Three Tips For Working Less Hours Per Day
This week, someone in my Facebook group asked, “Monica, can you give me a tip for how to work less hours in a day?”
I absolutely love this question. So I want to share three of my favorite tips for working less and actually enjoying life more.
Rule number one: always work at the times that are ideal for you and for your energy levels.
I see a lot of entrepreneurs creating their schedules not based on their prime energy hours but based on when other people want their time. My invitation for you is to flip it and make a schedule that first and foremost works for you.
For me, my highest energy time is in the morning from about 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. I try not to schedule meetings until 11 a.m. or later so that I can use those morning hours to sit down and get my own writing work done.
I can write a newsletter in 20 to 30 minutes, but if I try writing that same newsletter at 5 pm, it’s going to take me a full hour and I’ll be really prone to distraction.
Figure out the time(s) of day when you have the most energy to do your work, and be sure to plan your schedule accordingly.
Remember, there are no rights or wrongs here – if your energy goes up at midnight, then that’s fine! Go ahead and plan that time to get your work done. Pay attention to the way your energy ebbs and flows, and own it.
Rule number two: nothing in your business should take you more than 60 minutes.
What I mean by that is nothing should take you longer than an hour to do, except maybe writing a chapter of a book or writing a longer sales letter.
I love this rule because it keeps you in check. If it’s taking you longer than an hour to send an email, write a newsletter, or shoot a video, that can mean one of two things.
This means either that you need to delegate part of the task to somebody else – because you’re doing something that is not within your zone of genius – or you need to upgrade your skill set so that you can learn how to do the task faster.
The reason this rule works so well isn’t because you’re always going to abide by it. You’re often going to do things that take you longer than an hour. But when that does happen – when you spend longer than an hour on something – a little alarm bell goes off in your head.
In these moments, you’re called to ask yourself – do I need to delegate this task, or do I need to upgrade my skill set here?
Rule number three: put constraints on your days. If you pour a liquid into a container, that liquid takes the shape of whatever container you pour it into – and the same is true for the tasks you schedule into a day.
If you tell yourself that you’re going to be done by 3 pm, you’re automatically going to work faster on everything so that you can hit that mark.
I see this all the time with entrepreneurs who have young children. They become uber-efficient because they have to be done by 3 pm – because that’s when the kids get home from school and need their attention.
Entrepreneurs who don’t have anything happening at 3 pm can allow themselves to spend hours working on tasks, procrastinating and watching cat videos, and then work until 8 pm – because they don’t have that container on their work day.
Give yourself a time limit for when you’re going to finish your work, and then make sure that you really try to stick to it. When you do this, you’ll see your efficiency increase, but you’ll also notice that there may be changes you need to make in order to stay within your time limit.
There may be tasks that you need to delegate, tasks that you need to delete, or areas where you need to upgrade your skill set – and either way, this becomes part of the process to learn how to start working less.
All of these tips are useful when it comes to working less hours per day – and I invite you to try implementing all three of them this week.
If you’re interested in getting more support around creating a detailed plan for yourself for the next 90 days – one that will allow you to work less hours – I want to invite you to our next Breakthrough Planning Day this Saturday, March 25.
At the Breakthrough Planning Day event, I’ll walk you through making a plan that fits your lifestyle. You’ll get complimentary access to this event when you buy my Breakthrough Planner (click here!), which is a 90-day planner to help you increase efficiency and focus and make more money.
Remember – increasing efficiency is a process! Here’s to finding what works for you and sticking to it.
