How To Be More Productive: Tips for Entrepreneur Parents
Do you run out of time to get all your tasks done? Do you find that you're reading a productivity book again? Tweaking your Notion database for the 10th time this week?
I'm a dad who works a 9 to 5 while trying to build a business on the side. This means I need to try and be as productive as possible while also finding that ideal work/life balance. This looks different for everyone. If you feel guilty about missing your daughter's recital to work on your business, you haven't found the right balance yet.
Take Gary Vaynerchuk, for example. He's a man who works 12 hour days, flies around the world, creates an ungodly amount of content. All while building an empire. He also dedicates 100% of his energy and focus to his family at weekends and leaves the business behind. You can read more about it here.
How can I find more time?
Focus
Focus completely for 2-4 hours every day on your highest priority task.
Focus is the key here. Use those times when everyone else is asleep or busy doing something else. I have a theory that this is why so many "successful" people wake up early. They get their focussed task done and out the way before anyone else is even awake.
Create a productive morning routine. If you have this, you won’t need to worry about time management as much.
Keep chipping away at your highest priority task every day and you'll have something amazing to show for it.
Manifest greatness in your life by being good, repeatably. 🕯🕯🕯🔥 That advice comes from this article by Steph Smith which I'd recommend reading.
It goes without saying but make sure your phone is away in another room or switched off for your focus time. Context switching kills your productivity. Did you know, it takes anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes to get back into a focussed state?
Do one thing
Do one thing at a time and do it well.
As I said at the start, you know what your priorities are. Don't go to your daughter's recital and then spend all the time answering emails. You'll write awful replies and miss your child's line! The worst of both worlds.
You have 100 things that you think you need to do. You need to be ok with the fact that most of those won't get done.
If you try to do 10 things that you think are the highest priority, they're going to be done really poorly.
Do one thing and do it well.
If you have competing priorities, try to break them down in some way. The structure I use is something called "value". How much value is this going to add to my day? How much leverage will this get me?
Getting to inbox zero is an example of a low value task. Writing and sending a proposal to a client would be a high value task.
Here's what my task list looks like in ClickUp.
I give every task a value and an energy level. Then I order my tasks by the value field to give me an idea of what I should work on next. For smaller tasks, this can also help create a schedule for the day.
Plug: if you'd like to learn more about how to improve your productivity and business workflows with ClickUp, book a free consulting call here.
Declutter your schedule
Permanently declutter your schedule and don't add more items to it.
We all have meetings. And we all think we need to attend all these meetings because things won't get done without us. Want to know a secret? Thing will carry on just fine without you there.
Here's an experiment to try. Don't attend any of your recurring meetings for one week (unless it's critical). See what happens. If people miss you and ask where you were, apologise and go to the meeting next week. If you weren't missed, skip it again next week.
I've been in the situation where a company setup a weekly recurring meeting with their team and me. That meeting is one and a half hours long! That's a lot of time to take out of your week for a few minutes when they might need your input.
I don't go to those meetings anymore. Do you know what happened? The company sent emails with the occasional question they might have. And I gained back that hour and a half each week.
Now I can use that newly found time to focus on something I find important. Like preparing a healthy and delicious dinner for my daughter while she's at nursery. Or learning SEO to increase traffic to my website. More traffic means more potential sales. More sales means more passive income and more time to spend with my family.
Final Thoughts
What you do, compounds. From declining a weekly meeting, you can decide where your focus should be spent.
Learn how to say no. As Derek Sivers says, it's "Hell Yeah or No".
Understand your priorities and goals. Let these guide you in your journey as a productive and happy parent raising happy children.
Have a productive day 👋🏻
This article was written based on the video by A Life Engaged. Check it out here: https://youtu.be/c3pzcV9yi24