Need More Time to Work on Your Business? 8 Common Time Wasters to Eliminate Now!

Hey Friend!

Today, we are talking about time wasters. One of the common things that you all bring up is that you don’t have enough time to work on your business. You wish you had more time. If only you had more time!

Now, this is entirely relative to your situation. I know some of you have a full-time job, and having limited time to grow a business is so real for you. I know some of you are homeschooling or are in a season of raising four kids under three. God bless you.

Some of you may have some time, but you’re finding that you’re wasting it. So, wherever you find yourself, I know that one of these things will resonate with you.

I’ve got eight very common time-wasters you can eliminate now. Some of you will be able to eliminate all of these, while others will be able to eliminate a couple. But no matter what, I hope this helps you find some additional time to work on the things that matter and make a difference. Grab a notebook. Let’s go.

Let’s Talk About Ways to Find More Time

Today, I’ll share the eight common time wasters I want you to eliminate. Elimination, Terminator style. These are gone, okay? I want you to do this because:

• I want you to have more time to work on your business.
• I want you to be intentional.
• I want you to be productive.
• I want you to be a time management superhero.

Because we don’t have time to waste, I believe that time is more important than money. Why? Because we have limited time. We want to be present, right? With our kids and with our families. I want to have time to do my Bible study in the morning and not start stressing out about the 100 million emails I’ve got to deal with.

I want to shut my laptop at three or four every day, play outside with my kids, work out, and watch the sunset. But to do those things, when I’m working, I am extremely intentional with my time. I was intentional when my kids were at home full-time, and also when I was working at my job and getting my businesses started.

I’ve done all of those things before. So I recognize and realize that some seasons are more complicated than others, but there are still some that you can implement in your life, no matter where you find yourself.

First Time Waster: Excessive Social Media Use

According to a 2020 survey by Statista, users spent an average of two hours and 24 minutes per day. And I’ve seen some other studies that say between five and six hours a day, depending on where you’re getting your research. Several hours per day on social media networks. This is a trap! It’s a trap, y’all!

Okay, you don’t have to fully get off of social if you don’t feel God pressing you to do that. But I think that each of you, and I, can cut our social media usage in half.

How about starting by cutting it in half? What I found to be true for me is that I wasn’t able to cut it in half because of the addiction tendencies and the dopamine hits that it created in my brain. I found myself there anyway, even when I set time limits.

I time-blocked myself only to show up there a couple of minutes or even a couple of hours a day. That turned into two hours and four hours, and so on, right? Like, 10 minutes becomes 20 minutes.

If you can’t set boundaries and stay disciplined around them, how about completely deleting these apps during your work weeks or the weekends? You can try one or the other and start there, because excessive social media use isn’t helping you grow your business. It’s a time-waster, 100% unapologetically. I believe this to be true.

Second Time Waster: Email Overload

So, how many of you check your email constantly? How many of you are continually responding to emails? Maybe you’re crafting this well-thought-out email and double or triple-checking your punctuation.

A study by The Radicati Group estimated that the total number of email users worldwide would reach 4.6 billion by the end of 2025. Listen to this. A study by Adobe found that online business owners spend an average of 3.1 hours daily checking and responding to emails. Finally, another study by McKinsey and Company reported that online business owners spend 28% of their workweek managing emails, which is 2.8 hours a day.

Y’all, that is absolute craziness! I probably spend 15 minutes or less in my inbox. Now granted, I have a team, so we’re going to keep it super honest here. But even my team members have automations set up. We also have a thought process around how to effectively and efficiently reply to emails.

Email Tips

Here are some tips to use when you find yourself responding to an email that keeps coming into your inbox.

• Save that email as a template in a Google Word doc.
• Create drafts based on common emails that you might send or receive.
• You could also set up an autoresponder that says, ‘Working on [name the issue]. ‘ Click here.
• Want to listen to the podcast? Do this.
• Are you a student? Go to this group.

You can filter through. If you’re a solopreneur, you don’t have much help in your business yet. Filter through with an autoresponder and direct people to the right place or person, because you can’t spend two to three hours a day in your inbox. You‘ll eliminate the time that you have to grow your business, right?

More Email Tips

So, another tip for email I’ll give you is that I don’t reply with an extended, wordy response. My customer service person does that. Again, we will keep it very real. I reply typically with one sentence. It is a:

• Yes
• No
• Go Here
• Do This

Most of my emails go to my team, so they recognize that if you email me, you’ll get the most efficient and streamlined answer possible. If I need to reply to a student, a collaboration opportunity, a colleague, or something similar, I will take a little longer to craft an email. However, my emails are always succinct, straightforward, and to the point.

If you want to talk with me, we will hop on a Zoom call or have a Voxer chat. I will not have conversations with you via email. That’s just Bad Business 101 because you don’t know how emails will be interpreted. Also, every single thing that you write is forever documented. So be mindful of that as you’re dealing with things via email. These tips will reduce your email overload and give you more time to work on your business.

Third Time Waster: Lack of Clear Goals and Priorities

If you don’t know what you’re sitting down to do and work on, you’ll be led to unfocused work and unproductive activity. That’s what it looks like to lack clear goals and priorities. A study by the Harvard Business Review said 36% of professionals could not name their organization’s top priorities.

That means a tiny bit over one-third of the people in a professional organization, whether it’s a brick-and-mortar, career-focused business or an online business, only know one-third of the entire company’s goal. If your team and you have no idea what the direction of the industry and organization is, not just for this year but also for this month and this week, you will spend time, and your company will waste money on tasks that don’t move the needle.

And when I say move the needle, I mean grow your leads or make revenue, period. Those are things that produce a business. You are a company. I believe 90% of you are for-profit. Ten percent of you here are doing mission work. You’re a nonprofit. I’m 100% with you on that. But you’re still here to grow your mission. You’re still here to grow your message.

Get Super Clear on Your Goals and Priorities

So you’ve got to be doing things that make that happen—swirling around and wondering what you’re supposed to be doing, and doing mundane tasks and not being intentional and focused on project work or things that will be income-producing. They’re all a time-waster. So, how do you get super clear on your goals and priorities?

Well, you, as the CEO, sit down. You have a business meeting with God. You look at where you’re trying to grow and get intentional about where you are today.

• Where is your revenue?
• What are your download numbers?
• Where is this business?
• Where do you want to go?
• What is the next right step to get there?
• What is your three-month plan here to start moving in that direction?

If you’re a solopreneur, ask yourself, “What do I need to do to start moving in the correct direction?” Then, you put that in place in your operating system.

Here’s the Operating System I Use

I have a link for you guys to an amazing operating system that I highly recommend. You break your monthly goal and put that into your operating system. Then we take it one step further and put it into our weekly goal. So, every single person on the team has a card in our operating system that lists their top priorities for the week.

We‘ve got three. We‘re allowed three priorities, and that’s it! Those are the number one goals that we each have as a team this week, all of which are focused on the company’s goal for that month and year. That’s going to help you.

Suppose you need help with an operating system that helps you know exactly what you’re supposed to do inside your business daily. In that case, I highly recommend Systemize Your Life from my dear friend Chelsi Jo.

It’s super affordable and transformational to get your house in order and know what you’re doing. What are you prioritizing? What are you focusing on? So you can quit wasting time. Yes, and Amen!

Fourth Time Waster: Multitasking

The next time waster that prevents you from having more time for your business is multitasking. But Stef, I have to multitask! I get it. Multitasking can seem efficient, and in some cases, I do think that it can be fine.

I’m in a Mastermind right now, so I might be doing laundry, listening to a training, a podcast, or refreshing myself on a course I bought in the past. I think that’s fine. However, studies like one from the National Academy of Sciences find that multitasking results in a significant reduction in cognitive performance.

If You’re Doing Income Producing Work, Don’t Multitask

I’ve talked about this before. You sit down to a work block; you’re intentionally going to work. My team and I call it the Black Hole. We‘ll send a black hole emoji to each other and say, ‘Don’t message me. ‘Don’t Vox for me. I‘m unavailable.

I’m going to work on something and close all the tabs on my computer except that one thing. I turn on some quiet worship music, and I intentionally focus my attention. I make sure that the room is cool so I can concentrate. You’ve got to laser in to create highly productive outflows.

So multitasking is okay if you’re doing something. Think of it this way. Multitasking equals mindless. If you have something mindless that you’re OK with, like, I’m going to listen to this thing, I’m going to refresh my memory on this thing, fine. But if you’re doing intentional work, you need to eliminate everything else you’re doing and focus.

Fifth Time Waster: An Unorganized Work Environment

If you are sitting in a disorganized and cluttered space, it will lead to inefficiency. The National Association of Professional Organizers reported that the average person spends 1.5 hours daily looking for things.

This is so funny because I am in this statistic. I am always looking for my coffee or my phone, like, pretty much any hour of the day. You can find Stef randomly walking throughout the house, looking for her coffee or her phone, all the time. My family will attest to this. So I am not holier than thou, friends. I am guilty of a lot of these things, this one in particular.

But let’s stop that madness. One of the things I should do is take my advice and have a phone basket. I don’t like to hold my phone very often because I’m trying not to be overly attached and addicted to it 24/7.

I need to put a phone basket in three places in my house and set it there. That way, at any given point, I can lose my phone intentionally, but it’s in a place where I know where it is. That’s one tip I would have for you.

Forget Carrying Your Phone Around All Day

Let’s start carrying our coffee cups around all day. That’s fine with me. I’m not mad at that. But when we think about limited time and availability, if this is tight for you, you can make up an hour or an hour and a half a day, if you’re not looking for anything. This includes:

• Looking for things on your desktop
• Looking for things on your computer
• Looking for your planner
• Trying to find a pen

How can you get so organized that you have everything you need when you sit down to work? You know where everything is. Your computer is organized and optimized. You go into your operating system. You know what you’re working on. It’s going to save you hours!

Sixth Time Waster: Procrastination

Number six is procrastination. This is a BIG one for people. A study published in Psychological Science estimated that 20% of people are chronic procrastinators. How many of you are raising your hands for that one? That one I am not, although I am highly distracted. So, each person has their vice.

But the procrastination card is a huge time-waster. One of the intentional habits I focus on is getting the most complicated things done first because my brain capacity is higher in the morning. Plus, I’ve got some extra caffeine. My kids are at school now. They’re full-time school.

I’m in a season, which is excellent, where I’m able to get more done during the early hours of the day. I focus on the hardest things I need to accomplish. Those are going to always go first for me. So, for my procrastinators, I want you to stretch yourself and get into this uncomfortable posture of doing the most complicated things first.

Train your brain to do that. Train yourself to get things done earlier, well before the deadline, because it’s going to help you have a lot more time. There’s no need to procrastinate on the things that have to get done anyway.

Seventh Time Waster: Overly Long or Unnecessary Meetings

Overly long or unnecessary meetings are a significant time-waster. Listen, don’t tell my husband, but he works at the government, and he’s got about ten meetings a day. They have meetings about meetings, and then they have a meeting to discuss why they need a meeting.

Oh, My Lanta! Stop the madness, okay? According to a study by Atlassian, the average employee spends 31 hours per month in unproductive meetings. Like, I’m just not here for that. I’m not. My company only has a meeting if it’s something that requires the combined brainpower of two people.

We don’t have excessive meetings with all the different levels of the team, right? If we’re going to have a meeting, we’ll all sit down and have a meeting. Let’s have one meeting, smash it, and be done. So we’ll do that. I also have a meeting with my online business manager once a week, and then she goes, executes, and operates through Voxer.

Our Operating System Saves Us More Time

Through our operating system, we’re streamlined, efficient, and effective. It doesn’t take talking about things to get things done. It takes sitting down and doing the actual work. So, there might be a strategy meeting that needs to be had from time to time, and then its execution. I am focused on:

• Execution
• Optimization
• Simplifying
• Streamlining

That’s what we’re here for. Having meetings about meetings is a time-waster, in my opinion. Audit all the meetings you’re having and see if you can cut them down. See what can be eliminated. See what can be shifted to a quick 30-second Voxer chat, or even better, into your operating system as a small, short-to-do task you assign someone else.

Eighth Time Waster: Ineffective Communication

Last but not least is ineffective communication. This relates to meetings, like a back-and-forth all day long. It’s just unnecessary and a misunderstanding. This is where I think communication through email is a huge time-waster.

Again, don’t tell my husband, but I watch him have these email conversations with his staff or with people, and he’s thinking about how to articulate this thing. I’m like, ‘Pick up the phone, Yo, call him up.‘ Be like, Yo, I need this. One, Two, Three, Go, Bye! It’s excruciating for me to watch. But again, it’s just how they do things culturally.

I’m going to tell you what I need. You’re going to get it done, and we’ll move forward. Let’s get things done effectively and efficiently, and with communication. Being an entrepreneur and having held leadership positions for most of my life, I have had to work with people, customers, and clients. I’ve learned that being extremely forward and respectful, but forward, is always the best policy.

Be Honest in a Grace-Led Way

Being honest in a grace-led way always yields the best results. I need this by this time, is going to do a lot better than:

• I hope you can get this done
• Maybe I need it like this
• Whatever you think is best
• I know you’re pretty busy right now

No! Be clear in your communication. I’m here for that across the board:

• In your brand
• In your podcast
• With your team
• With your spouse
• With your kids

How do we make it clear? How do we articulate precisely what it is that we need, want, and expect so that there are no minced words and there is no confusion? Confusion equals:

• Destruction
• Inefficiency
• Inaction
• Procrastination
• Animosity
• Resentment

We’re done with all that because we’re going to be clear communicators.

All Right, That’s It.

So, which of those eight things will you implement right now? I want you to circle the three that you wrote on your paper. Let me list them again for you.

• Number one: Excessive Social Media Use
• Number two: Email Overload
• Number three: Lack of Clear Goals and Priorities
• Number four: Multitasking
• Number five: Having an Unorganized Work Environment
• Number six: Procrastination
• Number seven: Overly Long or Unnecessary Meetings
• Number eight: Ineffective Communication

Circle the three you know you are guilty of or the three you need to focus on. Circle them right now. Then, go into your planner and your operating system and implement. Again, if you don’t have an operating system, I one billion percent recommend Chelsi Jo‘s Systemize Your Life. Do it! Invest in it! I promise you it’s incredible. Plug it in.

When are you going to make these changes? It is one thing to listen and learn, and it is another thing to implement what you’ve learned. The greatest, most successful, world-changing human beings I look up to are the people who make real money and have a tangible impact – they are action-takers.

We do not sleep on an action. We take it. Then, we make it happen and we do the work. You are one of those people, or you would not be listening to this podcast. So circle your three, plug them in, and get it done.

I pray this blesses you!

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