Using Your Time Wisely : Entrepreneur Edition

Ready to conquer the day like a true entrepreneurial warrior? Get set to transform your time management skills into a finely tuned engine of productivity. Today's episode is jam-packed with actionable advice that'll help you set clear goals and prioritize like a pro. Say goodbye to the black hole of busywork and hello to strategic task alignment that propels you closer to your business dreams with each check on your to-do list. We know the battlefield of entrepreneurship is strewn with distractions, but with our guidance, you'll learn to shield yourself from time vampires and focus on what truly moves the needle.

Beware the multitasking myth; it's a siren call leading you to rocky shores of inefficiency. We'll tackle this head-on with real-life anecdotes and strategies that champion single-tasking. Discover how to fortify your boundaries, manage disruptions, and reclaim your time from the jaws of social media and entertainment. Take it from us; when you hone in on one task at a time, you'll not only boost your productivity but also enhance the quality of your outcomes. Join us as we share the secret sauces to marinate in deep work and yield delicious results for your enterprise.

Lastly, don't let your smartphone outsmart you. I'll let you in on my personal tactics to fend off those pesky notifications and texts that threaten to derail your focus. From "Do Not Disturb" to app limits, these are the tools you need in your armory to stay sharp and intentional in your interactions. And because we're all about the extra value, we'll stir in some wisdom on continuous learning—fuel for your entrepreneurial spirit. Make sure to stick around for our next enlightening episode with a special guest whose insights are the cherry on top of this knowledge sundae.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:04

Welcome to Living in Purpose on Purpose. I'm your host, jamie Hansel, and welcome to my podcast. Hey guys, welcome back to Living in Purpose on Purpose podcast. I'm your favorite podcast host, jamie Hansel, and I appreciate you guys tuning back in Before we get started today. If you are watching via YouTube, make sure you're going to click that subscribe button wherever it is.

Speaker 1: 0:34

Now, today, I will say this episode is a little bit geared towards my entrepreneurs no shade, it's in the nine to fives but I know that as entrepreneurs, sometimes you need a little bit more care and love, because we have a lot of free time, we have a lot of freedom in our schedules. So I thought it would be very important for us to talk about what it looks like living in our purpose on purpose as an entrepreneur, and one of the main things that we need to do to do that is using our time wisely. I know it sounds like I just said a bad word, because a lot of us, as entrepreneurs, are terrible at using our time wisely, and that's why I feel like this episode was a very, very important topic to talk about, because if we don't use our time wisely, we can waste a lot of time, and we all know that time is money and money that is out there that needs to be made. We have to make sure we're able to go out and get that money. So, first things first. I'm just going to give you guys a little bit of tips or I'm in tips, I'm just going to talk about a few different topics that I feel like are important or it's kind of like in the realm of using your time wisely.

Speaker 1: 1:36

The first tip that I want to talk about, the first point, is setting clear goals. This is very hard for us entrepreneurs also, because a lot of us we're multifaceted, we are good at we do a lot of different things very well and if we do a lot of things well, we kind of like jump from place to place to place to place and even if you're an entrepreneur that kind of sticks to one thing, it's still very difficult because in our industries there's so many different things that you can accomplish, there's so many different levels that we can get to different heights that we can reach, and within that we can waste a lot of time. So within that, to make sure you're not wasting a lot of time, if you set clear goals, it just saves you a lot of time. You're able to work directly with what you're trying to do. You know exactly what you need to do in order to get to where you're trying to go to accomplish that goal and you're not kind of like aimlessly wandering around. Now, when it comes to setting your clear goals, you have to be able to know what those goals are. You have to sit down and figure out where you're trying to go, what you're trying to accomplish. Okay, if you're trying to switch industries or if you're trying to work up in this industry, what do you need to do to reach this level of status? Or what do you need to do to get into this room with these people? What do you need to do to release that book, to release that podcast? You have to sit there and really think about what that looks like and set those goals on how to get there, and with that, you will make sure that you're not wasting a lot of time.

Speaker 1: 3:04

Now we know we need to set those clear goals, but within the goals, we have to know how to prioritize our task. I'm going to say that one more time we need to know how to prioritize our task. We have a lot of things that we need to do. We have the goals, we know what we need to do. We get that, but a lot of times we do not prioritize the tasks that we need to do in order to complete or make those goals. A check on our list we have those to-do lists and we still do not understand what it means to prioritize the tasks that we need to get done.

Speaker 1: 3:38

If you do not prioritize the tasks that you need to get done, sometimes you'll be working on a level nine task that you really need to be put in on the end of your list, and working on your level one task, which is going to take more time or more effort. Now, I'm not saying that you have to go in this set order every time, but what I am saying is that, in order for you to make sure you're achieving those goals and that you're actually attaining the things that you're trying to set out to do, you have to prioritize and say, okay, what's really important, what's number one? Because if you don't know what's number one, what's number two, what's number three, you're going to start working on different things that, honestly, don't even require your time right now, something that's going to be way in the future or something, honestly, that doesn't even make sense for you to do right now because you haven't even mastered the other things. In order to make sure you're not wasting your time, you have to be able to prioritize those tasks. If you are not doing that, I promise you you're going to waste time every single time. Now, within prioritizing your task, stop working on multiple tasks.

Speaker 1: 4:44

Avoid multitasking. I know we say a lot of different things to say oh, you know, I can multitask this way and get multiple things. I can get a lot of stuff done if I work on this and this and this. No, cut it out. Cut it out the reason why I say that, cuz, contrary to popular belief, I don't know. Somebody might get in the comments and say, no, I'm a great multitasker. No, you're not. No, you're not. You've programmed yourself to believe that because you're getting whatever you need to get done or you feel like you're accomplishing them in a good way. But I promise you you are not going to get the tasks done, like someone who is taking the time to dedicate to one task to get that done. It's not going to be the same delivery. I don't care how well you think it is. I don't care how good you think you are at multitasking, it's not something that's going to be done in a manner that if somebody who said it took the time to do that one thing and Dedicated that one, that time to that one thing, is going to give a different type of result rather than yours.

Speaker 1: 5:43

I'm not saying that I don't ever multitask. I multitask a lot. I'm especially with me staying at home with my kitties right now. However, I know the things that require my full on attention and I have to communicate that with my husband. I say, hey, I need an hour to go down to the office, to the clubhouse. I need to go down there and dedicate this to my homework because this requires me. I have to design this after design that I need the time to actually accomplish these things. I cannot multitask with this. I can't have the kids yelling in my ear Well, I'm trying to do this. It requires my full on attention. It requires my full brain power to actually do this. You have to be able to recognize the things that you cannot multitask in now.

Speaker 1: 6:25

I'm not saying that every single task you have to sit and dedicate special time to just know. You know your task in your life and your goals more than I do. So of course, this is a general thing. You know If you have a little small task that you can kind of work on when you're doing something else. But you know the things that I'm talking about because, as I'm saying, you're already kind of like figuring out like dang, I do multitask with that and that's in that time. Just take the time out. If you take the time out to take an hour for one thing, you can get it done in that hour, opposed to Multitasking and it's taking you three days because you want to just dedicate three, five, you know ten, twelve minutes to it each time. Because you're multitasking with something else, you're not gonna get it done.

Speaker 1: 7:08

So my advice to you is to avoid multitasking, entrepreneurs, especially for you, because if you try to use your time wisely is not gonna be your best friend. Multitasking is not going to be your best friend. It's just not. It's going to hurt you more. It's gonna help you. I know it sounds like it will help you just because in society we have, we just feel like, oh, multitask, do all the things, do all the things as long as you're doing all of the things and it's like no, just because you're doing all the things don't mean that you're doing the things that you're supposed to be doing. So avoid Multitasking at all cost. Now, within multitasking because we're avoiding that all cost, right, we have to limit our time wasters. In a lot of times within multitasking, that's when the time wasters kind of creep into our time, creep into our space, and we start to slowly but surely allow them to kind of take over the time we're dedicating to do whatever task or to work on whatever goals that we're working on.

Speaker 1: 8:05

Time wasters can be social media that's like the number one, the biggest one, the main one that a lot of times we say, oh, we're just gonna scroll for two seconds, which no one ever said that in their life. I'm just gonna scroll for ten minutes. I'm just gonna take a little break while I eat. I'm gonna just eat this really quick and just scroll on Facebook. Two hours gone, two hours that you could have put towards working on some type of content planning, some type of video editing, whatever the case may be.

Speaker 1: 8:34

We're responding to emails, another big time waster Netflix and Hulu and Crunchyroll and whatever else, sitting there and saying I'm gonna just watch a little bit of this episode while I eat. I keep saying while I eat, because that's literally the only break time that I get from working on anything. If I start to eat lunch or dinner or whatever, that's when I have a break from my actual work. But we said, oh, we're just gonna watch a little bit of our episode, we're just gonna watch a little bit of this, I'm just gonna watch a little bit of that, and then that little bit you're done eating. You finished eating an hour ago and you're still watching this time waster. Cut it out. Let's limit those time wasters. Now.

Speaker 1: 9:11

I'm not saying that you can't do these things, but what I am saying you have to be conscious of the fact that they're time wasters. They're wasting your time. You're not utilizing your time wisely anymore and we are entrepreneurs. Like I said, no shades of nine to five. If you're watching, you can, I'm sure, apply some of these things to your lives and your job. But from entrepreneurs, you know, like I know, one of our biggest problems is wasting time and a lot of times that put us back further than if we would have just allowed ourselves to identify the time wasters, to avoid all this multitasking, not saying goals and all these different things, we could be further along at this time than we. You know if we are right now because of us wasting time and doing all these things. So, once again, limit those time wasters.

Speaker 1: 9:57

And a lot of times time wasters can also even be talking to people. Sometimes we'll just get on our phone, say, oh, I'm gonna text this person back and before you know it you're going back and forth with this person for one or two, three hours. You're like dang, I've literally just been sitting here. I don't know about y'all, but it takes a lot of my brain power to have a conversation with people. Now, in person I can talk to someone all day long. That's fine. But when I'm texting someone, it really has my under-abided attention. Like I sit there and I'm like, okay, what am I gonna say? How am I gonna? Okay, what are we gonna talk about? Especially with friends? You want to have a conversation like dang, what am I gonna talk about? What am I?

Speaker 1: 10:31

It's just too much, is draining my family. If you're watching this, you know I'm usually in my in the family group chat. Why is too overwhelming? It's too much for me. I have to literally put all my brain power into reading all these men. Don't let it be over three or four people like it's just too much time wasters. Sometimes you have to put your phone I do not disturb I am the queen of do not disturb and then if you have an iPhone now another way, you can not waste your time and limit those time wasters. You can put limits to how long you actually are able to be on an app. Now, if you anything like myself, sometimes you say Unlock the app, like I'm not good for a minute, and then that minute it goes away. You're like me, I'm looking for our and you're gonna look it for however long. But I encourage you, don't, don't be like me. Actually allow yourself to sit on there If you absolutely have to go on social media.

Speaker 1: 11:24

I am an influencer, so a lot of times I have to spend time on social media. I have to respond to comments, I have to post on my story, I have to go comment on people's Posts and things to stay relevant, I have to make posts. I have to do all these things. So I do have to be on social media with a purpose of working. If you are influenced or watching this, don't try to convince yourself that you're not wasting time by scrolling when you really are. If you're not putting something like Intentionally out, you're not posting with an intentional purpose or you're not commenting with a purpose, you are wasting time. You're scrolling like the rest of us, it's okay. We're not doing it anymore, but I encourage you to limit your time wasting Habits, to make sure you put on those limits. I don't know about androids I'll have to look into that but if you do have an iPhone, make sure you go into your settings and put on the Limits or the time limits on your apps, or only on the apps that you waste time on. So whether that's snapchat, instagram, facebook tick tock is a big one YouTube, maybe Anything that you feel like you sit and you can waste a lot of time on, put a time limit on there and I promise you'll thank me later.

Speaker 1: 12:32

Another thing that you can do to use your time wisely is actually be a continuous learner. I know it sounds a little crazy. You're like what, jamie? Be a learner, yes, like to use your time wisely. Learn a few things, especially as an entrepreneur. You can learn something every day and still have not learned enough. Like there's so many different things out there that you can educate yourself on, receive knowledge about, communicate with people and get their insight, because there is what's the saying there's a lot of ways it's getting cat, or there's many ways it's getting cat. Whatever the saying is, I'm sure my dad knows that's true.

Speaker 1: 13:07

So, even though we're all photographers, there's the multiple different ways to edit a photo. Even you go in the Photoshop, you need to remove something. There's like four different ways you can remove something from your picture. There is, you know, the clip is that this is the clone is. It's so many different things. So, the same way with your life. There's so many ways that you can learn to do something else, or to learn how to do Something you never done before, or to learn a new way that you do something already You're currently already know how to do. There's so many different ways.

Speaker 1: 13:36

So if you want to spend some time doing something other than your work at the time, like I said, I'm a photographer I have to edit a lot of photos, I have to send client galleries out and things like that I want to break from that, break for my eyes, because a lot of times my eyes are just mm-hmm. Go on YouTube and go with the intention of learning something. I have a lot of books about photography. I go open up a chapter that I haven't read before, read through, highlight some things, whatever the case may be. But if you are a continuous learner, you're not wasting your time. You're using your time wisely, to help your craft, to build your craft up, which in turn is gonna do what make you more money. And I'm not saying money is the motivation, but I'm saying money is the motivation.

Speaker 1: 14:18

A lot of times, with our us as entrepreneurs, you know money make your business kind of go around. So in order to make more money, you want to make up, have a better quality of whatever work you do, whatever product you're putting out, whatever service you offer. You want to make it short, make sure it's a quality service of Quality product. In order to do that, you have to learn. You have to continuously learn. You have to continuously Just give yourself the ability to learn different things. No one has it all together. I don't care if you already made six figures or whatever the case may be. You consider yourself successful already. You still have much more room to grow and to learn and to evolve, and with that it only comes with continuously learning, whether it's from people or even just from tangible things like videos, books, podcast, whatever the case may be. Now, this is kind of sorted.

Speaker 1: 15:11

The last thing Not really, but this is the last thing that I'm familiar with, and that is scheduling and Taking your breaks. Scheduling your breaks and resting, but within those breaks and resting sometimes is also great to review and reflect. So you do need your time, which you are scheduling your breaks and rest where you're not doing anything work-related, like just throw it out the window, pretend you don't even have a business, pretend You're not even an entrepreneur at all. Sit and take the time a new thing that I've been trying to do. If I say I want to have two children, if I say I'm gonna spend time with my kids, I'm not on my phone trying to respond to messages in my DM about a photo shoot. I'm not on my email trying to Respond to an inquiry or whatever. I'm spending the time with my kids. I'm taking the time for them. They're getting full, and that goes with multitasking also. No, I'm not doing that. I'm literally giving them my undivided attention. I'm not on my phone.

Speaker 1: 16:07

I'm trying to allow myself to take that break and rest my mind, though I'm working in something else. I'm working as a mom, I'm breaking in, resting as an entrepreneur and I'm living in the lifestyle of that balance, that work-life balance, and I'm being there for my children, saying with my husband, saying with my friends. If I'm out with my friends, I'm not on my phone trying to look at my inquiries and things. No, if you say you're off at this time, you're off at that time. If you say your business is closed at this time, I will literally watch a message come in my messenger, especially my personal Messenger, but I will watch, I will see it. Notification come on. Is someone inquiring about something? I would make a note of that. I'll put a star by it now on business suite on Facebook. That syncs with everything, even with Instagram.

Speaker 1: 16:55

You can make it a priority and remind yourself to do it later. There's no problem with that. It's okay. You don't have to always just be on go. I know people are saying, oh, like I don't never get sleep, like I Say that, but not because I am proud of that. I am not proud of that. I want balance. I want time where I can like, rest and chillax and and be okay with saying, okay, my business will be there tomorrow.

Speaker 1: 17:22

Right now, I'm clocking out, I'm turning off the lights and we are now going into my regular Jamie Hansel mode. That does not require me to be a photographer, to be an influencer, to be a A podcast host. None of that is just literally me, myself and I and who I am, and if I'm out with a friend or with my family, I'm in that gap. I'm in that type of that part of my life. I'm in that space. I'm not in any other zone.

Speaker 1: 17:48

That's important now, within your scheduled breaks and rest, I you do need to take some time to review and reflect. So I'm not saying all the time, but at some point. It could be quarterly, it can be weekly, it can be monthly, daily. Sometimes I like to do daily because it keeps me on my toes. It lets me know when am I getting done, am I prioritizing my task correctly, if I'm avoiding multitasking, all the things we're talking about, it helps me kind of check in with myself. But however it fits for you or whatever works for you, make sure you're reviewing and reflecting on all the things that you did your business. Okay, what's working, what's not working, what can we do to make this better? Oh, we're doing great on this. Great Numbers are looking good. Yeah oh no, we got to go a few losses this month. Why? How can we fix this? Oh, our profit was up. What did we do different? We did really good this month. Those are the things you need to sit and assist as an entrepreneur also.

Speaker 1: 18:41

Now, this last point, guys, I actually don't know much about, but I did want to look up something that I did not know or did not have much information on, just because I feel like it may help somebody else. And the very last thing is delegating tasks to other people or outsourcing things. I've had a lot of people reach out to me about outsourcing for my photo editing, though I feel like that will help me a lot in my photography, right now I just don't see myself doing that. I'm still trying to find my groove in my editing style because I am a candid photographer. I do not like having like this preset type of style editing because I feel like that's trying to fit everybody into one box, and I know personally I don't like feeling like I'm in a box or feeling like I have to be a certain way or a certain type of influencer or business owner or whatever. So within my photography, my editing style varies, so I don't even have a template for someone to really sit in like say we're going to mimic this editing style and outsource your edit like I'm going to edit for you. I can't do that. However, it works for some people. I know plenty of photographers, especially here in Jacksonville, that outsource their editing. That's perfectly fine.

Speaker 1: 19:54

If it works for you, you have the finances or you know you have the resources to do that, that is great. I say go for it. I feel like that is using your time wisely. If you have the ability to do that, why not? That is allowing yourself to free up more time within your business so you can use to do something else, maybe to start another way of income, another, maybe a passive way of income, or maybe to collaborate with somebody else to work on more projects, depending on your business. There's so many different things that you can do with time. Time is money, like I said. So if you can allow your money to work for you over here while you're doing something else to make more money, you're doubling up on that.

Speaker 1: 20:33

So, again, if you can outsource and you can delegate tasks to other people, do it. If you're collaborating with somebody and they offer you help, take it. I know it's very hard sometimes to do that. I know I'm very difficult. It's very difficult for me to do that. So when I say, do you need help with this there, I'm like no, it's okay, I got it, I got it. Meanwhile I'm literally drowning in tasks. So I encourage you guys if you can delegate tasks to someone else, please do so. It won't hurt you. You will not be any less of a business owner or entrepreneur by allowing someone to help you.

Speaker 1: 21:07

So I hope today's episode allowed you to kind of take a reflection of your life and your business as an entrepreneur and see where you can actually free up some time, where you can actually not waste some time, where you can actually use your time wisely. I hope that it helped you out. I know it helped me out a lot when I was going through these points. I kind of was thinking like, okay, dang, like I can really stop multi-dasking a little bit more, or okay, well, maybe I can take some offers up on some help and different things like that. So I hope it helped you entrepreneurs. Like I said, nine to fivers if you got it this far in this episode. I appreciate you for your support and I hope you share it to all your entrepreneur friends, anybody you know who maybe even want to start a business. Send this to them to allow them to get a heads up, to get a first foot in the door, before they start to know exactly what to avoid and the things they need to adopt.

Speaker 1: 22:00

Now, before we say farewells until next week, make sure you're following us on Instagram at Living In Purpose On Purpose Podcast, and Facebook at Living In Purpose On Purpose Podcast. Now, I know they kind of passed the TikTok ban situation, but go ahead and still follow us on TikTok at Living In Purpose Pod. And also, if you're watching us here on YouTube, make sure you click that subscribe button for Living In Purpose On Purpose Podcast, but also make sure you click that share button. We're at the end of the episode. Go ahead and send it to one of your friends, your family members, or even just share it on your social media. I appreciate you so much for watching thus far. Make sure you tune in. Next week we have an interview with a very special guest and I'm super excited. Like I always say in per usual, live life on purpose.