Solopreneurs shouldn’t always be filled to the brim.
Photo by Mikael Blomkvist from Pexels
Life is like a cup.
We have the daily activities that we do,
our day job we earn money from,
and family we’re with.
Every day we take a sip from our cup per every activity we do.
We sip consistently, continuing to fill the water in our cup little by little as we sip little by little, too.
But what happens when our cup overflows?
When activities pile up and fall by the wayside?
We can’t drink water that’s spilled,
can we?
Same as we cannot tidy up a mess if we have a hundred other things weighing on us:
- Our kid got sick
- Our boss wants us in the office
- Our website for our solo biz is running slow
How do we find time & actually organize our routine,
so that we can consistently drink water in our cups — instead of letting it overflow?
It starts from the beginning.
No — not in grade school when your teacher found a cheat sheet on your desk (I’m only guessing).
But I’m talking about when you first moved into your home, started a filing system, or your solopreneur business.
It’s the beginning that can set you up for failure or success.
But often we don’t know what either of those two looks like.
If we don’t set up ourselves properly in the beginning, we’re letting ourselves fail — even if we have our business making revenue, or we feel on top of it.
Here are 3 ways to do this, starting with:
1. Routine
Routines should work with us, we know we have good time management when we:
- Have a designated place for everything
- Don’t feel rushed all the time
- Have times for rest
Why are these so important?
Because they’re the foundation for getting things done.
Without having the energy, we won’t put in the work to have a system, and without a system, we won’t have places to put our stuff.
Sure, I might be talking about physical messes, but this goes along with mental, too.
Organization in our mind is key to having it physically, too.
So when we have a set routine, we have time to keep up with our tasks and be able to recollect where things go — so that they don’t just pile up.
Systems are another big component in this.
Every day we wake up, cook breakfast, and get to work.
During work, we may use a Notion template to keep up with our projects, or even as a habit tracker when we check off a to-do.
That’s what systems are all about.
Tracking what you need so that tasks and things don’t fall by the wayside and get forgotten.
Keeping a routine will help you to get organized. Otherwise, your cup will overflow, and it will be harder to mop up the mess afterward.
2. Prioritization
Along with routine, identifying what our most important tasks to do first will help us to avoid burnout — a big component of not having our sh*t together.
Use systems like Notion to track your time-sensitive tasks, and to do your work when you’re most energized.
Using a prioritization technique like the Eisenhower matrix, the MoSCoW method, and the Pareto principle can help, too!
Then once you have your important tasks done, you can take a break & re-evaluate what you need to do next.
This way, you’ll always be working from a well-oiled machine;
Downing your glass of water like a pro.
3. Necessities
I. Need. This.
Getting what we need at the right time.
When we stock up on the essentials, we need to keep a place for it & keep it that way!
But stocking up on nonessentials is the ideal fermentation that can lead to a little thing called hoarding.
Often, we have tasks piling up & things to do that we don’t think out our buying decisions on whether we really need something.
Even worse, we don’t even have a place to put them.
That’s where planning each aspect of your life is really important, otherwise…
drip drip
When done right at the beginning, everything is simple — you’re able to place a paper where it’s needed and put away clothes without them piling up.
But if you’re down the road and have a failing organization system, you know it. Things don’t fit in the places they’re supposed to, because you didn’t have time to organize them properly.
The time to start is now!
You don’t need a January 1st or a planned time to make it stick.
Try incorporating small habits today, start using a system in Notion to help — there are plenty of templates to get started with, so don’t worry about spending too much time on that either!
Do what you can today, tomorrow will thank you.
I hope this helps you to understand what steps you can take right now, whether you’ve been at your biz for a while or have just started.
Having said this from personal experience, your choices rely on you! Each of us has our routine & activity to organize, so everyone’s situation is different.