When people and information are so much more accessible, tasks get done faster. Sometimes, you accomplish collaborative to-do lists without even leaving your desk. As a consequence, when one job is finished, another one starts. This leads to more and more work piling up. And before you know it, you’re caught up managing too many things.
After going through my share of juggling different roles and managing businesses, here are my top three ways on how to manage your time and energy well. These coupled with diligent practice, we might just have as many hours in a day as Madonna.
Outsource to find amazing people who are great at what they do
Many times we wish we could do everything on our own all at once. But as much as we try, we’re only limited to our own strengths. To a designer who’s focused on work and a growing portfolio, it may take time for her to learn how to build a website and start an online presence. So she looks for a web designer and digital marketing firm to do this for her. This is essentially what outsourcing is for—so you could maximize on the things you do best, while lettings others do what they do best.
Free up your plate and outsource as much work as you can! Focus your time and energy on just the core things in your business to bring your productivity to another level. Today, if you’re opening an eCommerce website, you can hire a marketing team composed of different people from all over the world. You can do this by looking for the right people with good credentials in your network, social media referrals, Upwork, Fiverr, and awesome virtual assistants.
Shift your perspective on failure and embrace it
Failures are usually regarded as a point of no return. Plus, dwelling on them is totally inefficient and sucks the life out of you. But what’s worse than failure is actually the paralyzing fear of failure. As your business journey unfolds, you’ll be met with a million good opportunities, and each one may sound better than the other. But if you’re afraid to fail, you’ll surely miss pretty good opportunities.
After being through this many times, I learned that I just have to trust my instincts, take the risk, and experiment. If I fail, which I did at times, I make sure I understand why, pick myself up, and go fishing in the sea of opportunities again. Most important I LEARN from my failures and they accelerate my growth and success.
In business and in life, there will more failures than there are successes. But each failure comes with a lesson. Think of failures as the rungs to the ladder that you’ll have to climb up to reach the top where all your triumphs are. Jack Ma, J.K. Rowling, and Henry Ford are just some of the inspiring people who kept their cool, embraced failure, and never backed down.
Build lasting relationships rather than transactional ones
Throughout entrepreneurship, there may be more opportunities that you’ll work together with the same person than just for a one-time project. And I’ve seen this happen many times. In the future, your paths might cross again, and you’ll find that if both of you maintained a good relationship built on trust, risks will be minimal and it’ll be easier to take on another, possibly bigger, project with each other.
So think of the people you do business with as collaborators rather than your worker, your boss, or your business partner. Since collaboration is a sharing and open relationship, it requires investment in time. Then again, its rewards go beyond money; it develops reliable partnerships and alliances. Next time a project is done, don’t burn your bridges by keeping a business-like and mechanical connection. Instead, construct a stronger bridge built for opportunities for collaboration, and maintain long-term professional relationships instead of transactional ones.
