There's only so much time in a day, and when you're running an online business, every second counts…
…especially if you have a day job too.
Even if you think you're maximizing your productivity, it's possible you might be wasting valuable time every day without even realizing it.
It's all too easy to lose time, and a half hour here and an hour there can add up surprisingly fast.
In a recent article from Entrepreneur, writer and entrepreneur Larry Alton talks about some of the biggest inadvertent time-wasters and how you can avoid them.
1. Rituals
We all have rituals at the office — small routines that we do every day, some of which are productive and most of which are not. You might circle by the water cooler, making small talk for the first 15 minutes of the day, or you might start out by reading the news for 20 minutes.
While not always a waste of time, the danger here comes in not being conscious of your time spent. Human beings tend to forget individual repetitions of long-term routines (the way you often forget driving home from work), meaning you’re spending this time doing rituals without even realizing what you’re doing.
Taking breaks and reading the news aren’t necessarily bad things, but they can put a damper on your total productivity.
2. Working on the wrong priorities
Let’s say you’ve managed to identify and conquer all the temporal fault points I’ve listed so far. You’re working on tasks that need to be done for 100 percent of your day…
Are you sure you aren’t wasting time doing the wrong kind of work? Are you burying yourself in unimportant tasks or ones outside your wheelhouse, only to realize at the end of the day that you still have your biggest, most important projects to take care of?
If so, you have a prioritization problem.
3. Refusal to adapt
People have different reasons for refusing to adapt. Some like their niche and pace and aren’t comfortable changing anything.
Others are forward-planning perfectionists who don’t like changing their outlooks or approaches when circumstances change. In any case, refusing to adapt your working style or focus when the situation shifts will cost you dearly in terms of time spent.
For example, if you gain new information about a client’s needs for an RFP, you’re better off stopping and readjusting than you are muscling through the proposal and hoping it hits home somehow.
To find out more about how you might be wasting time that you could be using to build your business, check out the full article at Entrepreneur.
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