Time Management Tips and Tricks for Small Business Owners – Small Business Show 188

The Small business show episode 188 for Wednesday, September 12, 2018. Greetings, folks, and welcome to the Small Business show here at businessshow Co. The show by, for and about BFA small business. Sponsors for this episode include timing. We're@timingapp.com, you can download an app that will revolutionize the way you track your time and that is important. Also, Gusto@gusto.com SBS for a three free month trial of their refreshingly easy payroll, benefits and HR for your small business. We'll talk about those in a moment. Here in Durham, New Hampshire, I'm Dave.

Hamilton and on the west coast, I am Shannon Jean. I'm excited to be here today, man.

Yeah, man. How are you doing? Always? I'm good, I'm good. Yeah, yeah. It's always crazy, but, you know.

Yes, mostly it is.

Yeah.

Mostly good. That's good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I want to, you know, thank those sponsors too. You know, we, we do this show to give back to the small business community, but there are certainly expenses involved in doing it, so they help us keep the lights on and we appreciate our listeners listening to those, those spots, the good stuff.

And I, I will. I know we've said it before, but, you know, I'll say it again. Our. Our job here, when we do take on a sponsorship and, and deliver it to you, our job is to.

Get.

You to visit their website and then from there, whether or not you choose to buy or sign up or anything, that's between you and them. Right. Our job is to get you there, hopefully explain a little bit about it. But to be fair, not too much so that you are encouraged to visit to learn more. That's how we see our job. And we're very upfront about this, obviously with you, because we're telling you, but it's the same thing with our sponsors and that's what they expect of us. So, so I tell you that. So that you know. But also if you want to help the show, going and checking out our sponsors is a huge help to the show. It really, truly does make a difference. So. Yeah, for sure. Cool. Yeah. Right on, right on.

So what are we talking about today? We got.

We got an email from listener Todd here and I thought this might be a good thing to sort of lay the foundation of a discussion for episode. Todd writes, he says, I apologize for the forthcoming novella I've chosen you guys to vent some frustration on. And we by proxy, will share it with all of you, our lovely listeners. He says, great episode about being persistent. I always get pumped up after an episode like this, only to come crashing back down when I remember that my problem is not persistence or lack of ideas, but time itself. Now I know everyone says they don't have enough time to start or grow their side business but but I'm not that excuse making lazy person with a 40 hour workweek. I truly have trouble finding time because I am an over the road trucker. That means I'm usually working 70 hours per week, which can include up to 14 hour days and then of course 10 hours of mandatory rest. The 10 hours allow me just enough time to exercise, shower, eat and get some sleep before I'm back up and rolling again. So as you can see, cutting myself short on sleep to run my side business is not an option. But I'm pretty sure no one wants a tired trucker behind the wheel of an 80,000 pound weapon. We agree here. Yeah, check right? He says. I do sometimes get little breaks throughout my day while I'm getting loaded or unloaded, but I find it very hard to get motivated when I know I only have one or two hours. It usually takes my brain a little while to kick into creative mode. I also occasionally hit my 70 hour dot maximum and I sometimes have to take a 34 hour or get to take a 34 hour break. This is usually two rest periods with some time in between. I spend this awake time working on my website and producing my trucker dump podcast of which I'm only able to kick out one episode per month since I also get about three days off per month to be at home. But understandably the wife and ex co driver wants my attention instead of futzing around with a side business that isn't making much money right now. I know if I had more time to publish more episodes I could increase my podcast audience and therefore my sponsorship revenue. And he says he also has ebooks and they typically bring in a little bit but not very much because they're niche books for the trucking industry, he says. Additionally, I have an idea for my third ebook and also want to start another podcast that I see good sponsorship money available, but again, there simply isn't enough time to pursue these ideas. I know it sounds pretty hopeless, but I'm going to keep plugging away. I would be interested to see if you guys had any ideas to help the situation. Obviously other than quitting my trucking job since my wife would get truly evil if I did that. All right, so great right? This is you. I am. Your situation is of course Unique, because everybody's is. But I am certain you're not alone here, Todd. And so everyone listening, that, that, that hears this story and it resonates with you. This episode's for you. So there you go.

Yeah, I agree. And I have some ideas.

All right, man. Well, let's go. No kidding. Really?

Imagine that. Imagine that. Well, I have some questions too, and we have to get some follow up. But the, a couple of points that I wanted to. To make is, is it about, you know, the revenue that's coming in or is it, oh, I want to produce more, I want to do more. You know, if it's about the revenue, I would ask yourself, Todd, you know, is a podcast the best vehicle to, to generate that revenue? And you'll have to answer that. I don't know. But the other thing that came to my mind as I was listening to reading your. Your email, and thank you for that. Can, can you record while you're driving? And I know that sounds maybe kind of weird. I don't think you're doing that now, and I know it would be loud or whatever, but since your, your Trucker Dump podcast is obviously for other truckers, maybe a little background noise from the road or there, maybe there's some things you could do to the inside of your truck to kind of insulate it, you know, with some more foam or something like that. It seems like that, that would be something that would immediately increase your available time to record if you're able to do that and keep your, you know, your focus on the road. But you're, you know, you're talking. Right.

Well, and that might, I mean, there could be two different podcasts here, right. There could be the longer form Trucker Dump podcast, but then there could be Trucker Dump daily. Right?

Yeah.

Where, you know, you're putting out whatever, three, four, five episodes a week, and you're doing maybe 10 minutes from behind the wheel. That's much. If, if an audience is going to be turned off by the background noise, a shorter segment of background noise isn't. Isn't such a bad thing, right?

I like. Yeah, I like it.

Yeah. And I remember, you know, when, when we, well, when podcasting began, the. There were very few podcasts out there. And I like to listen to Adam Curry's daily source code. Right. And. And he would do this show every day, and I loved it. It was a great show. It was, it was sort of all over the map. But he has similar interests to me, one of which is aviation. So. And he is both a fixed Wing and helicopter pilot. And there was one daily source code episode that I, I mean, now we probably, you know, 12, 13 years later that I distinctly remember, he recorded himself. And I don't even know if this was legal per the FAA or wherever he was. In fact, I don't think he was in the U.S. i think he was somewhere else. But he did a flight in his small plane from, I don't know, one European country to another. It was, you know, it was like an hour long flight or something. It was short. But I, I mean, the whole thing was fascinating. And he included, not just his, whatever the content of the show was, which was, you know, his meandering thoughts for the day, but you also heard his communication with the tower and all of that stuff. And, and throughout the whole thing, there was some moderate hum of the propeller going because. Yeah.

And it was.

Yeah, no, I really liked it. In fact, as I'm, as I'm telling this story, I'm thinking, man, I wish I could listen to that again. That was a good episode. Yeah.

Right. And I think that, you know, coming up with a way to do that while you're, you know, behind the wheel would be a good way to see, you know, increasing that available time for you to record.

Yeah, yeah.

Gotta be a way to do it.

You're creating more time for you to perform your, to do your business.

Yeah. And I think it's really authentic and transparent and I think it would be cool. And maybe instead of a one hour or. And I don't know how long Trucker Dump podcast is, I think you said couple an hour or two. But maybe changing to that shorter format but more frequently would really help. And as a side, not to make this all about podcasts, but one of the things that Dave and I have done is we really. And maybe you can tell, but we don't put much time into post production. You know, we record the show, make as few edits as possible. Most of the time none. And we push it out. And so what we found is our audience is pretty forgiving when we have some little glitches or mic, it's this kind of thing and, and that. So, you know, maybe less post production and recording more and trying to do it behind the wheel.

Yeah. I will say when we started our first podcast, which was MacGeek Gab, I knew that I would not have time to spend three hours, you know, obsessively editing like I would want to. Right. You know, and I, the problem is I have. I mean, it was both a blessing and A curse. Right. Because I'm a musician, I've learned how to use audio software. I knew how long it would take. Like, I was not misled by. Oh yeah, you record it, then you just go through and you make some tweaks and no, no, I knew that this would, would take a while and I, that's why I built a workflow that, you know, we've continued to refine and refine over the years, but the workflow was the goal being 15 minutes after the podcast has stopped recording, it is published. And we can't always do that, but that is the goal. And it, you know, or it is publishable. Sometimes we'll, like Shannon and I'll record this, you know, show a day early or a week early sometimes even. But, but, you know, that's the goal because I know that I've got like, I'm crazy busy. I, I could fill up more time than I have. But, you know, and, and, and that's the thing is, you know, learning to prioritize. And I, and I know it's easy for us to say we don't have to drive a truck 70 hours a week, but, but either, you know, maximizing the time you have or learning to prioritize or like Shannon said, maybe finding a different business that is more adaptable to the time you do have.

Yeah, and, and look, you know, one of my, my points on my notes here today is, is, are you willing to pay the price? Are you really willing? You know, something has to give for you to get a business on the side going. And Todd certainly seems to be paying the price. And, you know, he's got, he's got it narrowed down to this small window every day, and he's trying to you life, but he's also trying to carve out a side business, which is great, and I commend him. I find often that when people tell me they don't have time, you can kind of drill down pretty quick and find some time that they do have. I always ask, do you watch any tv? And I always, right there, I was like, well, don't do that. And in the evening, hang out with your family or whatever, but then go back to work. And even if you're sitting on the couch with the laptop and trying to build a website, right? Business plan, answer emails, whatever it is you're going to do, you know, there's, there's usually more time, but there is a price you have to pay. Are you willing to change your life to make more time for your small business? You have to. And it sounds like Todd is willing to do it. And, you know, we always talk on the show here, flexibility versus freedom. And the. The great thing I love about one of the many things about living a charmed life of a small business owner, like we talk about here all the time, is that flexibility, you know, if you want to work late in the evening versus, you know, I can't get into the office this morning. Or different things. It's not. You get to make those decisions. You're going to be working all the time. It's just the way it's going to be. But if you want to be successful, I think. But you get the choice of choosing the time.

Yeah, you do.

Yeah.

I also think learning to spotlight your time and your focus is. It is a skill. It is not something that everyone just naturally does, but it is learnable. And so, you know, Todd said. And thank you for letting us sort of use you as our case study here, Todd. And I apologize if it sounds like we're picking on you, but, I mean, we're sort of intentionally picking on you to really dig into this.

He can take.

He can totally take it. I know. Yeah. But, you know, he said that he's only got an hour or two. It's like, whoa, that's actually a lot of time. Right. And learning to spotlight your time. And when I say spotlight, I use that as sort of the opposite of multitasking. When. When I think of multitasking, first of all, I think of, you know, big, giant failure, because it's almost impossible to really do two things at once. Although we just suggested that he drive a truck and talk. That's actually one of those things where you can sort of multitask. Yeah. Yeah, to a degree. But in terms of really focusing on creating things, you need to be focused on one thing at a time. But the trick is to learn how to change that focus very quickly. And again, it's just a skill like anything else. You know, the more you exercise it, the better you will get at this. And it's, you know, I have 10 minutes. Okay, cool. I am going to dive in and focus on this one thing that I need to do. And in addition to learning to sort of ignore distractions for these short little periods of time, you also learn how to think about the things you need to get done in. In terms of. This is going to take 10 minutes. This is going to 15 minutes. Like, breaking things down into those little bits. Like, I had to. We have another business, and we're. We're doing Some things with it. We needed an audio file and I knew that my time was going to be chopped up today. So the first thing I did was I, I said, okay, I'm going to go look at a website that has stock audio, right, and, and come up with five samples and present those to the team here. And I did that. And then I had some other stuff I had to do and I came back and they had sort of gone through and I listened again. I'm like, yep, okay, we all like number three, whatever. It was great. I said, cool, I'll go download them and I'll edit it. There was some extra low end rumble on one of these files that we wanted to get rid of. And I know how to do that. You know, it's no problem. But I knew I didn't have time to log in, buy the thing, download it and then go edit it. So I logged in and downloaded it. So at least when I had time again later, I wasn't trying to do the whole thing. Even though downloading it is only a five minute thing. And for me, because I already know what to do, editing the file was really only a 5 or 10 minute thing. I was able to, by chopping those up, I got them all done today. As opposed to kicking that can down the road to tomorrow morning when I might have, you know, a 30 minute block of time that I could squeeze this into. And it really is that spotlighting, like when I was editing that audio file, there was nothing else on my mind. And you have to learn to be ruthless with your time and your focus. But it's very difficult. But the more you do it, the better you'll get.

Yeah, yeah. And you can come up with different ways to do it. I have the same situation almost every single day. And as I'm moving into one task, something else pops into my head or I get a message, something happens. And I keep a pad next to me so I can try to offload those little distractions and say, oh, okay, great. I have to circle back to this or circle back to that. And you know, like we had Bob Levitis on a show a while back and he talked about the Pomodoro technique where you use that little tomato timer, you know, set it for 20 minutes and you focus on one task for 20 minutes. I think it really works. 20 minutes is a long time.

Really long time.

Yeah. And you know, I tend to bounce around a lot and I think I've just had enough practice at it over the years that, that I. Either that or I'M fooling myself thinking I can be effective. But I also think working if you have a bunch of employees and departments and you're kind of like, you have to manage by distractions all day long and you learn how to do it and like, you can delegate, you can do those things, I think it's great. But it is an important part. I love that term, spotlighting your time and really figuring out what is important at that. Because, you know, there's a saying, you know, if, if everything's important, then nothing is right. So you need to know, okay, now for the next, whatever, 10 minutes, 20 minutes, you know, this is the thing I am going to do. I think that, I think that works out well.

I had a business partner a while back that actually, the guy that I co founded Backbeat Media with, Greg Snyder, who, he said something to me one day and it really was like just one of those things that sticks. And he said, oh, yeah. He's like, I have to be ruthless with my time. It's like, right. That, you know, yeah, that's. That's the right thing. That's the right way to think about it because you. That's the one thing you don't have and can't create more of. Right?

Yeah. Yep, Exactly. So you got it.

Speaking about being ruthless with your time, I want to talk about our first sponsor, which is timing. So timing is the automatic time tracking app for the Mac, Right. So for anybody billing their hours, you need to be tracking your time. This much is obvious. Right. Enter timing. Instead of making you start and stop different timers to figure out what you've been doing, timing automatically tracks how much time you spend in each app that you have. But not just in the apps. In each document inside the app and in each website inside your web browser. And it shows you exactly when you were working on what, when you slacked off, and how productive you've been. So you know how to improve your productivity, but your work doesn't only happen on the Mac. Right. That's why Timing's timeline automatically makes suggestions for filling in the gaps. Right. So when you step away from your Mac, it doesn't know what you're doing. When you come back, you can have it set to ask you, what did you do while you were away? Were you at lunch? Were you at a meeting? Were you on a phone call? Right. These things help you really get a sense of how you're using your time. And I've used this app on and off over the years, and it really, it's one of those things where for me, you know, I'll use it for a month or so and it radically, you know, it's just informative. You have data so then you can learn. Oh, yeah, I gotta be better with my spotlight, right? That which is monitored is managed. And timing allows you to do that monitoring and that management. And it does it in an automated way, so you gotta check it out. Download the 14 day trial for free today at timingapp.com smallbusiness and then save 10% when you purchase. So stop worrying about time and focus on doing your best work instead. Again, timingapp.com/small business. Our second sponsor for today is Gusto. Right? Payroll and benefits are hard, especially for small businesses. You don't have the time to be an expert in things like taxes and regulations, especially when it's on a state by state basis, right? Old payroll, old school payroll providers just aren't built for the way you and, you and I work today, right? Gusto is making payroll, benefits and HR super easy for small businesses. They've built this in today's world, which means modern technology does all the heavy lifting. So it's super easy to get things right. 72% of Gusto customers say they spend less than five minutes to run payroll. That's a pretty good thing. And if you don't believe it, Google people love Gusto. How often do people actually say they love their payroll provider? Right? Think about that for a second. No one loves their payroll provider. People just they. They deal with it, not Gusto. So you gotta check it out. Most small businesses don't have an HR expert, but you don't need one to use Gusto. They've got their great software, their great service that allows you to focus on your business, not payroll and paperwork. So like we were saying earlier in the episode, to help support the show, Gusto is offering our listeners an exclusive limited time deal. Sign up@gusto.com SBS today and you'll get three months free once you run your first payroll. Again, that's Gusto.comSBS Our thanks to Gusto for sponsoring this episode.

All right, Fantastic. Yeah. I wanted to add one thing onto your Spotlight concept. Here is also one thing that helps me a lot with time is, is that spotlighting, but also creating a schedule. You know, if you have certain repetitive things that need to happen, you know, task A happens, you know, Monday, Wednesdays and Friday. I'm going to do it between 8 and 9am or 8 and 8:30, whatever works. It has really helped me a lot to carve out that time and to stick to it. And then I know, okay, I'm not going to schedule anything during that time period because this works well for me. You know, one of my businesses right now I'm doing a lot of photography and product photos and that kind of stuff. And I've found that it's, it's better at night and I get rid of the natural light. I've got, you know, all the studio lights going. And I just know, okay, you know, between 7 and 8, I'm going to go ahead and do product shots. And so that I think the scheduling helps a lot. You know, keeping, keeping things on track.

I never underst. Well, I mean, I do now, but initially I really didn't grok the concept of scheduled day tasks, right? I would, I would, I would have my to do list and then I would have, on my calendar, I would schedule time to like do this podcast which has to happen at, you know, the same time because, hey, you and I are here and it takes time, right? But I, I, up until maybe it was, I don't know, two years ago or something, I had never scheduled a task and something came up where like you, you know, I was, oh yeah, I got to do this every Wednesday morning. And I would realize that I would book appointments for myself on Wednesday mornings or whatever and then it would be almost noontime, like, oh yeah, there's that thing I need to do and I still haven't done it yet today. And so I would, I needed to get it done so I would, you know, push something off in the afternoon. And I thought, well, wait a minute, my calendar software supports scheduled to dos. Why don't I just do that? And it life changing, right? The concept, like you said, of carving out time for yourself, that's really the trick. It's not like this. I'm carving out time to do a podcast with you. Right? Or carving out time to make a phone call with someone else scheduled to dos. I mean, it doesn't have to be a to do. You just be an event on your calendar. But don't be afraid to schedule time with yourself. Yeah, that's a good, I like that, man. Yeah, that's good.

Yeah. And you know, one of the other things that I find is if you're interacting with people, and I say all of us do it, even if it's not work related. But if you've got, you know, your spouse, other family members, partners, employees, you need to communicate what your time needs are to those people. So coming back to the scheduling, if Monday Wednesday, Friday, from 8 to 8:30, you're doing task X. Well, people need to respect that. They need to know about it. Or like in my case, hey, I want to do product photography between 7 and 8pm So I let my wife know, say, hey Renee, this week, Monday and Wednesday, I'm going to do from this time to that time, you kind of build this support system into what you're doing, whether you're telling your spouse or whether your employees going, hey guys, from 8 to 8:30 I'm taking calls from the east coast or whatever. They will know then not to come in and not to introduce those distractions, not to ask questions until you're done and schedule out some of that time and communicate it to everyone else who can be very helpful.

Yeah, that's a good idea. Plus it just sets expectations. Like you said, that whole concept of you get home from your day job, job, whatever that is, and you have dinner, maybe some family time or whatever, and then you know, you know that, well, there's this other time between then and when I go to sleep that maybe I just watch TV or mess around or whatever. And that's, that's the time that you can recapture and, and, and repurpose for your small, you know, your side business or whatever. Making sure your family knows that you're wanting to spend that time on your small business will help. Right. Because now they're not going to pull you away. Right.

And it changes based on the kind of stages of your life. Like when my kids were little, you know, I would be, I didn't want to do anything else when I got home but hang with them, do all the stuff you got to do, help with homework and all the things and then spend a little time with my wife and hang out. So I used to work, you know, 10, 11 o' clock till midnight or 1:00am Those were my extra time that I worked and started a company with you, Dave, and did all that stuff. And once we got that going and now my kids are older and so we come home, you hang out, how was your day? Have dinner, talk, chat or whatever. They're off to do homework and get things done. So there's an hour or two free for me before I want to come back down to the house and hang out with my wife and do whatever. And so you just have to look at what, what stage of your life you're in and look for those little pockets of time that you can kind of reallocate to do different things.

Yeah. And again, as you start to do this Just like everything, you'll get better at identifying. Oh, wait a minute, there's like an hour there that I can use. I never really thought about that. It's exercise, right. The more you do it, the better you get. It's practice, rather.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. And then, you know, a couple of things I wanted to add. We've talked about here a lot. The systems versus goals approach. I think that also helps with your time management because, you know, the setting a huge goal and holding it out there and, you know, trying to get and hit that over, you know, over some time frame. I think it's easier to manage your time in small chunks if you've created a system that is going to achieve what you want, whether it's revenue based, whatever sales, whether what you name it. You creating your system to achieve what you want, you can parse it up into smaller chunks that I believe are a bit easier to manage with a hectic schedule, especially if you're trying to start something new on the side.

Yeah, right. Yeah, you got to chunk it up. Yeah.

And then some obvious stuff. You want to use as many automation tools as you can. What software is going to save you time? What services can you use if you're, you know, Todd is really into doing the podcast and wants some awesome production values. I know there are services out there that you can kind of get to and use, you know, maybe a virtual assistant, different things, but automate as much as you can. And I think that, you know, we talk about optimism here on the show and how it's so important and it's, you know, creating your own reality, but I think you need to be optimistic and, and at least somewhat realistic with your time.

Yeah, it's true. Yeah. You need to lie to yourself a little bit, but. Yes, yes, but not entirely. That's right.

Yeah. And realize, you know, what is really possible, you know, with your time. Because beating yourself up and having your inner judge just rip you to shreds all the time is not productive to getting, achieving anything great and starting a new business or, you know, something that you're doing. So, you know, understand that. Okay, I'm going to peel out 45 minutes to an hour a day. Well, what can you really get done in that time and get something going and, you know, just, just kind of be aware of that. And one, you know, last thing, you know, it isn't always about money, but a lot of times it is. And one of the things that helps focus me because I can go down all these, you know, rabbit holes, you know, as good as the next person, probably better, but. But if I'm thinking about money and revenue and cash, I always ask myself, what can I be doing right now that will increase my revenue? And that really helps focus me on the important things that I need to do. If you're focusing on money and increasing cat, what is it that I can do right now that will help increase that revenue? And it helps me all the time. I go, okay, I can go take more product shots, or I can go work on the website, or I can go do a blog post and create some new content and do some social media. So those kinds of things can get rid of some of those distractions and those ancillary items that maybe you don't.

Need to worry about. Man, that's a great. That's one of those things I always say. One of the hardest things about being a small business owner, whether you have employees or whether you're just on your own, is knowing what to do next. Yeah, right. I mean, when you're. When you're working for someone else, it is at least you know, at some level, your manager's job, your boss's job to tell you what to do. Now, you know that depending on what your job is, you might have a lot of discretion with how you get stuff done, but there's this overall sort of driving thing that. That you are being tasked with. And when you're a business owner, there's no one there to tell you what to do next. And sometimes you just know, oh, I gotta do that next. But other times you don't know. And asking that question, what can I be doing right now that will increase my revenue? Man, that, like you said, that cuts out a lot of distractions and just gets you focused right on the goal. I really like that. Yeah, it works. No wonder you make the big bucks, man.

No. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, I think you just have to keep looking at things and parsing your day down in little chunks. You heard both Dave and I say, you know, during the show today, 20 minutes is a long time. And, you know, that's a. That's a huge, valuable chunk of time right there. 20 minutes. And I guarantee you burn 20 minutes looking at social media every day, you know, or people or whatever, stocks or news or. I'm a news.

Well, and if you don't know, use that timing app right@timingapp.com smallbusiness. I mean, it's. It's serendipitous that they wound up being a sponsor scheduled for this episode. I mean, it really like that. Answering those questions about. Oh, yeah, wow. I spent two hours on Facebook throughout the day today.

Yeah. Oh, my gosh.

Right. Like that you don't really want to know that information. Except. Except that you do want to know that information.

Well, most people don't want to know and they just want to roll through their routine each day. But we believe that you, that you're listening to the show, that you want to do different. You already are doing, you know, something different in your life with your business or you're like Todd, where you're trying to grow something new and you know, on the get a side business going to make your life better. You're not like those folks and you need to analyze your time because that's your most valuable possession.

That's it. That's as good as it gets. Yeah.

Awesome. Thanks for, for listening. Listening to us today hopefully helped Todd out and maybe some of you other folks out there. Come share your story feedback at BusinessShow Co or go to BusinessShow Co Facebook and come talk to us in the small business support group.

Absolutely. Of course. We want to thank our sponsors timing@timingapp.com smallbusiness and gustousto.com SBS and I also want to thank our bandwidth partner, Cashfly for providing all the bandwidth that gets this show from us to you. Have a good one, folks. Keep living that charmed life.