Is it a Time Management Challenge or a Self-Management Challenge that You Need to Overcome?

How well do you manage your time? Or is your time managing you instead? Sometimes it feels like we need a copy of ourselves so we can do two things at once. But what we actually need is to improve our self-management skills so that we’re mastering the limited time we have in a day.

‍Difference Between Time Management and Self Management

How much of your poor time management has nothing to do with the actual time you have to do it but more to do with how you spend your time once you have it?

For example, if you have a 2-hour block of time to work on things in your business, how much of that time is used to propel your business or used to,

Scrolling through social media
Fixing things in the business
Training employees on processes that you’ve taught them a million times
Hiring more employees to replace old ones
Dealing with customer complaints
And so on…

“Self-management is your ability to regulate your behaviors, thoughts, and emotions in a productive way. This means excelling in both personal and professional responsibilities for the benefit of yourself and your team.” (Asana.com)

Time management is your ability to structure your time effectively and productively to achieve tasks in a timely manner.

With managing your time (or self) consider this: There is a big difference between activity- tasks that keep us “busy,” and productivity tasks that take us closer to our goals. Most business owners are busy, but are they busy doing the right things?

Ideally, business owners should spend as much time as possible working on their business growth, creating planning strategies, or focusing on future opportunities.

It is up to the business owner to use their free time on those things and not get distracted by the things listed above. This is where self-management carries its most importance by keeping yourself focused on the things you should be working on instead of the things that are keeping you busy.

Top Self-Management Challenges

Sometimes it’s hard to find enough time in the day to breathe, much less plan for the business’s future.

When you have that time, avoid the challenges listed in this video to prevent yourself from being pulled away to other things in the business.

Challenge 1: You don’t have enough time; you are spread too thin and/or you don’t delegate much

Solution: Develop an Apprenticeship Plan: A plan to identify the low-value tasks that you don’t like doing anyway and train team members to do them for you so you can focus on the things that make you more money

Challenge 2: You are too detailed to teach others, and no one can do it as well as you

Solution: Develop an Operations and Training Manual: a How-to manual that describes in great detail everything that a person needs to know about how to do the task effectively and takes them through a focused training process

Challenge 3: You are not doing the things you know you should

Solution: Develop a Self-Management Plan: create a Default calendar where you’ve got the most important things blocked into your calendar as an appointment with yourself that you always keep and then hold yourself accountable to do it

If you want to stop being an employee to your own business and act as the owner, identify which of these challenges you struggle with and implement these solutions. If you’re having trouble finding the time to even do that, book a 30-minute call with one of our coaches to talk through it.