Launching your own business is the best investment that you can ever make. A business allows you to position yourself to enjoy a variety of freedoms that you will never experience working a typical 9 to 5 job.

However, you will never reap any of those benefits if you don’t come up with a routine to help you stay on track. Many businesses fail because they don’t have a plan. Even if they do have a plan, they are unsuccessful in creating and maintaining a routine that will enable them to execute their idea.

If you fail to establish a routine early on in your business journey, you will make one or both of the following mistakes:

• You have gathered so much information that you now have a horrible case of analysis paralysis.
• You know what you need to do. Yet, the tasks seem so overwhelming that you start to procrastinate in implementing them.

The reason folks experience this type of anxiety is because they don’t have a system in place. You can’t launch a business without following a routine. A rock solid routine will help you reduce the time it takes to get your business off the ground. Throughout my career,  the method in how I segment my day consists of the following sections:

• Start
• Drive
• Thrive
• Arrive

Start

I apologize to all my night owl friends, but I’m #teammorning all the way! Obviously, you have to do what works best for you, but I truly do believe how you start your morning sets the tone for the rest of the day. I find that I have the most energy in the morning. The first two or three hours of my day looks like this (again, you do what’s best for you):

• Check in with God (say a quick prayer, read the Bible or some other Christian book)
• Exercise (Running,Biking, Krav Maga and Boxing are my jam!)
• Check my editorial calendar so I can see what tasks I need to perform for my business. These tasks typically consist of the following:
  • Consulting with clients
  • Writing blog posts
  • Creating lead magnets (courses, checklists, etc.)
  • Brainstorming more business course and product ideas
  • Working on my other websites
  • Selecting which methods I want to choose in promoting my business

Drive

This phase of the day is spent on executing all of the activities I spent time creating earlier in the Start phase (i.e scheduling a blog post, creating a course, etc.). I tend to do this after lunch because according to research and my experiences, your social media updates tend to reach a wider audience towards the afternoon (at least for the platforms I included in my marketing campaign). I thoroughly enjoy participating in forums and groups specific to my niche.

I then take this time to analyze my performance and make any adjustments to my marketing campaign that I feel are necessary in order to maximize the amount of exposure and engagement with my audience (i.e. developing better lead magnets, connecting with other bloggers, etc.)

Thrive

This is one of my favorite parts of the day because as much as I love to create, I LOVE to learn even more so. I take this time to read (I’ve got a monster ebook list I’m slowly working my way through) listen to amazing podcasts or  watching other online courses.

Arrive

This is my chance to unwind. Oftentimes, I’ll study Spanish (I love learning languages), exercise or watch a movie. Basically, this is my time to kick back and relax. I like to reflect on how well the day went by completing one of my grateful notes.

Pomodoro, anyone?

For the longest time I used to simultaneously juggle multiple tasks. However, I realize now that I’m much more effective using the Pomodoro technique.  Focusing on ONE task at a time positions you to accomplish more tasks without feeling burned out.

Now some may think that this is overkill, but it has helped me to equally balance out the activities that I work on throughout the day. The Pomodoro technique consists of solely working on one task in a short time period which is called a Pomodoro. You can determine the length of time, but I recommend working 30 to 40 minutes without ANY distractions (this is called a Pomodoro).

Emphasis on ANY distractions. That means you can’t check your email, wander on Facebook or any other activity that typically keeps you from being productive. After you have finished a Pomodoro, based on how long the Pomodoro time you choose, you can either take a short 5 to 10 minute break. As your reward for being laser focused during your Pomodoro, you can do whatever you want during your break.

I cannot stress enough how helpful this technique has been for me. The Pomodoro technique helps me make the most of my Start, Drive and Thrive sections of my day; hence, enabling me to REALLY cut loose and unwind during the Arrive section of my day without worrying about uncompleted tasks.

Launching a business can be overwhelming but it doesn’t have to if you  have a system in place to break down your overall tasks into segments and short time intervals. Establishing a routine early on in your business journey will help you avoid making unnecessary mistakes. Do you have a system in place? If not, feel free to download the attached planner so you can get back on track right now.

[tcb-script type=”text/javascript”]amzn_assoc_placement = “adunit0”;amzn_assoc_search_bar = “true”;amzn_assoc_tracking_id = “starengu05-20”;amzn_assoc_ad_mode = “manual”;amzn_assoc_ad_type = “smart”;amzn_assoc_marketplace = “amazon”;amzn_assoc_region = “US”;amzn_assoc_title = “Christian books to help you stay motivated…”;amzn_assoc_linkid = “03728959ee48d256592d977fde64874b”;amzn_assoc_asins = “B01MG9AHYW,0310318661,0913838012,0913838136,B000SEKR2O”;[/tcb-script][tcb-script src=”//z-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/onejs?MarketPlace=US”][/tcb-script]

Copyright protected by Digiprove © 2017