Illumin Blog

Are you leveraging your time to create new products, build credibility, increase visibility and make more money? Or, are you spending time on necessary, but non-revenue related tasks?

In this new year, vow to optimize your time to grow your business and your visibility.

Outsource

To optimize your time, focus on doing only that which you alone are skilled to do.  Outsource the rest. As a solo entrepreneur or small business owner, one of the best ways to do this is by hiring a virtual assistant or VA.

Sarah-Leah Gootnick, founder of Secretary in Israel helps entrepreneurs optimize their time. "We enable small business owners to spend their time on revenue generating activities (i.e. meeting with or marketing to new clients), as they outsource their administrative tasks to our college-educated, American virtual assistants," says Sarah-Leah. These activities include, but aren't limited to:

• Appointment Scheduling               
• Billing                                           
• Blog Updating                              
• Card Sending                               
• Data Entry                                    
• Email Checking                            
• E-Newsletter Sending                   
• Gift Sending                                 
• Invoicing                                      
• Letters Mailing                             
• LinkedIn & Facebook                  
• Researching                                  
• Shopping Cart Updating               
• Handling To Do's                         
• Transcription/Typing                     
• Travel Plans Coordinating             
• Voicemail Checking                      
• Web Site Updating                       
• Writing and Editing

VAs also offer a wealth of time-saving resources to their clients. Sarah-Leah shares 3 here:

1. Sign up for a local or toll-free number such as RingCentral.com, Kall8 or Onebox.com. They offer a variety of features that can keep you working efficiently.
2. Have your voicemail transcribed.No need to waste time transcribing messages yourself and possibly missing info or losing time. Consider YouMail, PhoneTag or SpinVox.
3. Use an online To Do list. Remember the Milk integrates w/ your Gmail Calendar.

Simplify, Organize, Plan

The impact of how we use time isn't just immediate, it's eternal. The decisions you make today to do, or not do, something will impact your future forever.

In her new book, Secrets of Simplicity, Mary Carlomagno, author and founder of organization company Order. quotes Henry David Thoreau: "As if you could kill time without injuring eternity" in her beautiful book Secrets of Simplicity.
 
Mary notes: "Getting organized takes just minutes when you regularly schedule time for it. Planning ten to fifteen minutes at the beginning and end of each day for organizing yourself will give you time to tidy papers, wrap up projects, and the like. This process provides closure to the day and brings peace to the beginning of the next."

In her book, Mary also cites a unique Illumin exercise to gain clarity on how you can maximize the time in your life.
 

Start Managing Your Time Today

As CEO of your business It's important to remember that YOU need to take control of how you spend your time. Allowing other people to dictate how you spend your time enables them to achieve their goals, but doesn't help you achieve yours.

Create a plan to stay on track, eliminate confusion and procrastination to attain your goals.