Business owners often feel like there isn’t enough time to complete everything during the day. Adding two or three hours to the planet’s rotation isn’t feasible, which means we all need to do more with what we have.

Time management strategies help business owners stay organized and productive. You don’t need to sit in your chair for ten hours straight or push yourself to do more. 

With an appropriate strategy, you can strategically control your time on specific tasks. More gets finished in less time when implemented correctly, even when numerous to-do lists and deadlines are present.

What Are the Best Time Management Strategies to Use?

Business owners can experience a confidence boost, achieve better results, and deliver before each deadline when they manage their time effectively.

Those attributes lead to less daily stress and anxiety.

Here are some of the best strategies to consider implanting today so that you can take back your time. 

1. Adopt the Covey Matrix

Steven Covey is most known for his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. His time management suggestions make it easier to tackle your to-do list because you incorporate prioritization into the planning process.

Covey uses four categories: urgent/important, not urgent/important, urgent/not important, and not urgent/not important.

Sort the tasks for each week into these categories. Once you have everything sorted, begin with the urgent/important quadrant before proceeding to each descending one.

2. Start the Day with a Plan

If you don’t use a calendar app, note-taking software, or a diary, you probably forget a task or a detail here and there. Starting each day with a plan doesn’t need to be a complicated process. 

All you need is a sheet of paper to jot down your schedule.

If you can plan for multiple days ahead of time each week, it’ll be easier to prioritize the tasks that require an immediate response.

When you set your calendar, don’t forget to plan for buffers and breaks. Everyone needs a chance to rest, no matter how dedicated they are.

3. Find Your Productive Time

Everyone has a part of the day where they tend to be more productive. Some people get up early in the morning, others stay up late, and even a few find their energy when others hit the 2 PM wall during the afternoon.

When you know that you function well at a specific time, plan your most important activities to be completed in that window. You can save low-energy jobs, like administrative work, for your least-productive hours.

4. Remove the Distractions

It doesn’t take much for a day to start filling with distractions. You begin receiving multiple notifications on your phone, the inbox gets full, and the phone won’t stop ringing off the hook.

Shutting those distractions off can help business owners be more productive. Find what bothers you the most and eliminate the trigger. 

Here are some of the common ways that you can put your focus on the work instead of the distraction.

• Work offline whenever possible.
• Place your phone on airplane mode, turn it off, or keep it out of sight.
• Use noise-canceling headphones to remove background noise.
• Close your office door.

It takes a conscious choice to eliminate all distractions. When you can implement an appropriate strategy each day, it’ll be easier to work effectively.

5. Get Some Rest

When you get less than six hours of sleep each night, your mind will become more distracted during the day. If you work nonstop without breaks, you’ll eventually lose your focus.

Try to plan for at least a five-minute break each hour. Choose healthy foods, avoid afternoon coffee, and shoot for at least seven hours of sleep each night. You can even permit yourself to take the occasional day off.

6. Stop Multitasking

Focus on one thing at a time. The average person loses up to 15 minutes of productive time whenever they switch between tasks. If you’ve changed what you’re doing three times in the past hour, you might have 10-15 minutes of focused energy on a specific item.

That’s why it feels like you stayed busy without getting something accomplished. Don’t switch to something new until the last job is complete.

7. Don’t Give Up

Time management strategies rely on what works best for you. Everyone is a little different, which means some options will be effective, and others won’t help. Take what you can from the investment you made here.

Once you’ve implemented a strategy, stick to it. Allow yourself to start small so that new routines can develop. In time, you’ll find that getting everything done during the day is possible.