by 3 years ago | 5 Min Read
Being an entrepreneur takes a lot of dedication and discipline. You probably have many responsibilities and if you don’t fulfill them all, your business will suffer. If you’re struggling to get everything done in an efficient and effective way, there are several things you can do to help yourself. Here are 5 of those things that have been particularly helpful to me on my entrepreneurial journey. Hopefully they will help you unlock new levels in your own career and life.
#1. Read More
One of the most powerful ways to grow and develop as a person is to read books. This is especially true for entrepreneurs. Reading books can be an effective way for you to learn about your industry. You can also learn about successful people in your industry, as their stories will likely give you a road map for you to base your own journey on. You will also find inspiration in their stories. Experts in your field are probably difficult to come into contact with, but if you can read one of their books, you’ve effectively turned them into one of your mentors. You can even read about successful people from other industries than your own. While their climb to the top will be different than your own, you will still likely be able to take away many valuable lessons from their books.
#2. Control Your Calendar
Being an entrepreneur comes with a lot of freedom. This is especially true when it comes to the way your day is structured. This can be either a good or bad thing. If you can be disciplined and organized about your schedule, you can plan out your days in the way that best fits your lifestyle. On the other hand, this can be harmful to your business, if you’re not able to organize your schedule in a way where you accomplish all of the tasks you had on your to-do list.
As your business continues to grow, you will have more and more things you’ll need to fit into your busy schedule. You need to start developing positive habits with your schedule, before your business gets to that point. As soon as you’ve scheduled a new meeting or some other important task or event for your business, you need to mark it down into your daily planner. You can color code the things you put on your calendar, such as red for business meetings, blue for brainstorming sessions, green for recording videos etc. This will all be much easier to do if you use a calendar app on your phone or computer, but you should do whatever will help you stay consistent with this practice.
#3. Drink More Water
Drinking water is one of the most overlooked ways for entrepreneurs to improve themselves and their businesses. The more hydrated you are, the more energy, focus and mental clarity you will have. Make sure you’re drinking water throughout the day. An easy way to do this is to keep a water bottle right on your desk. It will always be in your line of sight, which will keep reminding you to drink. Most people should take their weight, cut it in half and drink that many ounces of water in a day. For example, if you weigh 150 pounds, you should drink about 75 ounces of water.
#4. Understand Your Balance Sheet
You can’t run a successful business without understanding and being on top of your balance sheet. You need to know all of your business’ expenses and costs for manufacturing, distribution, marketing, promotion and anything else that your business needs to excel. You also need to know all of your revenues and streams of cash flow. If you put together all of your revenue and subtract your total costs from that number, you will be left with your company’s profit. You need to always keep track of how much profit your company is making. Is it enough of a profit for you to reinvest in your company, pay yourself a salary and pay for your employees? If your profits aren’t high enough to pay for all of those things, you’ll need to take a look at your balance sheet and figure out some ways to bring more profit to your business.
#5. Constantly Evaluate Yourself
If you want to be a successful entrepreneur, you need to hold yourself accountable to your goals. You should have some system in place to evaluate your progress and performance. Set goals for specific periods of time (a day, a week, a month etc.) then at that end of that period, sit down and assess whether you accomplished those goals and how you performed. What lessons can you take away from this experience? What can you do better, if you need to perform that task again? If you have people working for your company, you need to have an open flow of dialogue with them, where you can both evaluate each other in a constructive manner, so that the business continues to grow and flourish.
I’m very confident that you can take your business to new heights by implementing these 5 things. Choose one of these new habits to build, then keep adding on more, as each habit becomes ingrained in your mind. Before you know it, you will be practicing all 5 of these techniques and your business will be more successful than you can even imagine.
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I hope that you’ve found value in this blog post! Feel free to share it with anyone that you think will benefit from it as well.
If you’d like to hear more of my thoughts on this subject, you can check out my video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZuH4fDVT4g
If you’d like to be even more effective as an entrepreneur, check out my blog post on How To Make A Vision Board.
