If you are a founder of a startup or even if you have been an entrepreneur for a while, most likely, you are swamped with many different tasks to complete. Most of these tasks are not what you love to do; however, no matter how menial, all tasks matter to a business.
You have to bear the responsibility for all tasks, being the business owner. Right? Nope, you can change this and enhance your work-life balance. The sooner you do, the better. Things will only become worse if you don’t.
You may have heard claims by well-known entrepreneur and billionaire Elon Musk (also the owner of Twitter, now called X) that he works up to 100 hours weekly. Yet look at what he does – 90% of his work at SpaceX is design work − he splits his time almost equally between his two ventures.
Even Musk spends the bulk of his time doing the work he loves, not bookkeeping, video editing, or content writing. So the question is, why are you? Possibly you believe that you can’t afford to hire staff.
However, hiring a virtual assistant is an attainable goal. A remote assistant is a cost-effective staffing solution. Such a person can attend to the work for less than if you take it on yourself!
Instead, you can free up your time up to do what you love.
Establish goals based on your dream life.
As an entrepreneur, the most common goal is to be independent − the desire to be independent can be your dream life.
Achieving this level of freedom involves letting go of certain impediments. Letting go can be very difficult for many entrepreneurs.
Nevertheless, if you delegate, offloading the menial tasks to others, you will gain time for yourself.
You can then throw yourself wholeheartedly into what will upscale your business and keep it head and shoulders above the opposition. In this way, you gain your freedom.
More so, this is a way of reorganizing your strategy, distinguishing what is important from what is not.
You can, after that, take time out to do what you love, leaving someone else to take care of the time-consuming and repetitive tasks.
Such mundane tasks are mostly admin-related. To attain your ideal life, ask yourself how much do you want to work and how quickly you want to get to that level.
It might seem like a simple path – but it can be challenging. You need to do some strategic planning on your priorities and goals.
In other words, you would be identifying what makes you happy and excited both while working and outside of the office.
Take note of what you are sacrificing.
Ponder the opportunities you have missed out on since needing to go through the accounts or spending time managing your emails.
Write down such missed opportunities, not just in your working life but also in the time you could have spent with your family or those trips you had to pass on through time poverty.
Then think about the tasks you are doing that are preventing you from living your best life. Maybe it’s time to make some changes and improve your story and your personal life for the better.
Cut those admin tasks.
Operational and admin tasks are what most commonly hold many managers and business owners back.
These quotidian tasks eat up their time, making them miss out on the things they love (and should be doing).
Meanwhile, your business is not growing as quickly as you would like it to. As strange as it may seem, what is holding you back is yourself.
Time to bring in the pros
Delegation is the key to management. However, delegation does not comprise simply passing on tasks to another person.
There is always more to it than that – it is about making better use of your time. It is also about being smart to get the work done for less.
In this way, you can optimize your own time and have more time to do what you love. Therefore, you should consider outsourcing some of your tasks, such as admin tasks to a virtual assistant.
What is a virtual assistant?
A virtual assistant or remote assistant is a person who works remotely. These assistants are not employees of a company.
Instead, these assistants are independent workers tasked or hired to conduct specific tasks for a business.
The great benefit of hiring a remote assistant is the cost savings. A virtual assistant can save a business up to 70% on business expenses.
However, there are other benefits that are associated with a virtual assistant – such as increased productivity, more flexibility, and more rapid scaling.
Which tasks or services are normally outsourced?
The most common tasks outsourced include legal services, marketing and digital marketing, bookkeeping, taxes, general admin tasks, and graphic design: lead generation and software development.
Delegating these tasks to a virtual assistant can save you time and bring you closer to your goals.
Reorganize your day to reduce downtime and changeover time
You should consider a new time-management system, a good one that can work for you. Such a new system can enhance the completion of your daily tasks.
There are different methods you can use to help you reorganize your day.
Firstly, you can use time blocking. This method uses the Pomodoro technique of dividing your day into 30-minute blocks.
You simply allocate 25 minutes for tasks and 5 minutes to rest. After that, you complete another 30-minute block. You can complete all similar tasks during the same period.
This means taking all your video calls one after the other. You can in this way, reduce your changeover time.
However, the key is to find a system that will work for you and your work style.
Respect your time
Time is something you can’t replace, and therefore it’s valuable. As such, you should be highly protective of your time.
It therefore makes sense to let other people waste their time, but not yours. Your email inbox is an excellent example of spending hours on end going through emails: instead, such could have been taken care of by a virtual assistant.
It would help if you were exploring the projects and areas where your input is essential. You must trust the people you have hired to do specific tasks. Micromanaging does not work – every business owner has to learn to let go and trust others to get the job done equally well and promptly.
Start a timetable that works for you.
You have your goal, so you know where you want to go. You need to achieve that goal. By having a schedule, you can stay on track.
But make sure your goal motivates you to make fundamental changes in your life. This means breaking outside of your comfort zone to reach these goals.
Remember – if you keep doing what you are doing, you are never going to reach your goal since you will not change.
You can approach things differently by having smaller goals and making slow but steady changes, which will lead to a fundamental change in your life. More so, it will drive you closer to your ideal life.