By the time Friday rolls around, I can hardly believe another week has passed. If you’re a business owner/entrepreneur, you are also likely exhausted, doing #allthethings.

I remember my first entreprenurial venture. I launched a women’s boutique in 2007 and while I LOVED designing the space, meeting with designers in NYC on buying trips, styling our incredible clients, merchandising the inventory, planning the buy, setting up the tech and e-cmmerce site (yup, I’m a geek) and marketing, I did NOT love some of my new “jobs”…

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Two weeks after we opened, it was a Saturday and I was closing up so happy, having had another really successful sales day. But, then I smelled something and long story short, I had to call my husband to say that I could not join him at our friend’s wedding that evening because the sewer had backed up in the street, causing a flood to the store and a “mess” in the ladies’ room. I was like “OMG, I left my fancy, well paying corporate job at Visa to do this?”

I’m sure you can relate to having to do one of those early business launch jobs, when you thought “what did I get myself into?” And then you soon realize that there’s only you…to do all the marketing, accounting, sales, financial, technical, strategic tasks, required of any business owner.

While you’re likely not dealing with janitorial issues, you know what I’m talking about. You may still dread those jobs, that are either not in your wheelhouse or are boring, tedious or the worst – the ones that are critical but you find to be overwhelming or you get stuck with some limiting beliefs, so you just avoid them (yes, I’ve been there).

The fact is, even if you had an endless budget to hire it all out, some of these are things you need to know how to do so you can systematize, automate and know enough of the basics to give direction to anyone you hire to execute. But how can you possibly do it all?

And how on earth do you get it all done when you also have other responsibilities such as a family, home, the need to feed and refuel yourself and stay connected to your friends and support network?

I’m always looking for ways to work smarter. Here are 7 productivity tips that I’ve found to actually work (IMO).

1. Commit to a quarterly and monthly plan – what’s your business model, who’s your target, what are the goals?

The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule but to schedule your priorities.

Stephen Covey

Time block your weeks and days rather than work from a To-Do list. This forces you to realistically plan out the priority tasks that help you achieve your monthly plan. If you use a To-Do list, your brain will automatically go to the easiest thing to do, not the most important. We all want to avoid pain and discomfort. What’s one more scroll through Insta?

The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule but to schedule your priorities.

Stephen Covey

1. Commit to a quarterly and monthly plan – what’s your business model, who’s your target, what are the goals?
2. Time block your weeks and days rather than work from a To-Do list. This forces you to realistically plan out the priority tasks that help you achieve your monthly plan. If you use a To-Do list, your brain will automatically go to the easiest thing to do, not the most important. We all want to avoid pain and discomfort. What’s one more scroll through Insta?
3. Allow for deep work, focus and thinking – When you plan out the priorities and as yourself “how long will it take me to write out the messaging for this sales page?” You can schedule that time in a block for toal focus. If you do 10 mins of this task then 15 of another, you are wa
4. Avoid “context switching”. Working with developers for so long, I’ve learned a few key concepts about efficent work when you need to really maximize your brain powr. Context switching is when you do one task for 10 mins, stop and then do another. It costs time because your brain has to shift into and out of gears. It’s
5. Do the heavy lifting (deep thinking) in the morning and save
6. Think beyond the 9-5. You became a business owner to manage your own time. Why do we have 5 day work weeks and why do we still think we have to fit our 40 ours in Monday to Friday 9-5? What if you did your content creation and writing on Sunday morning before anyone gets up and that unlocked you to attend an uncrowded Yoga class on a Wednesday at 2 or take your kid to practice and have one of those 1:1 conversations you love.
7. Set your environment up for success.

1. Commit to a quarterly and monthly plan – what’s your business model, who’s your target, what are the goals?
2. Time block your weeks and days rather than work from a To-Do list. This forces you to realistically plan out the priority tasks that help you achieve your monthly plan. If you use a To-Do list, your brain will automatically go to the easiest thing to do, not the most important. We all want to avoid pain and discomfort. What’s one more scroll through Insta?
3. Allow for deep work, focus and thinking – When you plan out the priorities and as yourself “how long will it take me to write out the messaging for this sales page?” You can schedule that time in a block for toal focus. If you do 10 mins of this task then 15 of another, you are wa
4. Avoid “context switching”. Working with developers for so long, I’ve learned a few key concepts about efficent work when you need to really maximize your brain powr. Context switching is when you do one task for 10 mins, stop and then do another. It costs time because your brain has to shift into and out of gears. It’s
5. Do the heavy lifting (deep thinking) in the morning and save
6. Think beyond the 9-5. You became a business owner to manage your own time. Why do we have 5 day work weeks and why do we still think we have to fit our 40 ours in Monday to Friday 9-5? What if you did your content creation and writing on Sunday morning before anyone gets up and that unlocked you to attend an uncrowded Yoga class on a Wednesday at 2 or take your kid to practice and have one of those 1:1 conversations you love.
7. Set your environment up for success.