How To Structure Your Day For Small Business Owners
As a business coach, I find that most small business owners struggle with 3 things – structure, focus and consistency. Today we’re looking at ‘structure’. If you’re a small business owner and want to know how to structure your day for success, then you’re in the right place. Structuring your day is one of the key ingredients to being a successful business owner. Not only that, the techniques I’ll show you below will make you feel happier, more productive and fulfilled. Are you ready? Let’s dive right in!
Discover Your Purpose
The first tip on how to structure your day is to go to a higher altitude and determine if you’re just being busy or living purposefully. One of the reasons small business owners struggle with structuring their day is that they’re not fulfilling their purpose. They’re miserable. My job as a business coach is to help people to chase fulfilment, not success. There’s a big difference. I know a lot of ‘successful’ people who are miserable. However, I know a lot of fulfilled people who live life to the fullest and they have enough.
Which one do you want to be?
If fulfilment is the road for you, then it starts with discovering your purpose. Check out my post on How To Discover Your Purpose. Once you have your purpose, you should be excited to face each day knowing that you’re living a life of purpose. Now it becomes easier to structure your day.
Determine Your ‘Desire Zone’ Activities
In his bestselling book, “Free to Focus”, author Michael Hyatt talks about how many people are doing things that they hate doing. He talks about a ‘Freedom Compass’.
The Freedom Compass is a simple way to see what daily activities you are doing, which ones you love doing (Desire Zone) and which ones you hate doing (Drudgery Zone). The idea is that we must mostly do things that fall in our Desire Zone. These are the things that we love doing the most. It’s where we feel ‘in the zone’. It’s where time seems to disappear (but not too much, because we’re talking about structure!).
I always encourage my coaching clients to write 2 lists:
- Things I love doing
- Things I do daily
Once they compare the lists, they are shocked to see that the vast majority of things they are doing daily fall into the ‘Drudgery Zone’. No wonder they are struggling with how to structure their day!
So, before you begin to structure your day, you need to be clear on what it is that you’re structuring. The idea is that you should choose things that fall in your Desire Zone. Things that fall into your Drudgery Zone should be delegated where possible.
ACTION: Write down things that fall into your Desire and Drudgery Zones.
Understand Your Rhythm
Everyone has a natural body rhythm (otherwise known as a circadian rhythm.) This is where our body clock comes from. Some people are naturally morning people and others are night owls.
Which one are you?
When do you feel the most productive?
For example, if you are a morning person and you feel particularly productive between the hours of 0800 – 1000, then schedule your Desire Zone activities during this time. Your body is naturally in a higher state so it makes sense to do your most desired work here. This is where you’ll achieve the ‘flow state’ where time disappears.
[EBOOK] How To Set A Solid Morning Routine
Are you feeling in a rut? Lacking motivation? Feel like you’re just on the 9-5 hamster wheel and don’t have a purpose? Maybe you see others achieving far more than you. Maybe you want to learn a language, read more books, take up yoga, be more spiritual or start a side hustle.
If this sounds like you and you want to be happier, more productive and achieve your goals then you’ve come to right place!
Prioritise
There’s a saying I love, “Everything is ‘urgent’, but not everything is important.”
Many small business owners struggle with knowing the difference between the urgent things and the important things. When you are structuring your day, you need to ensure you are working on the most important things.
But what about the ‘urgent’ things?
Have you ever noticed that everything is ‘urgent’? I keep putting the word ‘urgent’ in inverted commas because in reality, most of what we consider as urgent, isn’t urgent.
When everything is urgent, nothing is urgent.
Really take stock and assess all the so-called urgent things on your desk. You’ll quickly find that a lot of things aren’t actually urgent. Yes, you should do the things that are actually urgent, but don’t let those things falsely sway you. If you do, then your daily structure quickly crumbles.
ACTION: What are the most important things you need to do this month/week?
Control Your Calendar
If you don’t control your calendar, someone else will. You have to protect your calendar with fire. This is the central system for your daily structure. If you allow things to keep changing then you’ll never be structured.
Your calendar must be a non-negotiable unless there’s a real emergency.
As you block time for your Desire Zone/important activities in your calendar, make sure that no one moves them. That is a meeting with yourself. If you can’t keep a meeting with yourself, then you’re screwed. Don’t move things unless it’s a real emergency.
Need A Business Coach?
Sometimes, business owners just need to talk things out with a trusted person. You might have no idea with what’s wrong or where to start in your business. Or perhaps you have some ideas that you just want to bounce around. Whatever your need, this Free Discovery Session will give you the chance to get clarity.
