The time demands on entrepreneurs always require more every day than can be packed in. The urgency of so many priorities keeps a number of important things on the backburner. This means that things like education and personal development are often limited to what comes out of experience and hard knocks. Yet, successful entrepreneurship calls for a level of balance in daily activities.
Both busy consultants and CEOs of successful companies share some of the same time constraints. They have, however, learned that business is a constant process that takes discipline to do more than survive the day at hand. There is no single list of secrets to guarantee success. There are, however, a number of things that can improve your chances of achieving success. Here are five secrets these individuals incorporate into their work that allow them to be successful.
- Effective time management. Everyone gets the same 24 hours a day. The challenge that is faced in business is to use those 24 hours in the most effective way possible. It is essential to learn that keeping busy is not enough. Many entrepreneurs fall into the trap of letting activity serve its own purpose. The key is to not spend even five minutes on a task if it is not essential to the goals you have. It is better to rest for five minutes and assess priorities than to invest that same five minutes on a seemingly urgent task. Properly assessing the things that must get done each day is an essential skill.
- Learning from mistakes. Mistakes come with being a leader and an entrepreneur. There are two important things to remember about such mistakes. The first is to learn from them. While mistakes are to be expected, repeating them is an unacceptable trait. The second thing is to not let mistakes discourage you. Understand that if you are not making mistakes, you probably aren’t taking enough risks. The key is to learn and grow.
- First things first. This is actually another aspect of time management. The core issue, however, is gaining wisdom at assigning the right priorities to the tasks at hand.
- Knowing when to delegate. Even in a small company, the entrepreneur must learn to find others to carry out tasks that are too complex or too simplistic for them. Outsourcing a task such as accounting is often such an area of appropriate outsourcing. If there are simple tasks that can done for minimum wage, don’t make the mistake of thinking you can’t afford to hire help to so these tasks while you focus on more important things to do.
- Scheduling ‘me’ time. While time is always at a premium, most successful individuals understand that they also need downtime to be efficient. That is the key – the goal is efficiency, not just effort. Daily time for exercise and planning is essential to long-term success.
Entrepreneurship is rewarding and important to our nation’s growth. The more you are able to make your efforts part of a disciplined and diligent effort, the more success you will enjoy. Consultants and CEOs make their time count, you can too.
This post comes courtesy of Naked Business Consulting, a group of business consultants in Melbourne, Australia. If you’re ready to take your business to the next level, check out their website.