Crunch-Time: 10 Rules to Get Back your Time-Freedom.

I started my own business from home for many reasons. More time freedom is in my top 3. It’s funny though what happens when you suddenly have complete control of your own business, have perfectionist tendencies, and start really loving what you do. In a move to work less, you find yourself working more.

Here are my 10 rules for working smarter and getting more time freedom. It’s crunch time, and to keep with the theme, I’m going to get straight into it:

1. Crushing Perfectionism. I used to re-read my blog posts and articles at least 5 times and spent my life in the thesaurus. I also used to re-shoot my videos until I looked like a professional movie star (ok, that never happened, but being a perfectionist, that was my goal). You must practice strict discipline and eliminate the little things that don’t matter.

2. 80/20 Rule. 80 percent of your work done in 20 percent of your time. No more hours spent on fine editing just for the sake of aesthetics or pure detail.

3. Parkinson’s Law. Deadlines are your friends. Set deadlines and abide by them. Parkinson was right, it does improve productivity, and in the last 10 minutes, you will become a speed machine!

4. Minimum Multi-Tasking. As a mother of 2 young children, this caused some internal conflict. Multi-tasking defines my role as a work at home mum! However, multi-tasking must be kept to a minimum. I no longer have 20 documents and programs opened at the same time. I’ve been using the Skype ‘Do Not Disturb’ quite a lot (sorry, friends), have turned off my email alert, and focus every work period on the one task. Needless to say, this principle will help increase your focus and productivity immensely.

5. Daily Top Priorities. Every day, write down between 1 and 3 things which you must complete. As much as possible, do not move on to other things until they are done.

6. Limiting Email/Phone Disruptions and Task-Shifting: It is amazing what an email can do. It can cause you to immediately abandon your priority task and trigger a whole series of less important tasks. In time-periods allocated to specific tasks, now turn off your email, skype and phone until your task is completed. This is a great preventative method to avoid temptation.

7. Automation and Leverage. Build a powerful port-folio of systems and tools which can do the work for you. There are so many systems available which can cover most tasks, and only require original setup before operating on auto-pilot. Using an automated lead generation system is key. Auto-pilot means more time for you. Less work and more income too. Yay.

8. Outsourcing. Let go of the control and start outsourcing. Acquiring first-hand knowledge and skills is great, as it enables us to understand the various processes and outcomes, and helps us define related requirements. After you have defined your requirements and target outcomes, you are ready to let someone else do it.

9. Detailed Schedule: Plan your schedule for success. Select your most focused and productive periods and allocate your priority tasks to those periods. A detailed schedule will help you apply most of the other principles in this list, in particular setting deadlines, limiting multi-tasking, preventing task-shifting and setting priorities.

10. Eliminate Procrastination: Procrastination causes us to create pretend tasks. This is what happens we go wandering aimlessly on the internet, when we read spam emails or irrelevant sales letters, or engage in perfectionism on unimportant tasks. There’s only one solution to procrastination: pick the task, and ‘Just Do It’.

Better go, time’s up!

What are your best time-saving tips? How much do you value your time-freedom? Do you automate or procrastinate? Do you get tied up in perfection? What do you waste your time on? Has the love of work ever driven you to work more than you intended to? Share your comments here, would love to read them!