Easy Business Tasks to Tackle When You Only Have 10-15 Minutes at a Time to Work

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Do you ever find that you have 10 – 15 minutes of time where you could be getting a few business tasks done but you just don’t know where to start? I know for me it’s been difficult to really get into work mode in the little pockets of time I have. I much prefer big time blocks where I am able to effectively work on my business. But I realize that for a lot of you, that’s not a reality yet. And maybe it never will be.

You may have small children to look after and a crazy household to maintain. Or you may have a full-time job. You don’t want to come home and take a two-hour work block away from your family. It’s also possible that in those moments when you do have a bit of time to do those business tasks, you spend all that time thinking about what you should do. This is a problem a lot of us have. We swirl and swirl and swirl trying to figure out what we are actually supposed to be doing right now that we don’t get anything done!

6 Business Tasks You Can Tackle in 10 – 15 Minutes

Today I am going to give you six quick, easy, effective business tasks you can tackle when you only have 10 – 15 minutes. It is in these time blocks that you really have to be intentional. I want these to be second nature for you. When you are in the pickup line for your kids or waiting for a doctor’s appointment, twiddling your thumbs waiting for the chicken to cook for supper, these are the specific things you do.

You can build this list of business tasks out. And keep it in your phone or your notebook or wherever your operating system is. That way, when you have these tiny time blocks, you don’t spend four minutes deciding what you are supposed to be doing right now. You can go straight to the list!  

1: Engage With Your Superfans

This is especially useful for those of you who are new in your business and have started some type of community. If you don’t have a community yet, feel free to skip this one as I think that the other business task tips that can be more time valuable for you.

So, for those of you who are new in your business and are a team of one or two, I am not talking about social media posting here. This tip is for if you have a Facebook group or a LinkedIn Group or a community that you are actually building.

I think it is a great use of 10 or 15 minutes to go and engage with your super fans. These people are either in your email list, in your groups or they are listening to your podcast. You have an opportunity in these little moments to talk to them. Ask questions. Converse with them. See where they are. Hear them. Validate them. And then drive them to your podcast or somewhere where they can learn more about what they need.

2: Brainstorm Ideas for Your Next Episode or Your Future Podcast

This is something fun that you can do. If I am in the pickup line, for example, I will close my eyes for a minute and think ‘What is my person struggling with?’ Or ‘What am I struggling with right now?’  I can then text myself or create a note on my phone with the fresh content I come up with at that moment. It’s a great way to come up with this content because there is no pressure. When I sit down to record for you, I feel the pressure of what I am going to talk about. It is so much easier to come up with new content in a less pressurized environment, like in the pickup line for the kids!

On that note, I know that coming up with good content can be pressure in itself. I have so many episodes about how to brainstorm more content. If you don’t have my podcast catalog, go to http://www.stefgasscommunity.com/. You can find it under guides and can search for anything you are looking for. Just press Ctrl F to search for whatever topic you want. I have got over 600 episodes and I just know that if you have a problem, I can solve it!

3: Draft an Email or Draft an Email Story

When you join Podcast to Profit, I teach you two methods of nurturing that we use to connect with our people and go deeper with them. One is the Facebook Community. I have a whole method and strategy for that, teaching you what to do and what to post to nurture there.

The other is email nurture. Once a week, we send out an email that nurtures. Inside this email, there needs to be a story. We need something that connects, something that opens the door to vulnerability. It can be a funny story. Or a silly story. It’s a memory or a trial that you went through. You’ve got to come up with something meaty to put inside that email.

So again, this is an opportunity to take out your phone and open the note section and crunch through one of your business tasks. Ask yourself ‘What do I really feel like I want to say in the email this week? And how can I say it in a way that’s really going to resonate? Is there a memory, a thought, something going on for me that will speak to my person?’

I will just sit there with myself for a moment and then allow it to flow. You can then text it to yourself but I am much better at speaking than writing so I will send a voice note to myself. For example, I might say ‘Oh, my gosh. This week one kid got sick. I had to call summer camp. The other kid screamed because they didn’t want to go to summer camp without the other one. Then they were home all day. Then the chickens were going crazy. And then I cut myself on the chicken wire. I was trying to work and couldn’t get anything done.’

This is actually a true story and something that I think you might resonate with. So it is something I would voice record for myself and then send on to my team later so that we can get the email written for that week.

4: Review and Edit Your To-Do List

We all have many business tasks that we need to do in our day. Although I don’t want you to operate your business off a to-do list, there are still those little things that come in that need doing.

For the overall operation of my business, I use Chelsi-Jo’s operating system you can learn in her Systemise Your Biz course. I can’t recommend this enough. It will teach you how to actually create an operating system in your business that will change your life. You can grab this system from stefaniegass.com/sybcj if you don’t have something set up yet.

But as I have said, we all have those little things that come up, even with a functioning operating system. We call this the quick hit list made up of the small, quick tasks we have to tackle. In a short window of time I have free, I might open up my quick hit list and reorganize things. I will review and edit the list and cut things out that have already been completed. Maybe I am even able to tick one off if it’s something I can do from my phone. It’s a great time to get more organized!

5: Engage in Personal Development

When I am doing the laundry or something like that, I am always listening to a podcast. (Lately, I am bingeing YouTube videos on workouts and macros. But Shhhh….You don’t have to tell anybody that!)

When I am driving, 90% of the time I am listening to a business or faith podcast. For those of you who feel like you don’t have time to learn or to pray, this is a great time to do that. You. can do this when you are driving or doing the laundry or when you are doing the dishes. Most of you are probably doing this one already. It’s a great one to help you not take up a bigger work block time to learn. But to take the small snippets of time where you can learn and do something else at the same time.

I think we have to be more strategic about what we do when in our day. In the two hours that you do have to sit down and work, that better be the time you are recording an episode. Or you are crafting sales copy. You are working through Podcast to Profit. You are on a coaching call.

Those are the things you do that grow your business, your audience or make you money. That’s what you have got to do in the time you have to really focus. All the other little pockets are where the busy work can be taken care of.

6: Respond to Emails

Email is not something that you need to sit down and pour into. I reply to people with two words or a sentence. (Note: my team does not do that!) You might still be a solopreneur and may be dealing with a customer service email or something that needs to have a lot of time and focus and thought. Put this one in a folder or highlight it as unread and deal with it when you have time.

But some emails you receive can just be deleted, put in spam, or replied to with a couple of words, a no thank you, a yes, please. Stop overthinking the emails. I want you to think of emails as texting. Let’s be done wasting time with our emails.

I will say that my inbox is at zero 50% of the day. I keep an extremely clean inbox because the state of your inbox is the state of your mind. Clean it out. Start over if you need to. Because you need to know what’s happening at all times in your company. If you have 57 unread emails there’s something important in there that you are missing.

Bonus Business Task Tip: Organise Your Physical Space

This tip depends on where you are and what you are doing when you have that spare 10 – 15 minutes. I have a home office and when I have a small moment of time, I love to quickly purge the office. Papers get sorted and packed away. I take empty cups to the kitchen. The oil diffuser gets filled with fresh oils and I wipe the office down. I might empty the trash can under the desk.

What can you do to refresh your space? No matter where you work, if it’s your closet or an office, you have a space that you work in. Organize it!

This is all the stuff that I personally do in the 10 – 15 minis that I get time for. You have got six tips here plus a bonus tip. So don’t waste time! Get it done.

I am excited for you and for where you are going. I am proud of you. Keep digging in!

I pray this blesses you!

Xo,

Stef

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