When you work from home, time management skills are extremely important. This is doubly true when you’re just starting a small business and want to manage your time so that you aren’t consumed by work. Time management is such an important aspect of business to our Rainmaker families– after all, we got into this so that we could build wealth while spending time with our families!

But when you’re starting a small business, it can be hard to know what it means to spend your time most effectively. There’s a temptation to want to do it all yourself, and we’re here to tell you: business outsourcing is one of the most effective ways to manage your time and stay focused on the important tasks.

Here are some of our best time management tips to help you develop good time management skills that will let you maximize your family time while still developing and growing your business.

1. Stop Trading Time for Money

Your time is a limited resource– everybody gets 24 hours a day. What you do with that time is based on what's most meaningful for you. You don’t want to look back with regrets about spending too much time working and not enough time with your family. One way to do this is to abandon the “poverty mentality.” This means that you need to not focus on what you don’t have! When you focus on the ‘have-nots,’ they’ll multiply. Instead, focus on what you do have and let that multiply instead. Focus on the positives and take some time to get away from the busyness of life– it’ll help you focus on your long-term visions and goals. 

2. Build a Dream Team

Your business doesn’t have to be– and in fact, shouldn’t be– just you! Trying to do everything all by yourself isn’t healthy for you or your business. You should let people in and build a business that can run while you’re gone on vacation or taking a break. It’s ok to outsource and hire people, even if that’s just temporarily. 

3. Start Small

Outsourcing can be a source of stress, but it doesn’t have to be! Ideally, you want outsourcing to relieve stress. You can start by just outsourcing one task, something small– and maybe something that doesn’t have to be done every day. Eventually, as you grow more comfortable with outsourcing and more familiar with how you want to manage your time limits for different tasks, you can outsource more and more to free up your schedule. 

4. Pick The Right Tasks

You do a lot for your business, and it can feel really overwhelming to hand over any part of that. Not all tasks are right for outsourcing, so you need to pick the right tasks to outsource so that you can worry less and spend your time smartly. 

But what makes a task right for outsourcing? There are three good criteria to go by. Pick a task that’s repetitive, something that you’re already doing, and isn’t a top-order task for you. When you’re going about your business tasks, pay attention to repetitive tasks. Can you make a checklist for all the steps that need to be done? If you can make a checklist that anyone can follow to do the task correctly, that’s a sign that it’s a good task to outsource.

Be sure to keep the scope of your outsourced task within the current scope of your business. This is especially true for people who are new to outsourcing. While you can outsource new tasks as you grow and expand, as you’re getting started you should make less work for yourself by outsourcing tasks that are taking up your time. 

Finally, outsource tasks that aren’t top-order tasks. Outsource the basic things that don’t require your special skills. 

5. Buy Back Your Time

There’s a corollary to “stop trading time for money,” and that’s “start trading money for time.” Your time is a limited resource, and there are lots of ways you can buy that time back. It takes financial investment, but it will be worth it in the long run because you’ll have more time to put into higher priority tasks that need your attention.

You want to think long-term for this to work. Investment into some outsourcing might seem steep upfront, but how much can it save you in the long run? When you outsource, you’re not just handing off one task for the short term– you’re building a more sustainable business for the long term. 

If you want to learn more about outsourcing and how it can help you with your business and spend more time with your family, there’s no better place to start than by joining our Rainmaker Family! When you take the Rainmaker Family Challenge, you join a community of entrepreneurs just like you– business owners who are in it for their families. Join us and learn how to make it rain!