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One of my Private Platinum clients showed up for her retreat last October, and said to me, “I feel so silly admitting this.   But, I have difficulty figuring out how to spend my time each day in my business.   It feels like I am working all of the time, yet not getting results.  Can you help me lay out my day so I can grow my business, and feel less stress and exhaustion?”

When I asked my client questions about how she invests her daily time, the problem became clear; she didn’t prioritize her daily activities to support her in growing her income.  Plus, there were all sorts of ‘time leaks’ in her day because she didn’t set boundaries with clients and family members.

For example, she was allowing non-urgent family requests, such as running to the pharmacy to pick up meds, to interrupt her day.  She also gave her clients unlimited access to her.  Her own priorities kept getting pushed further and further into the background.

This resulted in her working 6 days a week until 9 or 10 pm each night.  And, she was earning less than $20,000 per year for all this work!  No wonder she was stressed out, exhausted, and her income suffered.

The problem is clear: when you don’t manage your time properly, you become overworked, and work way too hard for too little money.

Here are 5 tips to help you better-manage your time so your business and income will grow:

1. Read first-thing every morning for 30 minutes to get your mind ready for the day.

I like to ease my ‘thinking brain’ into my day by investing 30 minutes each day reading something educational that gives me the knowledge I need to develop my personal mastery skills, and grow my business. 

Another big benefit of starting your day this way is it gives you creative fuel’ that will spark new ideas you can apply in your business immediately.

2. Focus on income and invest 90 minutes each day on your Bold Money Goal.

For the next 90 minutes of your day, invest time doing income generating activities directed toward achieving your Bold Money Goal. 

3. Build marketing momentum (or keep it going) by investing 120 minutes per day.

For a minimum if 120 minutes (two hours per day), plan to invest time doing marketing.  Activities include following up with potential clients, networking, social media updates, speaking, delivering a list-building teleseminar, contacting joint venture partners, referral sharing, newsletter preparation and broadcast, attending trade shows, etc.

Note: If you need clients or are new in business, a guideline is to invest up to half your day (4 hours) doing marketing activities!

The trap people often fall into is when they get clients, they then get into client delivery mode and forget about marketing.  Then, very quickly, marketing momentum is lost, and the “marketing machine” has to start all over again.  It takes an incredible amount of energy and time to restart the marketing machine!

It is much better to spend time every single day marketing.  This evens out your cash flow and income.

4. Work on 3 ‘smaller’ goals for 45 minutes.

By smaller goals, I am talking about those projects that aren’t urgent, yet they need to be done to grow your business.  It could be such things as researching keywords to optimize your website, working on creating a Facebook page, and other tasks. 

Invest 15 minutes on each of your top three small goals.  This may not seem like a lot of time.  But, take these small bites of time, and watch you accomplish these smaller goals with ease! 

5. End your day with 30 minutes of creative time.

At the end of each day, invest 30 minutes in creative free thought, and write down all you ideas.  You’ll feel relaxed, stress will melt away, and it’s a very pleasant way to close the work day.

These 5 ideas will help give you structure to how you invest time during your day.  Of course, you also need to allow time for client fulfillment activities, delivering discovery sessions, content creation, attending professional development activities, and so on.

 Get connected to the TRUE COST of not managing your time.

 Time is a non-renewable resource. When your time is gone, it’s gone. Which means: when you don’t invest your time wisely, you sacrifice your dream.

 So what happened with my client?

We restructured her workday so she was only working 5 days per week, instead of 6.  And, she set boundaries with clients by setting aside a time period each day when they could call her (rather than allowing them to call any time day and night).  She also communicated to family members the importance of her work, and set boundaries of when she would be able to take time to fulfill family needs.

By doing this, she was able to treat her business as the priority it is.  After all, she deserves to earn the income she desires…and so do you!  This allows her, and you, to serve others, as well as yourselves.

Once upon a time, one of my Platinum clients came to her coaching session feeling very unsure of herself, and frustrated. “I’ve started creating my Signature System, but then I get stuck when I look at what everyone else is offering.  It seems what they have is so much better.  Help!”

When I heard her say this to me, the problem was clear.  She was suffering from the “I’m not good enough” trap.  By comparing herself to other people, she was doing what most of us do: ending up short in comparison, and losing self-confidence.  My client is definitely not alone with this problem.

The problem is when you compare yourself to others, you take YOU and your special and unique talents and gifts out of the equation to be successful. 

This cripples your business’s growth, because when you compare, you inevitably fall short in comparison.  This is too bad, because doing this is a way women “take themselves out of the game” and don’t take the actions they need to grow their business.

Here are 3 tips to help you curb the urge to fall into the “I’m not good enough trap”:

1. Get a sense of your own value

You are unique in your knowledge, life experiences, talents, and special gifts.  There is no one else like you on the planet.  Get in touch with this so you gain a sense of your own value, what you have to offer others, and how you can uniquely help them.

Action Idea: Take out a sheet or paper and make a list of everything that contributes to the value of your work, including degrees, awards, trainings, natural skills and talents, people you’ve helped and specific results they’ve achieved, what others value about you, and what you value about yourself!

2. Create a continuous self-improvement plan

Ongoing expansion of your knowledge and personal mastery of key skills in your business is crucial to its growth and success.  Your current skill level and beliefs are reflected daily in the results you get in your business.  What’s your business reflecting back to you?

Being in business is not easy for most women entrepreneurs, because the fact is our potential clients have many choices when they want to work with someone get the help they’re seeking.  Why should they choose you?

Get in touch with the fact that part of their choice is determined by your special skills, life experiences, and talents you possess, as well as what you are learning NOW.  Keep your knowledge base up-to-date, and constantly be learning and growing to build your expertise and value in your clients’ eyes.

Action Idea: Meet with a mentor regularly, someone who will challenge you, stretch you, so you continue to grow and evolve.  Become part of a master mind group of like-minded entrepreneurs, lead be a leader who has successfully navigated the path and has ‘reached the other side.’  Attend professional development conferences, seminars, and workshops to increase your knowledge base and keep current.

3. Up-level your internal self-talk

Pay close attention to what you tell yourself, because what you say becomes your reality.  Notice what key ideas, phrases, thoughts, or beliefs keep spinning ‘round and round’ in your brain, disempowering you.  Make a choice of one idea or thought or belief to shift to something that supports you.

Action Idea: For the next 1 to 3 days. Jot down any disempowering beliefs that keep coming up for you.  Make a choice to stop these thoughts in their tracks, and adopt positive beliefs, instead.

Stop comparing yourself to others and get in touch with the TRUE VALUE of YOU.

You are special, unique, and to be successful, your business has to be a reflection of YOU.  Not someone else.  Put YOU in the center of your business, and create programs that project your expertise, what you know, and who you want to serve.  This will create ease in your business, because you will stop struggling ‘against’ yourself.

So, what happened with my client? She became aware she had a pattern of negative self talk and beliefs, and consciously chose to stop talking to herself in a self-defeating way. 

She also realized she had to focus on herself, and her business, and not other people.  She stopped struggling, and creating her programs got much easier once she stopped directing her energy outward toward comparing herself to others!

Want to learn strategies you can use to create a self-empowering mindset to support your success?  It’s no coincidence that once I started paying attention to my mindset (about 10 minutes every day), I created a 6-figure business working only about 10 to 12 hours per week.  I’m now sharing my secrets in a complimentary 6-Figure Mindset Secrets Breakthrough Session.  I’m only offering 5 spots.  To reserve your spot contact me at (847) 989-0513.