Time Management for Business Success: Tips for Small Business Owners

Time is a precious commodity for small business owners, and learning to use it efficiently is crucial for both personal well-being and business success. Learn how to master the art of doing more with less time through time management for business best practices. Review effective time management strategies, tools to enhance productivity, and methods to prioritize the tasks that drive your business forward. Streamline operations, reduce stress, and achieve your business goals with time to spare by maximizing every single minute.

Meet the Experts

Time Management for Business Owners

Time is one of our most valuable and limited resources and as small business owners, there never seems to be enough of it. You have limited hours in the day, many hats to wear and endless tasks waiting for you. Time management for business is one of the keys to business growth and success. Many business owners struggle with time management, procrastination, and feelings of being overwhelmed. Entrepreneurship can be a lonely road, but with the right strategies, systems, and mindset, it’s possible to take control of your schedule and focus on what truly matters, whether that’s being home in time for dinner or securing investments for your business. Time management is an essential small business success strategy and we’ll cover practical ways to save time running a small business.

Let’s break down time management strategies for business owners, including prioritization, avoiding distractions, and leveraging tools to maximize productivity.

What Are Entrepreneurs Getting Wrong About Time Management?

Many small business owners misunderstand the nature of time management. A common mistake is trying to tackle everything on your own. Delegation often feels risky and can be financially challenging at first, but as you begin to grow, it’s important to invest in additional help for your business. Common early tasks to delegate include bookkeeping, accounting, and marketing.

Another issue is underestimating the value of planning. Business owners who are proactive with their time management, instead of reactive, are more likely to be successful. When owners skip mapping out their time and priorities, their business ends up running them, instead of them running their business.

To address these challenges:

• Learn to delegate: Focus on tasks that truly require your expertise, and assign others to employees or outsourced help.
• Plan your day: Take 10–15 minutes each morning to prioritize your tasks, set dedicated focus time to work on your business instead of in your business. Turn off or limit your phone notifications so you get only what is essential.

How to Prioritize Tasks for Small Business Owners

How do you identify what is most important for you to spend your time in your business? How do you boost productivity in your business? Identifying your most important tasks is the first step towards prioritization and can lead to effective time management.  Here’s how to make better decisions about where to focus your energy:

1. Use a prioritization framework: Techniques like the Eisenhower Matrix can help you categorize tasks as urgent, important, both, or neither. Start with the most urgent and important tasks, and consider which tasks provide the highest dollar value to your business. Consider a time audit to determine where you are spending your time and where your attention is most valuable to your business’ success.
2. Block time on your calendar: Dedicate specific hours to your highest-priority (or profit) tasks and stick to them. Treat these blocks as non-negotiable appointments.
3. Know your peak productivity hours: Schedule challenging tasks for when your energy and focus are at their highest.
4. Give yourself buffer time: When scheduling tasks on your calendar, give yourself more time than you think you’ll need to account for distractions and urgent tasks that might pop up. This will help you avoid a time crunch.

Build Time-Efficient Habits

Notifications keep popping up on your phone, your employees pop-in to ask you questions, you need to eat lunch- in a world that never stops, it’s hard to focus on what really matters. So how can you avoid wasting time and focus on what matters to you as a business owner and as a person? Here are some of the biggest culprits and how to combat them:

• Over-scheduling: Packing your day with back-to-back meetings leaves no room for unexpected needs or deep work. Schedule buffer time between meetings or consider scheduling one day each week to focus on the bigger picture of the business and dream about what’s next.
• Procrastination: Large projects can feel overwhelming and cause procrastination. Break big tasks down into smaller parts and set reasonable goals for completing each part. This will make it easier to get started and to methodically chip away at the big project.
• Distractions: Identify frequent interruptions, like phone notifications, emails, or drop-in visits, and implement boundaries, like setting “focus hours” or using apps that block distractions. You can also schedule and batch these more distracting tasks, like only answering emails a couple of times a day, to avoid the constant interruption.

Manage Interruptions and Distractions

Whether your distractions are internal or external, they are impossible to avoid in the 21st century. Distractions can impact your productivity and you can’t avoid all of them, but you can do your best to prepare yourself for them. A strong strategy for managing interruptions can help you stay focused on your goals. Before you build a strategy to manage interruptions, you need to identify your distractions and distraction triggers. Pay close attention to the times when you are getting distracted or interrupted. Once you know what is happening and when, you can begin to build strategies

Tips to stay on track despite interruptions:

• Create a distraction-free workspace: Turn off notifications, close unnecessary tabs, and let others know when you’re not to be disturbed. Having a dedicated workspace can help with this too.
• Set boundaries: Clearly communicate your availability to clients, employees, and family members, so you can focus on what you need to do.
• Plan for the unexpected: Build flexibility into your schedule so that minor interruptions or tasks taking longer than you anticipated don’t derail your entire day.
• Be aware of internal interruptions: Even if you’ve blocked time to focus and have minimized the potential for interruptions, your own brain might struggle to focus. It can be more difficult to identify the causes of internal interruptions, but some basic techniques to help with them is to take a walk or move your body to clear your mind, talk to a business coach, build your confidence and motivation, or join a virtual coworking session.

Staying focused isn’t just about discipline—it’s also about setting up your environment to support your goals. If the first few techniques you’ve tried haven’t worked for you, then keep trying different techniques until you find what works for you.

Best Time Management Tools for Small Business Owners

Technology and apps can help you manage your time more effectively. Once you identify your primary time management challenge, you can find tools or techniques to help you, including effective task management tools. Avoid using every single tool (because the tools themselves can become distracting, if they don’t really have value), and focus only on the ones that you need Some popular tools include:

• Project management apps: Trello, Asana, or Monday.com can help organize tasks and deadlines.
• Scheduling tools: Calendly can streamline meeting scheduling and Google Calendar (or other free calendars) can help you to strategically schedule your time
• Focus apps: In addition to tools that might be built right into your phone, there are many apps and software that can help you focus on your work. You can also simply put your phone in another room and log out of your email so you can focus.
• Task specific apps: Tools to streamline specific tasks can also help you to be more efficient. For example, many business owners struggle with social media management and bookkeeping. Those are two key areas where tech tools can help you.

Adopting the right tools can simplify your workflow and give you better insight into your productivity, but beware, because implementing tools you don’t really need can suck more of your time away from the tasks that really matter.

Build Healthy Work-Life Boundaries

Effective time management isn’t just about being productive at work, it’s about balancing work and personal life as a small business owner. It is also about protecting your time to recharge, including time with family or friends. Without boundaries, it’s easy to work around the clock, which can lead to burnout and have a negative impact on you and your business. Consider techniques like

• Set strict work or personal hours: Set your regular working hours to whatever works best for you. Or set strict non-working hours to protect the things in your personal life that matter most to you
• Create personal rituals: Use routines and buffer time to transition between work and personal life, so you can be fully present in whatever you are doing.
• Say no when necessary: Be selective about taking on new projects or commitments that don’t align with your personal or professional priorities.
• Practice self-care: Identify what recharges you and make it a priority to do that activity regularly.
• Build your team: Figure out who you can rely on both personally and professionally to build your work-life balance.

Making time to rest and recharge isn’t a luxury, it has to be a priority to prevent burn out and grow your business potential.

Build Healthy Habits: Time Management for Business Growth

If you can only adopt one new habit to save time and reduce stress, experts recommend starting your day with a plan. Find what works for you and implement it. Making a plan could include things like:

• Write a to-do list
• Set your top three priorities for the day (and maybe a list of things you intentionally won’t work on today)
• Block time in your schedule
• Build a roadmap for your day

Effective time management for business doesn’t happen overnight, but small, consistent changes can lead to big improvements. Focus on one habit at a time, find what works for you, and celebrate your progress along the way. By prioritizing what matters and leveraging the right tools, you’ll set yourself up for success and reclaim your time for the things that truly matter, both in your work life and your personal life.