Not everyone has the luxury of quitting their job and pursuing their dream. Most people are working a 9 to 5 that they only semi-like or that they loathe. Then they go home to work on their business and feel exhausted. Your weekend is your best friend in the small business realm. By utilizing the weekend, you can increase the productivity of the following week. Here are some tactics I use for my business to streamline my company’s needs.
Set Aside Time
I know you rather sleep in on Saturday and Sunday, but dedicate 4 to 5 hours to work on your business. All of the task that you do on the weekend should be task you technically wouldn’t do during the week. Use your time wisely. You can go to the Bank Monday – Friday. That is not a weekend activity. Finding good sunlight for your product photos is a weekend project. Attending all day workshops and conferences are great for the weekend, too. Use the time you set aside on the weekend to achieve all the task that fell off during the week. If you have kids use the hours they are sleep or at a play date. You want to focus.
Block Out Others
When you’re working on the weekends, put your phone on “do not disturb”. People are more likely to get distracted when they are chatting, texting, or on social media. You can listen to music on your laptop but leave your phone in the other room. You can take 10 minute breaks after every 50 minute work period. Use that 10 minute break to walk around, stretch, or get a snack.
Create A To Do List For Each Day
This is something I swear by. In my Notes app, I create a To Do List for each day of the week. Monday – Friday I outline what needs to get done. Every day I designate tasks that need to be accomplished. I also make sure to give myself a break so not to overload my day. Some people want to complete everything in one day. Don’t do that to yourself. For instance, Monday’s I manage my company’s money, respond to emails, and make sure the rest of the week is planned. If you finish your task for the day, your done. Don’t try to move Tuesday’s breakfast to Monday’s midnight snack time. You will over-exhaust yourself.
Respond to all of the emails you missed during the week. The great thing about most email apps is you can set reminders and use other features to make your business life easier. An associate of mine uses the weekend to respond to all the emails he got during the week. You can literally email him during the week 5 times, but since he is super busy with his day job, on Saturday or Sunday you might end up with 20 responses because that’s when he has time to. If you haven’t set up canned emails, do that, that will virtually help cut your business email time in half.
Utilizing 8 hours total for the weekend can help your business tremendously. Those hours amount to a full work day thus increasing your productivity. Don’t do so much work that you’re extremely tired on Monday. I personally use Saturday to take care of email marketing, read blogs, create my to-do-list for the following weekend, and follow up on emails.
