I know I need to work on my business more but I can’t seem to get to it on or off of my to-do list. Any suggestions to fix this problem?

An excellent question and a problem of many busy business owners. This isn’t the time or place to go through what is a 2 hour time management seminar but I can give you an idea of where you may be going wrong and how to fix it if you also fall into this trap.

First things first, regardless of what you’re trying to get done; a to-do list is not the way to go about it. There is no structure involved to compel and motivate you to get everything done. It’s too easy to just keep piling things on to the list making it never ending.

As that list grows you will tend to pick off the easy things with the hard stuff never getting done. This is because it’s human nature to feel accomplished because you checked off 5 out of 20 things on your list today even though 2 things you really don’t want to do have been there all week.

A schedule is not going to make you want to-do those things any more than you did before, but it does give you some self accountability to say “here it is on my calendar to do from 1pm to 2pm so let’s get it done.”

So now you know one of the basic tenants of true time management. Take your to-do list and put it into a daily schedule on your calendar. A start and end time will give you the boundaries you need to work on what you need to do.

Let me add this in as well. I’m not an advocate of scheduling your entire life but if you find yourself working so much that you can’t find the time for personal and family related things, put that on the calendar as well. A to-do list full of good intentions for your non-work life is worse than a business to-do list with too many never to be done items on it.

To sum it up, the best way to get things off of your to-do list, especially working on the business items, is to use a schedule instead to put structure and accountability into your day. Although there is much more to it, making this little adjustment will get more things done, avoid things not getting done and eventually have a positive impact on other parts of your business.

Give it a try and see what happens.