Time Management – I Don’t Have Time

How many times has someone suggested a marketing idea for your business to which you’ve responded: “But I don’t have time for that.”

It is our favourite excuse, used across the board, outlining our inability to find the time to exercise, socialise, meet up with family members, wash up, tidy a room…the list goes on.

But it’s also one of the feeblest excuses.

If I said to you: “If you want to grow your influence and online visibility, you must start a blog.” And your response was: “I don’t have time,” it would signal to me that you simply can’t be bothered. It would be better to say, “I don’t want to.”

Get your priorities right

If you don’t want to do the stuff you should do, fair enough – it’s your life/business.

But if you want to give it a go because you know it will be good for you or your business, it is very easy to find the time you need.

Think about what you do every day.

How many of those activities are necessary?

You could probably cut out the game of solitaire you play when you think no one’s looking. Perhaps reduce your coffee breaks from 10 to 2 or 3. How about not taking those extra long lunch breaks every day?

My bet is that you would easily be able to find half an hour to an hour extra every day if you cut out the unnecessary ‘tasks’ you burden yourself with.

The way ahead

During your day, write down everything you do and how much time you spend doing it. Be honest, if you have a sneaky game of solitaire, watch a bit of TV or sit down with the paper, write it down.

Then think about what you don’t need to be doing and put that time to something more useful.

If you are going to start a blog, set aside half an hour a day to write one post. That’s enough to get you started.

Before you know it, your days will be more productive, you’ll fall in love with blogging and your business will boom.

Author: Sally Ormond, Copywriter and MD at Briar Copywriting Ltd. Follow her on Twitter and Google+