If you’re like most creative entrepreneurs, your to-do list is probably a mile long. One of the biggest challenges is likely deciding which projects to tackle each day.
So many people tackle their to-do lists by starting with what “needs” to be done. But if you make that your priority, you’ll always be working from a reactive state. And structuring your day around reacting and responding is not the smartest way to build your business.
When trying to prioritize your day, start by asking yourself these three questions:
What is the best use of my time? Another way of looking at this is, what will give me the greatest return on my investment? Just because a task needs to get done doesn’t mean it’s the best use of your time on a particular day. If responding to emails or chatting it up on Twitter isn’t the best use of your time today, don’t do them. Focus on more important tasks first, and shift those other tasks to later in the day or even a different day all-together.
What will make me money today? This is a favorite question of both Tara and myself when trying to plan our days. Ultimately, a business needs money coming in to be successful. Always be thinking about what you can do each day to bring money in. Maybe it’s calling a store and seeing if they need to reorder. Maybe it’s emailing your list with a great call to action to buy. Maybe it’s finally launching that new product. If you get in the habit of doing something each day to bring money into your business, you’ll start to find your business is making more money.
What will help me grow my business in the future? Of course, not everything on your to-do list will bring in cash instantly. Which is why it’s important to balance those short-term money projects with projects that help bring money in down the road. You should always be working towards something bigger. Maybe it’s a future trade show. Maybe it’s a big press push that will net you sales down the road. When identifying these projects, always keep in mind the income potential. So many people work on projects with only a vague hope of how to make them profitable. Your long-term projects should have big financial gains at the end of the tunnel.
The reason most people aren’t as productive as they’d like is because they have difficulty prioritizing projects from their long to-do lists. But starting each day by asking yourself these three easy questions can have a big impact on the success of your business.
I seem to focus on the first and third questions, but the second one is harder. Prioritizing tasks for the day and looking into the future (somewhat vague in my head) are easy compared to working on the bottom line each day. Thanks!
Oh I love this! I find myself writing a list out to myself everyday, but seem to only list what “needs” to get done and never getting around to what I think will be better for me to get done. That reactive state has become my reality lately, and I am determined to change that! This is totally getting posted on my inspiration board 🙂 Thank you!
Thank you for this, these are great questions. Exactly the sort of thing that is so obvious when you stop & think about it, but so easily forgotten when trying to plow through a long to-do list!
I like to think that I think about question #1 every day, but really what I need to do is consider #1 IN LIGHT OF #2 and #3…!
Thank you for reminding us to consciously and very purposefully ask these every day. Personally, I’ve been very focused on #3 recently, but almost to the exclusion of the first two! Tomorrow, I’ll begin using your list; looking forward to my amazing results!
~Cindy
Great timing! Only earlier today I wrote up in massive letters the advice I received from Tara on this topic,to stick above my desk-
1. Will it make the business money?
2. Will it strengthen the brand image?
3. Will it make my life easier/ streamline a process?
If the answer to all three is no, well, I guess I’ll try not doing it tomorrow!
Love it! I will use those questions starting tomorrow as I prioritize.
Recently I started writing my to do list on a post-it note instead of in a ringed-notebook. I think there truly is only enough time in a day to do what will fit on a post-it. It is so gratifying to throw it away at the end of the day because everything is checked off.
Those 3 questions really bring back to what’s important in a business and that’s great. I’ll have to keep them in mind from now when writing my to-do list! Thank you so much for this great post Megan!
Thanks for this concise piece. It’s a great reminder to all entrepreneurs of what “needs” to be done to get out of our “distractions.” As Laura mentioned above I think a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with knowing that they need to do “money/goal” generating activities, but aren’t sure how to get clear on which one those are. I would love to add sometimes to help get “clearer” if you have some type of a visual of your long-term goal, and as you go through your “list” see if the task fits into getting you closer to your goal, if it doesn’t than it’s not a priority for your time. Thanks again for this post.
Good morning, Megan. Just posted this blog post to my business FB page (RetroRevivalBiz) ~ wanted to introduce you to my followers in case they haven’t found your very informative blog!
~Cindy
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