If you do not remedy it, things can spiral out of control before you know it. This is what happened with my client Cynthia*, who also happened to be an old friend of mine.
She came to me exactly one year ago to start her career coaching sessions because she was unhappy with how her small business was going. Although she was making a lot of sales, she constantly felt overwhelmed and unable to properly manage her time. She was always running around to deliver everything on time, attend to her business needs, and to the needs of her family.
She felt like she was drowning and she needed fast solutions.
One of the advices that I gave her and that helped her tremendously, is to stop pressuring herself to always perform and endlessly count the hours where she was productive. In addition to changing her approach about not having enough time to accomplish everything she thought she needed to do, I asked her to prioritize her tasks and pick one task to focus on each day. Doing this, while putting achievable and realistic goals, were key to her success along with using apps to help her save time and have a better quality of life.
I am sharing with you below the five time management apps that if well used with other techniques, will ease your workflow, a method I always share with my clients during our coaching sessions:
Trello: This app is a great time saver! It allows you to see and divided all of your tasks per day, so you can understand how many obligations you have, and how much time to consecrate to each one. This unique visual approach to project management allows you to track your progress using boards, as well as lists, and cards.
You can create a board for each project and a list for each one of your tasks. Cards represent a single task and you and your team members or clients can add comments, attachments, and/or labels to each one. Trello's layout is flexible and makes it easy to assess the project’s status and quickly understand what needs to be done. It is a highly customizable app and is great for teams who have a lot of shared tasks because it keeps everyone in the loop and aware of the progress. This helps everyone adapt and adjust accordingly. It can also be helpful as a solopreneur because it allows you to visualize your daily workload, divide your schedule, track your progress, and better plan your day. If you like to have fun with your daily to-do list, then Trello is the management app for you!
Notion: Notion is an app that helps increase your productivity and keep you organized thanks to its multitude of features that allow you to create notes, tasks, and wikis (a page that allows you to organize your tasks in a hierarchal structure). This app is a great resource for project management and you can customize its features to your liking in a way that will help meet your needs. The nice thing about it is that you can sync it and use it on various devices such as your computer and/or your tablet. It also allows you to collaborate with your others working on your project or with your clients. , making it a popular choice for teams and businesses. Notion is a subscription-based app and offers a free plan with limited features and a paid plan with additional functionality.
Asana: Asana is great if you are working with others and it is also great if you are working alone. It is basically like a giant to-do list that focuses on tasks and subtasks and that is customizable to your liking. It allows you to create your daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly to-do lists, set deadlines, assign tasks, add comments, and track your projects. It also has a built-in messaging system that allows you to communicate with your team members or your clients, as well as a calendar that helps you schedule your time better. If you like a more structured approach to your daily to-do list, then I recommend Asana.
Pomodoro Timer: Pomodoro is a time management app based on the Pomodoro time management technique – a method that was developed by Francesco Cirillo in the 80’s, and that I simply love because of how efficient it is. It consists of breaking down your daily tasks into short manageable ones of typically 25 minutes. These short boosts of work are called “Pomodoros” and they are followed by a 5 minutes break, to give your brain the mental space and energy it needs after focusing for a specific period of time. This helps you stay focused on your to-do list, while also enjoying yourself. When using the app, you can schedule your Pomodoros and your breaks so that the alarm rings every time you finish a task or a break. The method also stipulates that after four Pomodoros you should take a 15 to 30 minutes break to properly recharge. The Pomodoro timer is a great way to reduce interruptions and increasing your productivity, which will greatly help you increase your efficiency.
Timecamp: Timecamp is a time-tracking app that allows you to write down all the hours you spent on various projects. It helps you understand how much you have spent per task and per client, then bill them accordingly. It will help you see if there is any project that is draining you and how you should better divide your time and your resources so you can focus on the projects and the tasks that are bringing you more money. And the best part? It can be integrated with Trello and Asana.
To conclude:
In today's fast-paced environment, it is highly important to have the right tools that will help you manage your time and your projects effectively.
Therefore, time management apps like the ones I have shared in this article with you, along with completely removing the sentence “I do not have enough time” from your vocabulary and replacing it with an approach that allows you to find the right pockets of time, prioritize, and divide your goals into manageable tasks, are essential for entrepreneurs and employees who want to succeed.
Having a holistic approach allows you to keep an eye on your progress while also improving communication and bettering collaboration between various parties, as well as increasing productivity, and staying motivated.
These apps and these advices will help improve your efficiency as an entrepreneur and will give you the competitive advantage you are looking for, just like it did with Cynthia, who, thanks to our career coaching sessions, is today a happy entrepreneur on top of her business and her life.
*The name of my client has been changed to protect her privacy.
Do you think you still need help to better manage your time and stay on top of your business? Then, book your Free Career Boost Session here.