5 Awful Mistakes to Avoid When You’re the Boss (and how to fix them!)

Starting a business (and running it) is hard work.

The beginning of my business was an incredibly miserable, isolating and frustrating experience. The stress, pressure and insecurity of being an entrepreneur or business owner is difficult for anyone to handle; and my process before I sorted my working style out was lonely and isolating.

I thought that if I devoted all my time and energy into it, my business would take off, I would have clients clogging up my inbox, more work than I could handle and I would have become a Successful Business Boss.

I mean, same thing like studying for an exam, right? The more time you spent poring over your books, the higher grades you’d get. For starting a business, I’d always heard that 60, 80, 100 hours weeks were the norm. So, the harder I’d work, with no breaks, all the time, that just meant the faster I’d get to Success. That was what the universe promised.

Well… it didn’t exactly go that way.

I was putting in crazy hours into my business, but never felt like I got anywhere. Client projects dragged on, my personal projects never seemed to finish (it took me four months to finish my website) and at the end of every day, I was bitterly disappointed, because yet again, I hadn’t checked off all the items on my crazy-massive to-do list.

I would roll out of bed, rub away the sleep in my eyes and immediately go through my Facebook and emails over my bowl of coffee. Teeth unbrushed, hair unwashed, me tearing through my social media channels and shooting off emails at 7am (or 11pm) was going to pave the way to a successful business.

Soon, I started getting sharp back, shoulder and neck pain from staying hunched over my keyboard for hours on end. I was skipping meals because I was too busy to make lunch and then stuffing myself with biscuits at 3pm. Headaches became common, my skin was bad and I felt miserable.

I became a bit of a recluse as well, as hard as it is to admit it. Since I felt that all my ‘productive’ time was spent on the computer, at home and alone, I felt guilty about doing anything that would take me away from my business, even a walk in the nearby park.

I stayed home with my work and slowly started developing anxiety about going outside at all, staying inside for days at a time.

I was sleeping poorly, constantly feeling on edge, and it was never good enough. I never felt productive, successful or satisfied with my progress, and every day that my to-do list remained unfinished I felt like a failure.

Maybe it was the back pain that was getting worse, and the physiotherapist who insisted I stop sitting for so long. Maybe I got tired of feeling isolated and lonely, or maybe I finally had enough of feeling sluggish and unsuccessful.

I made only one change at first.

I started highlighting one item on my to-do list. That was the one thing that needed to get done the next day. As long as it was done, I had succeeded. Everything else on that list was just a bonus.

Something happened. Something really good. Since I was now getting more focused each morning on just getting that one thing done, I became much more relaxed. It felt like so much pressure had been lifted. I slowly started trying out more things, like going to the gym again, and meeting up for coffee with a friend once a week so I would have to get out of the house. I started having more energy and motivation. I started feeling better, less anxious, and the pain was fading. I was also getting a lot more work done, and  was seeing results.

I slowly started doing more research on how to work smarter, not harder. One by one, I tested those habits in my own life. Here are some of those that worked.

1. Multi-task smartly.

Yes, I know I said that your brain isn’t wired for that, but this is different. Find the time that you don’t normally use well and find an activity to do to make use of it.

Good: writing notes for your next blog post on the bus.

Bad: having 8 articles on 3 topics open, 4 how-to videos, and 3 browsers and 482619 tabs in each. And your phone.

Taking this to the next level….

2. Work on your #1 priority first thing in the morning.

I used to use my morning for social media, emails, reading blogs, and there were several drawbacks to that.

1. Time suck. I woke up at 7am and at 11am found myself sitting at the computer, still in my bathrobe, and nothing productive had been done so far.
2. Brain clutter. Your mind is at its freshest when you wake up.

Ash Ambrige, who is pretty phenomenal herself, wrote a phenomenal blog post on Prioritising with a million things to do.

Actionable tip:
Use the morning for writing, brainstorming, and strategising, before you get sucked into information-overwhelm. Check for email, Facebook and so on after you’ve spent an hour working on your #1 Priority Task.

3. Figure out when your brain can do what most effectively.

Do you have an energy slump in the afternoon, and tasks just draaag on?

When do you feel most alert and ready to go?

It’s so important to figure out the time when your brain and body are better at tasks. Fortunately, we have science to help us – studies have shown that mornings are best for things like writing or strategising. Afternoons are best used for creative things. Try having a snack – no, not the chocolate!- like some fresh fruit to help you perk up, or just take five minutes away from your desk to stretch.

So, your ideal schedule could look like this:

Morning: Client strategy meeting. Writing a blog posts. Research. Creating a new plan of action.

Afternoon: Reading blog articles and scheduling social media posts. Creating graphics. Answering questions in Facebook groups. Coffee meeting with another entrepreneurs (wanna grab a virtual coffee? Meet me on Skype).

Here’s a super-extensive breakdown:  Cognitive brain functions better in the mornings.

Actionable tip:
Track what you do at what times during the week, and make a note of what’s worked best for you. The next week, change things around and see what improves.

4. A Theme A Day

I have this thing with Skype meetings or phone calls, and I do a lot of those – I get pretty antsy before a meeting. I double check the time, possibly time-zone differences, the invite, the technology, get a glass of water and coffee ready, and am ready on Skype 10 minutes early. As you can imagine, I can’t get too much done before that meeting, because no matter how well I’ve prepared for it already, every five minutes I’m glancing at the clock, and running over talking points in my head.

I now have a few days and times chunks allocated to Skype meetings, whether it’s Discovery Calls, client Strategy Sessions or a Skype-coffee with an entrepreneur.

I’ve started doing the same thing for other aspects, like creative (making graphics) and administration (don’t we all love it). It’s really helpful because it:

• Gives you time to focus
•  Take away stress from not doing your 846, 483 things right now.
• Don’t worry about creating those mock-ups for your client. Today is admin day. Don’t worry about the design edits you have to do: Design Day is tomorrow.

[tweetthis url=”http://bit.ly/1Jt9mr1″]Pick a focus for the day – Admin? Graphics? Writing? You’ll get so much more work done. #productivity[/tweetthis]

Actionable tip:
Grab your calendar and mark a ‘Priority’ focus for each day of the week, depending on what works best for you.

 5. Blocking Your Time

A great trick I learned (it’s one of those “Why didn’t I think of that”) is to chunk all your similar work in a few hours, also known as Time-blocking or batching tasks.

You’re writing a blog post, or doing research for a client, and in the back of your head there’s this incessant little voice that whispers “you still have those graphics to make. And those emails to respond. And scheduling. And your expenses. Don’t forget.” Your brain is not wired for multi-tasking. Stop it.

It’s better to work in chunks. 3 hours of writing. 2 hours of Photoshop. Instead of writing 1 email, creating 1 graphic, doing 30 minutes of research. Just imagine all the brainpower you’re using to switch from one activity to another.

Once your brain is in a certain process, like “replying to emails” or “designing in Photoshop”, it takes some mental inertia for it to switch to another process. That’s why it’s easier and faster to write three blog post drafts in one go, or to spend two hours doing graphics instead of drafting a blog post, creating a graphic and repeating the process. One way to take advatantage of this is to block your time out into chunks for greater productivity.

That being said….

Actionable tip:
What activities are you doing now that can be ‘chunked’? Some ideas: social media (hello, Hootsuite!), creating graphics, writing, meetings.

Your turn:

What was your lowest point with organising your business? What kind of business mistakes did you make? How did you overcome them? Share your best time-management and workflow tips in the comments – I’d love to test it out for myself.