A common cry from those that haven’t yet started to take their idea to business is that…
“I don’t have enough time to…”
And it’s not necessarily a lie or an untruth, it’s a perception that that person has and it’s as real to them as the sky is to you.
Are you Frozen in the No Time Trap
This ‘belief’ that you have no time can get in the way of a positive approach to the perception problem and leave you frozen in the no-time trap.
If all you can see is that you have no time, and you maintain that perception as a core belief, then it makes it very difficult for you to work out…
How to get MORE time
The positive approach to the perceived belief that you have no time is to turn the question on it’s head and ask yourself How can I get more time.
Staying true to the Faster Founders tagline of practical tools and motivation, let me help by bringing to the fore several practical approaches to magically creating more from the little you have.
Practical Tools to get more time
The scarce resource you are battling with is something called time. It’s true that it’s finite, there’s only so much of it at your disposal – so what you do with it is the important question.
With 24 hrs in a day and 7 days in a week you have 168 hrs available to you
Take out your sleeping hours – 8hrs a night removes 54 hrs
Take out your day job time – 37.5 hrs (7.5hrs x 5 days a week) removes another 37.5 hrs
We’re left with 76.5 hrs remaining after sleep and work
So let’s take out 1hr each night for Dinner, 1hr each morning for getting ready in the morning 1hr each day travel time and 1hr each night for putting kids to bed – a further 28 hrs gone
We STILL have 48.5hrs LEFTOVER – more than a ‘standard’ week at the day job!
Yes, I know there’s still the soap operas you watch, there’s going to the supermarket and washing and chores to be done…I get it.
But REALLY…are you telling me you can’t find a little more time to make your idea become real?? Hey, it’s your idea and your life…but if you REALLY want to make it happen please keep reading.
Create more Hours in your Day
So you’ve looked at your day and there’s no ‘slack’ time in it that you can plunder.
So the only answer is to create more hours – right?
Now this is not something to take lightly, and you need to have a strong belief system to pick up this option – but it has worked for thousands of people around the World already.
The Miracle Morning
The principle is called ‘The Miracle Morning’ and it’s a way for you to build a better belief in what’s possible and to buy back a couple of hours a day to work on your ideas.
The practical side of it revolves around starting your day earlier at about 05:30am, and by doing this you re-claim a couple of hours each day when you won’t be distracted and can make progress on your own ideas and agenda.
It sounds a lot worse than it is, and once you start trying it you’ll find that this is golden time for thinking and doing, that you just don’t get at any other point in the day or week.
If this is something that you think can help then click on my affiliate link and go take a look at The Miracle Morning
Make Better Use of the Hours you’ve got
So let’s just say you really are time-starved, or you really need your sleep and rest to be able to function through the day.
That’s not a problem, here are some more practical approaches that can help you maximise what you get out of every hour.
When the only option is to get more out of each hour available then there are other approaches that you can deploy to help you achieve what you need each day.
Getting Things Done (aka GTD)
The Getting Things Done method is an approach to organising your thoughts and actions into ‘lists’ that you categorise and regularly review. The big benefit is that you de-clutter your head and so can focus on the tasks that you need to when you need to, thereby making the most efficient and effective use of the limited hours you have available.
It was created by a guy called David Allen in 2002 and quickly became a top management and self-help tool. The idea has gotten a strong foothold with a lots of the technical and self-help fraternity as a practical approach to dealing with the ever-increasing work demands of our busy lives.
If GTD sounds promising for you then hop over to the link to the GTD book.
Pomodoro
The Pomodoro Technique is a pretty simple approach to helping you focus your mind on a single task at a time and apply all that intensity to the work in hand.
It comes from the Pomodoro tomato and is so called because at the heart of the technique is a timer…that is shaped like a tomato!
Yes, it’s as obvious as that – a kitchen timer. You basically set the time for 20mins before you begin your task. Be clear on what it is you will be actioning for that 20mins period and once you start the timer then nothing must distract you and you stay focussed on the task in-hand until the timer goes off.
It has proved to be a surprisingly powerful technique for many people and yet it’s so simple. If this is something you think may help you make more of every day that you have to get your idea to business then take a look at the link below.
I have no time – I need to clone myself
Okay so we’ve hit the end of the line and the practical tools suggested so far are not suitable.
So we can’t gain you a few extra hours through The Miracle Morning and getting up early. We can’t get you to squeeze out a little more productivity of the hours you do have through the GTD method or the Pomodoro Technique…So the only answer we have left is to ‘clone’ you so that there’s more than one of you!!
No, I’m not talking about pinching some of your DNA and automagically re-generating another you from a test-tube. But there is a way to achieve the same effect…
Virtual Assistance (aka VA)
More and more of today’s entrepreneurs are realising that trying to do it all yourself is just too tall an ask. It increases the time needed to complete things and piles on the pressure and fatigue, increasing the risk of burnout or injury.
With the power of the internet connecting more and more people and more and more markets around the world, it is now easier than ever to find great people who can offer services to help bring your idea to reality.
Whether you need some logos created, a business plan drafted, some copywriting, widget manufacturing or some marketing work to find customers, there is someone out there that can help.
As the world has shrunk the costs of using virtual assistants (Vas) has also become a lot more reasonable. You can call on people in other countries with experience and qualifications that match your needs and possibly for a much more competitive rate than you can source locally.
Also, by working with staff from overseas you can find people who can work when you work. So if your idea is being hatched in the hours of 5pm to 9pm your local time, then maybe sourcing a VA in a different timezone would enable your idea to continue to be worked on while you sleep.
If cloning yourself is an option for developing your idea then head on over to the the Outsource and Virtual Assistant links below and check out the services and staff available.
Follow @FasterFounders on Twitter