4 Ways Time Can Help You Dream Big

Last week, we shared our plans to Dream Big in 2021. Slightly scary stuff…as it feels like we’ve made a commitment to achieving something that we really have to deliver on now. Eeek!

In order to do so, we recognise we need to draw upon some of the things that have helped us achieve our dreams in the past and the key tools that will get us to where we want to be in the future. First up is TIME. And, time is a biggie!

Without time to think, time to plan, and time to action – a dream will never become a reality. So, in this blog, we’re sharing some of the methods we use to carve out time…we hope you find them useful 😊

Picking Your Priorities

As a small business owner, there is NEVER enough time in the day to do everything you want to do. Such a shame there’s no pause button in life! More often than not, it can feel like you’re running on a hamster wheel; going faster and faster but getting nowhere fast. Sound familiar?

To help address this issue for our business, we recently completely re-structured our week. Going from a day-to-day, often fire-fighting style of week (which was causing us some serious anxiety and leading to feelings of being overwhelmed) to a more rigid, organised approach. We’ve committed to this entirely and respect these blocks of time in our diary as if they were client meetings. So, here’s what a typical week looks like for us now…

·        Monday = Planning

·        Tuesday = Business Development

·        Wednesday = Project work

·        Thursday = Client strategy

·        Friday = Project work

This may sound completely alien to you, it did to us at first! And of course, there are productivity curveballs that get thrown our way, but, for the most part, this shake up has been a real light bulb moment for us. We’re actually more efficient!

Despite seemingly spending less time on project work, because we’re focused and not distracted by business development conversations or content strategies, we’re firing through client work. It also gives us time, every week, to talk about our dreams and aspirations for our business, giving us half a chance of making these dreams a reality!

Practice What You Preach

We outsourced early on, not just to practice what we preach (!) but recognising it was the smart move. Outsourcing = MORE TIME. Time you can use (and we do!) to work ON the business rather than drowning IN it!

There are loads of additional benefits too! Our freelancers can do things we can’t do, they do it quicker than us, they’re experts in their field and give us different perspectives, drawn from their own experience.

The same can happen for you, relinquishing just a LITTLE bit of control in order to take back FULL control of your business, will give you the time you need to Dream Big and make it happen. Whether you choose to outsource your accounting, your marketing or even some of your day to day demands – our experience has been worth it, every time.

Technology That Will Transform

Yes, this requires some research time, figuring out what might be the best solution for you. But, over the years, we’ve found some fantastic software and apps that have literally shaved hours off our regular tasks.

We LOVE Canva! This addictively easy graphic design tool has not only saved us time but really helped us up the look of our content. Trello – let us count the ways we love your flexibility and ability to keep us (and our freelancers) on track! Agorapulse, our latest acquisition, and the newest member of the Queen Bee team – we’ve not even begun to scratch the surface of the amazing things this social media scheduling platform can do - but we can tell you it has instantly saved us time! And, finally let’s not forget My Hours – a simple to use and affordable time tracking platform. This is a real eye opener for reporting on where you ACTUALLY spend your time.

Think about what areas you instinctively feel are zapping your time, where maybe scheduling, automating or organising can help…we promise there’ll be an app for that!

Overprepared? Us? 😉

Regular readers will know we love a plan, and you’ll have heard us wax lyrical about the benefits of planning numerous times. But this is a lesson we’ve learnt the hard way, and often rue the times we felt we haven’t had time to plan – as invariably it has cost us a lot more time.

Thanks to these unfortunate lessons we really do try to plan everything – from our work week, to client campaigns, to social media schedules, to the long term goals of our business. It helps us be accountable and keeps us on track. You won’t be surprised to hear we have a Dream Big plan for 2021 😊

We hope that, by sharing the different ways we try and FIND time to talk about our business, you’ll consider methods that might work for you too.

2020 has been a difficult and anxious time for us all. If, like us, you’re ready to bring back some control and grow your business in 2021, stay tuned for our next Dream Big blog in which we share our top tips and tricks for skilling up.