Do you ever look at the list of things that you accomplished in the past week and wonder if any of it actually impacted your bottom line?

Getting stuck in doing busy work without any vision of the future is one BIG reason why many small businesses fail. Rather than letting your revenue-generating activities fall by the wayside, plan out your weeks with your priorities in mind following these four steps.

1. Decide on your work schedule

Set your work schedule by deciding when you’re going to work and when you aren’t. Work will expand to fit the time you give it, which means the same task could take 30 minutes or all day if you allow it. You aren’t punching a clock anymore, so enjoy one of the greatest perks of being an entrepreneur and get your work done as fast as possible so you can enjoy the rest of your day doing whatever you want. So, set your schedule when you WANT to work, then STICK TO IT!

2. Batch your work for maximum efficiency

What are the repetitive tasks you do every day? Every week? Every month? Review those recurring tasks and see if you can batch any of them. You don’t do your laundry by washing, drying, folding and putting away one sock at a time ——-> that would be insane, right?! So why, touch the same project or type of task over and over and over again?

So rather than creating and scheduling social media content daily, recording one podcast episode at a time, or taking client calls every day of the week… batch multiple tasks together and GET THEM DONE. Plus, when you focus all of your energy on one type of task for a period of time, you’ll complete them all more efficiently too!

3. Determine the right time of day for the right tasks

Science has proven that we all have peak operating hours for our brains and our bodies. When do you feel like you are able to focus and get the most done? Do you wake up at 5am ready for business battle? Or are you the person who stays up in the wee morning hours because you are fired up at night? When you know what your peak hours are, you can schedule your more intensive or creative business building tasks for those times. Leave administrative tasks for those periods when you feel less “on” because they are usually rote items that don’t require a lot of creativity or thought. [click_to_tweet tweet=”Leave administrative tasks for those periods when you feel less “on” because they are usually rote items that don’t require a lot of creativity or thought.” quote=”Leave administrative tasks for those periods when you feel less “on” because they are usually rote items that don’t require a lot of creativity or thought.”]

4. Use time blocking to make back-burner tasks a priority

You know those incredibly important, but not seemingly urgent tasks such as mindset work and strategic planning? Or the ones you absolutely HATE doing ——> like bookkeeping? They’re important for a reason and your business needs them to get done. So, schedule time specifically for those tasks in your calendar to be sure you don’t neglect the tasks that need to be a priority no matter what else is demanding your time and energy. You’ll feel better for knowing that it got done, and you won’t get to the end of the quarter and have to fit an entire quarter’s worth of bookkeeping into one day or wander aimlessly without a strategic plan in place.

What tasks are moving to the forefront of your business this week?