Running a successful business is no easy task-it takes skill, commitment, hard work, and a lot of time. As a CEO, the most important thing you could manage is your own time. The way you allocate your time is crucial, not only to your productivity and effectiveness but also to your company’s performance.
The life of a CEO can be hectic and challenging. Completing everything on the to-do list while maintaining a healthy work-life balance is no easy task. So how do successful CEOs stay on top of everything and keep their companies heading in the right direction while not working themselves to death? Following a work routine and being agenda-driven are things all highly successful business professionals do to stay organized and focused throughout their day.
Tips for Optimizing Your Schedule and Increasing Productivity
When you have a long list of tasks on your to-do list, you may feel overwhelmed and possibly struggle even to get started. Having a routine and putting a few strategies in place to organize your day provides structure and allows you to get more done in less time.
There are many tools available to help organize schedules, meetings, and projects to help with your day-to-day responsibilities and maximize your time.
Have a Plan
With so many different daily responsibilities, having a clear schedule to tell you what needs your attention will help maximize your productivity. If you have a plan for how you will spend your day and what tasks you will be working on, you will be more efficient. If not, you may find the smallest tasks can fill up your entire day.
The way to maximize productivity is to take one of your big critical tasks and block out the correct amount of time needed for you to focus on it.
Planning your month, week, or days ahead of time will help you stay focused and maximize productivity. You could schedule the most critical tasks at times when you work the best to optimize your quality of work.
For example, some people work best in the mornings, so that would be the best time to tackle crucial tasks. It’s a good idea to also block time on your calendar for creativity, strategy, and budgets, just like you would block out time for calls and meetings. Some CEOs will set timers for focused time and ensure they allocate the right amount of time they need to complete their pressing duties.
When you have a plan and know what you should be doing at all times, it’s much easier to stay on task and quickly move from one project to the next. It will also help you avoid distractions. Of course, things come up, so it’s important to be flexible.
CEOs get pulled in many directions but choosing what gets your time and attention will help you avoid wasting time on unnecessary tasks. It may not seem like it sometimes, but planning downtime or breaks throughout your day is important as well and is an excellent way to give your mind time to rest so that you could come back refreshed, ready to work.
Hire a Personal Assistant
For many successful CEOs, hiring a personal assistant is money well spent since it helps them save time and increase efficiency, leading to greater success. An assistant can handle the mundane and time-consuming tasks that you don’t enjoy doing. They could also help manage your schedule so your days run smoothly, on time and ensure you spend your time doing the things that you are best at and directly add to the success of your business.
A personal assistant could also help you with non-work-related responsibilities that you have, like shopping, picking up dry cleaning, or running other errands. This will give you additional time each day to focus on your productivity so that you could leave the office on time for a healthy work-life balance.
Avoid Wasting Time on Emails
As the CEO, you will be getting emails from everyone about everything. Keep in mind, not everything is urgent or needs your attention.
As the CEO, you may find the majority of e-mails cover issues that don’t need to involve you and may draw you into operations that could be handled without you. You must be diligent in dictating what is priority and what is not worth your time.
Before you check your emails in the morning, check your project management dashboard to refresh yourself on what needs to get done. Be proactive about getting the critical tasks done, delegated, or scheduled before responding to everyone in your inbox. Many people get sucked into their inbox, spending too much time reading and responding to emails rather than spending the time on more productive tasks.
The CEO sets the standard email practices for everyone in an organization, so pay attention not to fall into the bad habit of overuse of electronic communications. It’s essential to set proper expectations and norms for what emails you need to receive.
These standards are necessary for the others in the organization to prevent your entire organization from wasting precious hours and intruding on critical production time.
Schedule in Bulk
Many CEOs find it effective to mix up their days and schedule similar duties back to back. For example, reserving Tuesdays and Thursdays for meetings and having one right after another then have days that are free of meetings to focus on the desk work, follow-ups, and strategy.
Scheduling in bulk eliminates a lot of downtime between tasks as it’s easier to move from one project to the next.
Prioritize
When running a successful business, there are many moving parts and many tasks that need to be completed. It’s crucial you prioritize to ensure the duties needed for the continued success of your business get done.
While other less pressing tasks are still important, it’s a good practice to start with the most critical ones to ensure they get the proper time they need.
Eliminate Distractions
Smartphones, the internet, email, and social media are the primary workplace productivity killers as many find themselves getting sidetracked by non-work-related distractions that could be avoided.
To avoid the temptation, you may find it works best for you to put your phone away while you are at your desk focusing on work.
Other distractions in the workplace come from employees wanting to stop for a chat. It’s great to stay connected and be friendly with your staff, but it’s important not to let it consume too much of your time where you cannot complete all of your tasks on your to-do list.
Schedule Personal Time
A study found that successful CEOs put in long hours, but they also block off intentional time with friends, family, or time doing things they genuinely enjoy. They’re also put in time daily for their health doing things like working out.
When you set this time aside for yourself, you are less likely to get burned out at the office. All work and no play typically lead to less motivation at work, decreased efficiency, and productivity.
Summary
Time is a CEO’s most valuable asset. Being a CEO of a successful organization requires a lot of time and strategic planning in order to complete all the required duties to keep the business running. Using your time wisely and carefully planning your schedule is the key to getting everything done while having a healthy work-life balance.
Listing out the exact tasks you will be doing hour by hour is an easy way to stay on track. Sometimes there are more tasks that need to be done than there are hours in the day for. Prioritizing your most critical tasks that directly add to the success of your business should be top of the list.
If you find that even with focused time, carefully planning, and scheduling your daily agenda that you cannot complete everything on your to-do list, it may be time to hire a personal assistant (or a second one) to help you with your duties. By delegating some of your responsibilities, you are able to focus on what you do best – running your business.
The additional time could be used for strategic planning and research for company growth.
If you’re a CEO that needs a personal assistant to help you complete some of your tasks on your to-do list so you could focus on your most critical projects, contact Pocketbook Agency, and we will find you your best match!
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