water interval paddling.
A huge percentage of surfing is paddling so if I go and do this for just 20 minutes a day it catapults my surfing. 1. Because I am increasing my paddle fitness and 2. I increase my surfing posture by working on paddle strength, power and endurance.

I will do different drills depending on how I am feeling. If I don’t have much time and I’m not frothing I will do 20 quick sets of 20 explosive strokes. This doesn’t take long or much energy but the benefits are huge and you come away feeling fresh and ready to smash out the rest of the day.

My girlfriend competes in long course Ironman’s (3.8km swim, 180km bike and 42km run). She trains 7 days a week, anywhere between 2-3 hours/day during the week and 3-8 hours/day in the weekend. She also works full time 40 hours a week! So for me fitting in the time for a 20-minute paddle, some days should never be an issue.

Prioritising time for your hobbies is important so that you can get wins in other areas of your life outside of work and business, then when it’s a real grind you will be thankful for some success in other areas.

28. Know Your Body

 
Knowing your own body and where its weaknesses and strengths lie is vital to getting the most out of every day. Try different sports or training methods. Doing something new will teach you more about your body and you may just find something you like.

It also enables you to focus on the weaker areas in your daily rituals. For example, my left hip flexor can tighten if I don’t maintain it which then leads to lower back pain. So as part of my daily rituals, whether it’s stretching or foam rolling, this is an area I make sure I focus more attention on every day, if not a few times a day. This minimises or eliminates any problems that may reduce wasted time.

29. Get a Wardrobe Routine

 
time-mangement-strategies 15.jpg

I wear a combination of different coloured AS colour t-shirts daily.

They are cheap, fit well to my body shape, look tidy and presentable and they are easy to re-order as they wear out, saving any time hassles when deciding what to wear or what clothes to buy.

30. Quit Sugar

 
What happens if you quit sugar? You’ll feel better than ever.

31. Pre-Prepare Meals

 
The Daily Burn provides a lot of helpful ideas around pre-preparing meals to save you a lot of time. Being a country lad at heart, most Sundays I will make a stew in a large slow cooker.

It’s easy to do, loaded with vegetables and goodness and provides meals for me for most of the week. Sometimes I will eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner! This saves me a huge amount of time and money.

32. Measure Your Level of Discipline

 
It’s easy to say “yeah I have been out of bed before 6 every day the last 2 weeks”. But do you have the data that brings it into a reality?

Use simple time-saving apps to measure custom daily goals, giving you an accurate idea of how disciplined you really are. Keeping a daily record of the things you want to track gives you the ability to identify patterns in your habits from real data.
 
 
I use the app Way of Life to track my habits and because it is so efficient to use. I track a big range of things, from did I surf today to did I get to bed before 10.30pm? You can then go back and review how successful you were over the week, months or years and identify areas in your day that might be letting you down or explain why you aren’t improving in certain areas important to you.

33. Have Something to Look Forward to

It could be anything from going for a surf on the weekend to a week-long working holiday. It doesn’t have to be something big or irregular. By finding gratitude in the smallest things, you always have something to look forward to on a daily basis.

I look forward to my cup of cider and manuka honey while I jot down the three most important tasks I want to get done before lunchtime the next morning. I am grateful that it works so well for me and with a forward thinking mind it sets me up to accomplish my goals on a daily basis.

34. Don’t Be Afraid to Fail

 
Sometimes it’s the quickest road to where you want to be.

“Sometimes the worst experiences are the ones where you learn the most lessons.”

– Richie McCaw, All Blacks Captain.

35. Be Open to Possibilities

 
Half of what we know to be true today may be proved wrong in 20 years time.

36. Give Your Mobile Apps Some Order

 
There are various ways to organise your mobile apps to save you time and it really comes down to personal preference in regards to the way you think for maximum efficiency. I like to organise my apps in folders labelled with verbs and in alphabetical order.

37. Collaborate With Slack

 
20% of your day can be easily spent chasing information or getting someone to help with specific tasks. Whether by email, instant messaging or face to face it’s a huge cause of poor time management.
 

 
Slack has taken care of this problem in the work environment by bringing communication together in one place, being extremely customisable and with the ability to work across just about every device you use, which is why it now dominates the collaboration software market.

Best of all Slacks free plan provides plenty of great features so chances are it won’t cost you a cent!

38. Use Online Bookmarks, Create Folders and Organise Your Toolbar

 
I bookmark anything I use regularly or that’s important to refer to later. Google Chrome lets you sync your bookmarks so you can easily access them at any time from another device by logging into your Google account. This is especially helpful when updating computers.
 

 
Create folders to easily organise any web pages you bookmark for quick access.

39. Learn Keyboard Shortcuts

 
Just start with one basic command! You will appreciate the small amount of time it saves you and will encourage you to add more shortcuts to your keyboard skills repertory.
 

 
Mac Keyboard

40. Upskill, Learn and Grow

If you’re not continuously learning then you’re not utilising your time and pushing yourself to grow and improve.
Self-teaching is a lifelong journey, embrace it with online learning sites like Lynda which has unlimited access with a subscription starting at $35aud/month and Udemy the world’s largest online learning centre with the ability to purchase individual courses to help anyone learn business, software, technology and creative skills to achieve personal growth at a reasonable price. I use both and highly recommend them to catapult anything self-taught to maximise your productivity and get ahead.
“Nothing comes easy. You have to learn how to do things.” – Gary Vaynerchuk

41. Create Processes for Everything

 
Get good at documenting the process you go through when completing tasks.

If you can document your processes in a simplified and easy manner so that someone who knows nothing about the task can follow it, then you are well on your way to scaling your business in the most efficient manner possible.

The process of creating processes might seem time-consuming and don’t get me wrong it is, however, this will save you a tremendous amount of time further down the road as you delegate tasks. Giving you more time to concentrate on the important things like growing your business.

Not only should you be doing this, but everyone within your business should be as well. Creating a centralised hub for your company’s processes online. Every time a process is improved or streamlined the first thing you do is go back and update the appropriate processes in your process hub.

This safeguards you from disasters like having employees or freelancers up and leave without notice because each process for every task they are responsible for completing is documented in a simple step by step manner and can be assigned to someone else.

I will often spend my Saturday mornings creating and updating processes because I know the time it saves me when I have a task to assign to an assistant, employee or freelancer. Having the process outlined step by step and optimised over time means I don’t have to spend a lot of time explaining and demonstrating the task to someone or corresponding back and forth a huge amount with any further questions or queries.

For example: In my Assistants Trello board I may want her to take care of a non-re-occurring task tomorrow so I add the task to her list for the next day on her Trello board and copy and paste the link to the process stored in our process hub – Google Drive.

42. Time Management 101 = Outsource

 
With more and more freelancers operating around the world and choosing to work remotely, outsourcing has never been easier, more reliable and cost-effective than right now.

If you are doing something that someone else can do for $10 per hour, it’s a poor use of your time. Utilise the processes you create and in particular outsource re-occurring tasks.

Using platforms like Upwork which has over 12 million registered freelancers gives you a great opportunity to build teams of specialist freelancers that if hired correctly are smarter than you, can complete tasks more efficiently than you and more cost-effectively giving you time to work on more important tasks.
The Youtube video How to hire freelancers on Upwork is a great starting point if you haven’t used Upwork before.

“If you hire people that are smarter than you, you don’t have to nitpick and micromanage. The b
 

 
eautiful part about delegating and managing is that if you hire smart enough people, there’s not really much to manage.” – Neil Patel

43. Build Momentum

 

 
The greats haven’t always been great. They started from nothing and grew by building momentum.

Ever get that feeling that you’re on a roll and everything is working out right?

Well, that’s momentum. Get on a roll by getting into a rhythm and focus on staying in rhythm to build momentum. Your daily rituals will help you take advantage of this especially.

For example, you most likely get your morning coffee from the same café?

Well, that is because you know what to expect, you know what the process is going to be, who you’re going to be talking to (they probably even know what you will order) and how long you will have to wait for it to be made. This is all part of your rhythm.

These simple daily routines and rituals build momentum and help you in finding that momentum again day after day so that you can carry it on throughout the other tasks you complete.

Obviously, there are a lot of factors out of your control but going back to these small routines and rituals will help you find your rhythm again. Gaining the momentum you need to keep going in the right direction.

“Create an environment that helps you be your best.” – Tony Robbins

44. Work Hard

 
Practice your craft.
If you’re not willing to put the time in then that dream really isn’t a dream and you’re wasting time doing something that you’re only putting 70 or 80 percent into. Working hard is the best time management strategy of all.
“It’s easy to dream about it … Much harder to execute it ….Work!” – Gary Vaynerchuk

45. But Don’t Work Yourself Into the Ground

 

Work smarter. Pushing yourself to the point where your brain or body can’t even function will do you no favours.

Find the right balance so you can stay refreshed and energised every day. Then you may just find that you start producing some of your best work.

Sometimes working more hours can be counter-productive. If I’m tired and slow I can’t function, even the simplest tasks take a mammoth effort. I am also very active so I have to be careful that I rein it in sometimes so that I am recharging the body rather than exerting it to the point where it takes a couple of days to recover.

“By working only when you are most effective, life is both more productive and more enjoyable. It’s the perfect example of having your cake and eating it, too.” – Tim Ferriss

46. Don’t get frustrated

 

 
Sometimes you have to go back to go forwards.

These are the time management strategies that have helped me get the most out of my week, think bigger, manage time and get me on my journey to being a time efficient entrepreneur.

Maybe you do something that works better?

The post 46 Time Management Hacks That Made Me A Better Entrepreneur appeared first on Crewdo.