Why Time Management is Important When Marketing Your Business
As a business owner, you know the reason why time management is important:
Time is money.
However, life is unpredictable, and it's natural to fall behind. The only solution to catching up is finding a routine where you're making the most of your day.
Before you read on, remember this: like any other skill, time management takes practice. If you fail, try again. As James Clear says in his book Atomic Habits, never miss twice.
RELATED: 7 CEOs Share How They Protect Their Mental Health
Why Time Management is Important
The answer seems obvious, doesn't it?
The better you manage your time, the more free time, money, and life fulfillment you'll be able to achieve.
A 2021 study titled "Does time management work?" unexpectedly (their words, not mine) found that time management primarily increases your overall well-being— not your work performance.
They even realized that internal factors such as having kids, age, and gender do not impact how well you can manage your time.
Okay, they do say that women are a tiny bit better at time management than men. They also indicate that "women's time management abilities seem to grow stronger over the year."
Some other interesting finds:
"Standardized exams that depend less on knowledge and more on intelligence, however, time management may be less helpful."
"We found no significant relationship between time management and cognitive ability in our meta-analysis"
So why is time management so important? The overarching answer seems to be that it's the solution to your work-life balance and success.
RELATED: 7 CEOs Share How They Set Boundaries in Their Business
Time Management Definition
Oxford Dictionary defines time management as "the ability to use one's time effectively or productively, especially at work.
If only it were so easy.
The truth is that time management looks different for everyone. There are tips and tricks on how to manage time for:
While there truly is no one-size-fits-all solution, one trick that seems to break the mindset on how you can work smarter, not harder, is the time management 80/20 rule.
Time Management 80/20 Rule
The time management 80/20 rule comes from the Pareto principle. This principle came to be in 1897 when an economist realized that 80% of England's land was owned by just 20% of the population.
How does that apply in today's world? Well, it pretty much means that only 20% of your efforts will produce 80% of your results.
This is where the term "work smarter, not harder" comes into play. And it's a great thing to remind yourself of if you're a perfectionist or procrastinator.
Basically, don't try to make your marketing content, your services, or even your emails perfect. At the end of the day, only 20% of all that hard work will produce results.
The time management 80/20 rule opens you up to two solutions:
Quantity over Quality: Create as much content or work as you can on a given day. It may not all be perfect, but since you're getting a set amount of work done in a day, you can almost guarantee you'll see 80% ROI.
Quality over Quantity: On the flip side, since less than a quarter of your time will give you what you want, focus on creating quality content over quantity. The key to doing this is managing when you can create your best work. These are called your "magic hours. My friend and Babe Crafter member Kristen of Vow + Vast says to ask yourself, "Am I feeling creative enough to take this on?"
RELATED: 4 Expert-Approved Ways to Build Income Streams
At the end of the day, the key to managing your time is trying out a few options (like the 80/20 rule) and finding what works for your personal life and routine. You will not become a master of time management in a day, a week, or even a few months.
Stay consistent, friend. You'll figure it out.
Join our Digital Babe Crafted Community for monthly video tutorials, virtual events, and 30+ workshop replays on managing your content (and time)!
Disclaimer: The business owners featured in this blog are members of Babe Crafted (at the time of publishing).
