5 Thoughtful Ways Women Entrepreneurs Can Streamline Their Work Schedule

You’re constantly on the move managing your business. But recently, it seems like you’ve unwittingly fallen into a troublesome and energy-sucking time trap. You’ve become more and more distracted in your work over the past several months. You find yourself wasting precious time working on unnecessary and unimportant tasks.

What’s more, you find yourself making knee-jerk reactions. You throw yourself wholeheartedly into everything that comes across your desk, from last-minute requests to unsolicited queries. That’s not the most efficient way to run a successful business.

の good news is that you can make some changes to your work schedule to give you and your business some much-needed breathing room.

Below you’ll find five ways you can streamline your time throughout the day as an entrepreneur. Choose one or more of these approaches to help you create more time, space, and flow in your calendar and work schedule.

1. Structure your schedule with foundational tasks.

Make your workday work for you by scheduling your most important and urgent tasks and meetings first. The idea here is to build your daily schedule as if you were building a house. You want to first lay down a solid foundation in your work so you can build on top of it.

What daily tasks are absolutely core to your business? Which items need to be completed first? Which actions would truly move the needle in your daily routine and set you up for a successful workday?

For instance, you may choose to contact clients, follow up with vendors, run necessary reports, or meet with staff. It’s worth asking yourself how your daily work and responsibilities would benefit by having your most important and urgent tasks scheduled first.    

2. Add warm-up and wind-down time to your schedule.  

Create adequate time in your schedule to collect your thoughts, review information, and simply destress from the day. Physically schedule 15-30 minutes into your calendar both in the morning and evening. This will ensure you have a few moments for yourself to prepare for and unwind from the day’s activities.

What can you use this time for? You can use it to review your business goals, create your daily to-do list, check your appointment calendar for the week, and review the status of yesterday’s work tasks.

Do keep mind: this warm-up and wind-down time is important for your business. It isn’t an optional task or one that falls outside of your responsibilities; it’s a key part of it. Without taking the time to review projects, assignments, and tasks, you’ll simply be spinning your wheels in your work.  

3. Prioritize task delegation to others.  

Do you wait until the end of the day to delegate tasks? Needlessly holding onto tasks stifles the natural flow and cycle of the workday. You end up wasting valuable mental energy thinking about delegating work, instead of delegating. And you end up stifling work projects because your assistant, staff, and vendors are waiting to hear from you so they can do their work.  

Aim to identify and delegate tasks to others earlier in the day. Others can begin their work in earnest, and you can focus your attention to working on tasks that only you can complete.

Now, this isn’t to say you can’t stay informed on others’ progress. Make a note to briefly check-in with other towards the end of the day regarding any pressing or urgent items. You can also use this time to create a tentative action plan for the following day.

4. Create theme days for your business.

Bundling similar tasks and actions together is a helpful way to stay focused on work tasks. That’s where theme days come in. A theme day is simply a day where you choose to perform specific tasks or actions.

Theme days can add a unique twist to your business’ routine. They can also help add a certain cadence, regularity, and predictability to your schedule. For example, you might designate Mondays as project review days, Tuesdays as meetings days, and Thursdays as bookkeeping days.  

You can get as creative as you’d like with theme days. You can carve up your daily workweek, assign specific days of the month, or even identify specific mornings or afternoons. You might decide to choose certain days of the month for planning administrative, financial, sales, or marketing concerns.

What’s more, there’s no right or wrong way to design your days. Create your own days based on the normal cycle of your business and your own interests, and energy levels. When used thoughtfully, theme days can add a bit of inspiration, motivation, and excitement to regular ongoing work.

5. Set up inbox filters for informational emails.

Tired of constantly being bombarded by informational emails in your inbox? Give yourself some breathing room and set up email filters in your business email account. Filter those practical, yet non-urgent newsletters, tips, articles, ideas, and updates into a separate email folder. You can then review these items at your discretion.  

Do keep in mind, you will need to invest time and energy upfront to identify email senders and set up filters. But the results are well worth the effort. You’ll reduce unnecessary distractions and have more time and energy to deal with urgent business matters.  

Managing your time well as an entrepreneur takes practice. If you want to streamline your busy schedule, think of creative ways you can simplify daily tasks and perform basic actions with less effort.

DWENとは ラシェル・イシップ, Productivity Consultant and Time Management Coach at The Order Expert