What does freedom mean for you? Many wellpreneurs believe that if they work hard enough, they will succeed in business and life, and eventually, freedom will follow. While this is true to some extent, so many people get stuck in working hard all the time, and the only result they get is burnout.
The truth is that the way to grow your business isn’t through doing more things. No matter what stage of your business you are currently in, the only way to grow your business is by doing less and going deeper. And by deeper, we mean focusing on more meaningful tasks in business and life.
The truth about getting more freedom is that nobody is just going to give it to you. You have to fight for it. No matter where you are on your business journey, these three proven ways will help you free up more time in business and life. Get ready to Eliminate, Automate, and Outsource.
1. Eliminate
The philosophy behind eliminating the things you don’t really need is easy: do less to grow bigger. As a small business, you simply can’t do everything alone. Although many things could work, not everything is going to work. And that’s why you need to choose and eliminate.
The first step to creating more freedom in business and life is making a map of everything that is currently happening in your business. Create a list of all the things you are doing. Let’s say you are doing Sales, Marketing, and Accounting. Then make a list of all the tasks that these areas include.
Take a look at the list and think if you can eliminate some of these tasks. As radical as it may sound, deciding what tasks are not vital for your business and life and then eliminating them from your schedule is the first step towards freeing up your mental space.
For example, maybe instead of offering ten products, you could only do three: an entry product, a core product, and a premium product? Or what if you went really big on one social media platform instead of being present of five? The goal is to find the areas that are giving you results and focus only on them.
Another great thing about eliminating is that you don’t have any costs when deciding what you don’t want to do anymore. The bad thing is that sometimes, there is a transitional period before you free up your time. Also, some people might even get angry with you because you won’t spend as much time with them anymore. But the more precise you are on what areas you want to spend your energy on, the more time you will have for yourself.
2. Automate
Many Wellpreneurs who are just starting out think that automation is something that should happen later on. Another common misconception about automation is that it is expensive, and they can do it alone instead. Regardless of the phase of your business journey or how much you can do on your own, automation is always a good choice for everyone.
And now that you have the list of tasks you actually want to do, it is time to find the right tools for automation. The right automation tool will do all those repetitive and often boring tasks over and over again for you.
Here’s one of the first things that you can automate first: your schedule. An online booking system – the one that clients use when they want to book an appointment with you – can be an incredible time-saver. And there are so many additional things this tool can do! Besides syncing with your calendar, some schedule automation tools you can send reminders to people and even let them reschedule their appointments, so they don’t have to contact you directly.
Another great way to automate your tasks to free up more of your time is to upgrade to really good website hosting. This is an effective time-saver because good hosting plans include maintaining your website and updating plugins for you. Also, think of social media automation tools that are publishing posts for you. You can set more posts upfront instead of posting them every day yourself!
3. Outsource
After you have eliminated the things that bring you no results and decided what tasks you were going to automate, now it’s time to outsourcing. Outsourcing allows you to hire an expert who can take the extra tasks from your plate and make your life easier.
The best thing about outsourcing is that you don’t have to hire someone full-time to outsource some of your tasks. There are many contractors who can work for you part-time and still help you free up a significant amount of time for yourself.
But to outsource successfully, you need to be very clear about what tasks you want to outsource in the first place. Some of the most common areas for outsourcing are bookkeeping, accounting, and technical support.
Email account management is another area of business that always pays off to outsource. For example, you can use a tool such as HelpScout or FreshDesk to collect the emails from all your inboxes and then hire a person to manage them. This is a very good way to get someone else acquainted with the different areas of your business. Moreover, think of other areas of your personal life that you can possibly outsource, such as house cleaning, grocery shopping or even meal deliveries. You will be amazed at how much hours a week you can save this way.
To find good hires for outsourcing, you can simply reach out to your friends or business associates and ask them for a recommendation. There are also other popular spots on the internet to hire contractors, such as Facebook groups or websites like Upwork or Jobrack.eu.
Focus on Your Strengths, Eliminate, Automate, Outsource the Rest
Remember that the first step towards freeing up more time in business and life is to look at your strengths and think about what freedom means to you. Do a map of everything that’s happening in your business and define the areas you are covering.
Take the list of tasks that you are currently doing and think of what you actually want to do. The rest can be eliminated, automated, or outsourced. You will quickly find that this system helps you claim your time and make real progress in your personal and business life.
Interested in increasing your productivity? Take the Productivity Quiz to find out what is your major productivity block and how you can remove it.