Busyness is overrated.

I don’t know a single entrepreneur who started their company because they wanted to work longer, harder hours–and yet, so many business owners never really “punch out.”

The dirty truth is that working longer and harder isn’t going to get you farther faster, but it will leave you exhausted and uninspired. Running yourself ragged runs the very real risk of reducing the quality of the work you deliver, damaging your reputation and the future of your business.

You don’t need to do more. You need to be more intentional about what you’re doing and when you’re doing it.

Step One: Commit to Your Calendar

We’re terrible bosses to ourselves as business owners, so make your calendar your boss instead. 

Give it a bossy name. My calendar’s name is Gertrude. 

You’re going to promise that whatever is in your calendar, whatever your calendar tells you to do, you will do it. 

I know this sounds bizarre, but if you do this every time you put something into your calendar, you’re going to get into the habit of doing a quick calculation about what you’re actually saying yes to. Because if you say yes to it, then the deal is that you’re doing it. It gives you some separation between blindly scheduling yourself into the crazy.

Step Two: Assess the State of Affairs

Before you can change anything, you have to know what is actually happening. 

What is distracting or preventing you from doing what needs to be done?

I was talking to a client who recently discovered that she had unconsciously trained herself to switch tasks every two to three minutes.  It showed up first thing in the morning when she read her emails. She would think, “I’ll just take care of that one thing my client emailed me asking for,” or “I’ll just quickly respond to that inquiry.” 

Sound familiar?

The problem is that your brain needs to recalibrate to your new focus whenever you switch from task to task. Those internal adjustments don’t only eat up your time. They eat up attention and energy, too. Before my client knew it, the day had flown by while she hopped from task to task without ever accomplishing any of the work she actually wanted to do. 

Step Three: Batch Your Work

Once you know where your time is currently going, you can remedy the problem by creating blocks dedicated to specific categories of what needs to get done, both for your business and your personal life. You might need categories like Sales, Marketing, Networking, Client Delivery, Finances, and Admin in your business, while your personal categories focus on Workouts, Journaling, Reading, Kids, etc. 

Then, download a blank weekly calendar, divide each day into 90-minute intervals, and fill the blocks with a particular category of tasks. Some categories need multiple blocks a week, while others need one every other week, once a month, or even once every six months.

Watch for invisible time!

Invisible time is something you take for granted, so you forget to leave space for it to happen–like eating. Don’t forget to schedule lunch–and don’t eat lunch in front of your computer or at your desk. Get up and go eat something! Invisible time can also be travel time, or if you’re an introvert, the time needed to refill your bucket after networking or a meeting.

Make sure your invisible time is in your calendar!

Step Four: Take Time for Yourself

We often behave as if we’re at the mercy of time–as if it happens to us and we’re just along for the ride. That’s not true. You decide how much time you want, and for what purpose, and then you make it happen.

Personally, I cook dinner at my house every night. Not because my husband isn’t a good cook, but because: he makes me breakfast and coffee every morning, and I make dinner. It’s a priority for me, so I make time for it.

You have to decide what you want out of your hours because we all only have 24 in a day. 

If you’re a business owner, it is crucial that you have an entire 24 hours every week with no work. When you’re two or three years in, it can be pretty hard to go from working six or seven days a week to taking a full day off. Or you realize that you’re pretending only to work five days but then find yourself answering emails or hovering on your laptop on the weekends. 

Your brain needs a break. 

The next decision to make is which 24 hours you’re taking off work–and I mean without working at all. Whether you’re going to stay home or you’re going to go somewhere, you need to decide when you are going to take time away from work. Then you need to actually take the time off, so block it out on your calendar.

It can take a while to get there, but you need to make these decisions so you can start to make time work for you. 

Deciding is really the first step to making anything happen in your life.

If you don’t take your calendar by the horns and insist that a specific time is sacred to you, you will whittle away at it until you have nothing left.

Step Five: Delete What Isn’t Serving You

Deleting is saying no. 

As a business owner, you have the opportunity to do many, many things. Plenty of them sound fantastic and fun, but saying yes to everything is what got you into this time crunch in the first place. 

You have to be judicious with your YES. 

When it comes to your business:

What is your intention in terms of what you’re trying to accomplish in the long run, not just today? 

What is going to get you there fastest? Or really, just at all? 

What is essential to reaching your goal? What is simply important, and what is a meh?

In your personal life:

What is essential? What keeps you sane, takes care of your family, supports your mental health, and gives you joy?

Now go through your calendar and evaluate each commitment based on these priorities. Then delete the ones that don’t serve you anymore.

In the future, before adding anything to your calendar, check your priorities and make a conscious decision about what you’re saying “yes” or “no” to. 

Remember: Your calendar is your boss. If it goes in there, you’ve promised to do it.

Step Six: Delegate What Isn’t Yours

The entire conversation about time is a conversation about boundaries, both your boundaries with other people and external commitments, as well as the boundaries and internal commitments you make with yourself.

Delegating is taking a really good look at the things you’re doing and making a distinction between what only you can do and the things you’re doing that somebody else could do instead.

That doesn’t mean going out and hiring somebody right away, but it does mean being clear that there’s a difference between having to do something and choosing to do something.

Delegating is saying yes, but not doing it yourself. 

Take Back Your Time

Ending the race against the clock is really a matter of getting clear about your priorities and drawing the boundaries you need to protect them. Because you can’t do it all at once and trying is going to burn you out long before you bring your vision for your business to life.

Make the clock work for you instead with these six steps:

1. Commit to your calendar.
2. Assess the state of affairs.
3. Batch your work.
4. Carve out time for yourself.
5. Delete what isn’t serving you and your goals.
6. Delegate what isn’t yours.