I’m on a bit of a roll with blatant hypocrisy.

Last week, I covered marketing, which is not one of my strengths.

Today, I’d like to talk about time management.

I would normally count this as one of my strengths. But it’s very early on Monday morning as I finish writing this.

Not only that, but I’m starting late because I’ve spent the weekend getting caught up on client work.

Despite this series of failures, or maybe because of them, I think it’s important that I cover the topic this week.

We’re not just bookkeepers anymore.

When I was a bookkeeper working as an employee, my days were pretty simple. Not easy, but simple.

I had my days structured. When you’re an employee of one business, there aren’t a lot of surprises. What I did today looked a lot like what I did yesterday.

And what I did was bookkeeping. Just bookkeeping.

As an employee, I’m in charge of a portion of the tasks that keep the business running. Not all of them.

And, let’s face it, if I was a bit late getting my part of the work done, the business was still going to be just fine.

When we decide to start our own practice, all of that changes.

Sure, you may eventually hire a team, but that’s not how most bookkeeping practices start.

In the beginning, it’s all you.

And if, like me, you decide to run things solo, it’s always you.

You’re still in charge of the bookkeeping like before. But now you’re the entire accounting department.

And the marketing department.

And sales, admin, tech support, customer service, and janitorial. Oh, and you’re in charge of stocking the break room with snacks and providing the staff lunches.

I know this. And I’ve been doing this for over 20 years.

But sometimes, I still commit to too many things at once. I bet you do, too. So, how do we avoid this bad habit?

Understanding Your Time

Before you can properly manage your time, you need to understand how it’s being spent.

Doing a time audit is a great place to start. How to perform an audit will depend on your current routines.

• If you don’t track your time, you need to start…at least temporarily.
• If you track your time, you need to go back and review how it’s being spent.
• If you track your time and review it regularly, you’re ahead of the game. In fact, I might need you to write some of this for me.

You see, we’re all terrible at estimating how much time we spend on a given task.

You think you spent an hour on social media yesterday. But it was probably 2 or 3 hours.

You’re sure reconciling the bank accounts takes you 90 minutes, but it’s actually taking you less than 30.

This time audit is crucial.

You need to know exactly how long it takes you to perform the weekly recurring tasks.

Not just client work either.

How much time are you spending on email or on your own bookkeeping?

How about on promoting your business on social media?

Now group them by role.

You need to understand how much time you’re spending on each role in your company, even if it’s a company of one.

If you find yourself behind schedule, I have a guess, especially if you’re just getting started.

My guess is that you’re scheduling client work like you would as an employee.

You’re giving yourself a full week of client work and forgetting how much time it takes to run a business.

If you want to do 40 hours of client work, you need to be prepared to work a 60-hour week.

If you want a 40-hour workweek, that means you might only get 25 hours for client work.

This is why I say pricing is so important. Are your rates high enough to support you on 25 hours of billable work each week? If not, you either need to raise your rates or plan for very long weeks.

Make the most of every hour.

The results of your time audit are your starting point. They will show you where you have room to make improvements.

From here, I like to perform the following three steps to ensure I’m making the most of my time.

1. Decide if I need to do this work now.
2. Prioritize the tasks based on the timeline and alignment with my goals.
3. Group tasks to maximize efficiency.

Decide

Before sorting your task list, you need to decide what should go on it. Can anything you’re doing be:

• Deleted: Get rid of tasks that aren’t necessary and don’t serve your clients' needs or your goals.
• Delegated: Are you the right person for this work? Is it something you need to outsource? Or is it a task your client should be handling themselves?
• Deferred: We tend to think everything is important right now. But if you’re spending an hour a week on a project that could wait until next quarter, consider setting it aside for now.

Prioritize

Now that you have your complete list, you need to choose which ones need to be completed first.

You will have one-off and recurring tasks. The one-off tasks are often easier to prioritize because they will have a specific deadline. You don’t want to schedule your tax returns for May.

It’s the recurring tasks that are a bit trickier. Make your life easier.

Let’s say you have a Wednesday morning meeting with one of your clients. Each week, you review Accounts Receivable.

If this is me, I’m updating that report every Monday. This gives me current data and a buffer if things fall apart and I have to push the task back to Tuesday.

Group

Finally, I’m a big fan of time-blocking.

Group your tasks into categories that make sense for you. That way, you know that you always do __ on Tuesday afternoons. Here are some ways you can group your tasks.

• by client
• by application (everything in Xero across multiple clients)
• by theme (creative work is on Wednesdays, meetings on Thursdays)
• by energy level (if you find meetings and monthly reports exhausting, don’t schedule them on the same day)

Experiment here. I’ve done this a few different ways. Sometimes, it’s good to mix it up if you’re in a rut.

The Big Picture

The important thing is to maximize your efficiency, not just the number of hours you work.

What I’d love to see is all of you working 40-hour weeks (or less) but accomplishing more than most people do in 60.

I’m not suggesting we become more productive AND spend evenings and weekends at our desks.

This isn’t something you can avoid entirely as a business owner. These newsletters are just as much for my benefit. I’m writing this to remind myself that I’m working too many hours and need to rethink how I’m approaching each week.

What about you?

I bet you have more advice on this topic. You’ve probably learned a few tricks along the way that I didn’t share here. If you’d like, I invite you to hit reply and let me know your best advice.

Or, go out and share that advice with your friends, family, and followers. The wisdom you’ve gained over your career shouldn’t stay locked in your head. We can all learn from each other.

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