I’ve said several times how important it is to me to work smarter not harder. However, this is hard to do when there are so many options available to use through technology. Social media is crucial to small businesses these days, and most of us already have our marketing, business, and social calendars booked as tightly as they can be. So how are we supposed to get it all done? Well, the answer is, you aren’t. One thing I have learned to do in the past few years is to just let go of more. Here are some of my tips to working smarter, not harder.
Maximize your time. Find time slots in your day that is normally wasted and use that time to complete small tasks. It amazing how much you can do in just a short amount of time if you put your mind to it. Use these small amounts of time to write e-zine articles, blog posts, and other promotional materials. For example, whenever I am on a plane, I use that time to finalize upcoming marketing campaigns, finalize my calendars, and update intern requests. This is time I could easily just waste, but I have realized how much I can get done on just one short flight.
It’s okay to say no. When I first started my business, I served on countless boards for charities and fundraisers. So much of my time was going to these planning meetings that it was starting to take time away from my own business. I decided to let go of these commitments once my time was up so that I could focus more on growing my business. While I still take the time to volunteer, I can now do it when I can set time aside and not feel burdened with it. Start choosing what is most important you. When it comes to social media, you don’t have to be on every site. Just pick a few that you can consistently stay active on. Just because they exist, doesn’t mean you have to be on them!
Re-use it. Once you have written a blog or e-zine article, get it out there in as many ways as you can! Take your articles from the year before, tweak them a little bit and reuse them, there’s no need to constantly have brand new information. The old stuff is still important!
Delegate your tasks. Stop trying to be superwoman and start getting help. No one says you have to do it all yourself. Let your interns, assistants, family and friends help you out!
Schedule your time for projects. Set aside time to work on your projects that need to be done. If you set aside smaller amounts of time, you will be able to stay more focused and get more done. I find that I often get distracted when I am trying to work on something for a long amount of time.
Your Bride Attraction Assignment:
Take a look at your business and life and find the places where you could be working smarter, not harder. Find those tasks that are taking up too much of your time. Is it something that you can delegate out? Do you really need to be doing it? Can you start scheduling your time better? Once you do this, you will discover a much happier you!
© 2008-2011 Natalie Bradley, BrideAttraction.com
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Marketing to high-end brides expert Natalie Bradley publishes the "Bride Attraction" daily e-zine. Get your FREE audio course: "How to Close the Sale Without Fail!" at www.BrideAttraction.com
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