4 Time Management Tactics for Busy Entrepreneurs

Being an entrepreneur entails many professional and personal traits. It takes a lot to be able to launch, execute, grow, and scale a business. As a result, entrepreneurs have to be extra careful with every decision, and being able to manage their time correctly is an invaluable skill. Here are four, time management tactics that busy entrepreneurs can employ to get more done. 

Break Down Activities Into Simple Problems

It requires more energy to utilizing your consciousness, but this is something that can be avoided if you can simplify your problems. Improving your time management skills will require you to establish a process and then break it down into smaller, automatic operations that you can grasp quickly and that don't require intensive consumption of your resources. Successful entrepreneurs take the time to break complex tasks down into smaller pieces to make the process easier to comprehend and follow.

Create  Prioritization System

Priorities differ from business to business and are generally shaped around deadlines, the importance of execution, ROI, and reach. Learning how to prioritize both your long-term activities and the short terms goals that are necessary for you to realize incremental results is critical and requires you to plan your tasks carefully.

Start with a Simple Task

The quickest way to become demotivated is by failing to complete a complicated and broad task over the course of the day and will prevent you from realizing progress with your weekly planning. The best way to break the ice is by starting your day working on a trivial task that will give you a head start. Starting your day with a simple task will put your productivity in motion and allow you to focus on more complex projects later on.

Create a Long-Term Roadmap

Planning is a repetitive task that can drag you away from your day-to-day activities. Creating a long-term plan can allow you to better focus on your goals and help you decide whether new tasks that come up are in line with your goals. When you can define the well-known duties that are crucial to your success, you can determine the expected outcomes and measure them every month. Preparing a long-term roadmap will also provide you a clearer picture of your weekly availability.

No matter how efficient your strategy for managing your time is, there is always room for improvement. With these four, time management tactics, you can start to improve your productivity and accomplish more throughout your day.

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Each baby step forward you take is still a step forward

Let’s get one thing clear, we have been conditioned by society and technology to expect big results in as little time as possible. Anything from 15 minute pizza delivery guarantees to 2 day prime Amazon deliveries to instant online downloads, we want the biggest and best things in life in minutes. In fact, some of us have become so impatient that we expect the very best things life has to offer delivered yesterday. Talking about setting ourselves up for a letdown.

There are many challenges in your life that will take quite a bit of effort, attention and energy. You may be going through school. You may be trying to earn a degree. You may be trying to get your dream job. You may be trying to convince your boss to give you a well earned raise or promotion.

Whatever form the challenge takes, please understand that it's something you have to work on. It's something that often takes a long time. This is what trips many people up.

We live in a world that is increasingly impatient. As recently as 10 years ago, it was perfectly acceptable for pizza shops to deliver pizza in 30 minutes or else it's 100% free. Do you think that's still the case in most metropolitan areas in the United States? Absolutely not.

Today, we have reached a point where if your pizza guy does not deliver your pie within 15 minutes, you expect a refund because you want that pie to be absolutely free. That's how impatient we have become.

This is why the concept of some sort of long journey towards expertise, credibility and authority is very irritating to a lot of people. 9 times out of 10, people would rather dispense with the process of paying their dues.

You have to understand that you can't become some sort of overnight expert. You can read all the books in the world regarding a particular subject, but you're not going to be an expert in that subject until you actually carry out that information.

For example, if you are a lawyer and you spent a lot of time in law school reading everything you know about personal injury, all the theory in the world, regardless of how many bits and pieces of information you have managed to memorize, are not going to help you when it comes to deposing the other side, talking to a huge number of claims adjusters and eventually taking your case to trial.

There's a big divide or disconnect between theory and practice. This is why it's always a good idea to not assume that just because you learned certain things that it will automatically or magically transform you. Focus instead on each baby step forward you take. Each step is a victory.

It may seem small and it may seem irritatingly long, but you shouldn't be impatient. Each baby step forward you take is still a step forward. Click here to figure out how to develop real unstoppable confidence from this information.

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Refusing to expect big starts is one of the keys to success

I remember the first time I learned how to ride a bike. After several false starts that involved me and my brother scraping our knees and becoming bloody messes, we were able to stay on that bike. It was one of the happiest days of our lives. There’s just something about that “I did it” moment when you push on one pedal then the other and it quickly dawns on you that you won’t fall off the bike (and hurt yourself again). I suppose it’s close to the feeling of a bird flying off its next for the first time.

Sadly, far too many of us quickly go from the thrill of discovery and achievement to the expectation that now we can do the most extreme version of whatever it is we achieved. Talk about getting ahead of ourselves. But we do it anyway.

The interesting thing about my biking experience was that we automatically assumed that the next day, we can race in the tour de france. We basically racing all around the block. We were biking long distances. We shot out of the gate, so to speak.

Here's the problem. Regardless of how excited you may be when you first learned something, please understand that at first, there will be challenges. Don't expect things to go smoothly. They often never do.

This should not be a surprise. After all, you just figured out how to do something. Does it really make sense to expect that you will be able to do it like an expert soon after you learn it? I know it sounds reasonable and this seems logical but let’s face it, people often throw logic and reason out the window when they get excited.

Instead, be prepared for hiccups down the road. Sure enough, I almost got hit by a car. I missed becoming a potential quadriplegic by mere inches. In fact, I could've been killed. There was so many close calls during that first week. How come?

Me and my brother expected to bolt out of that gate and become the best bicycle riders we knew. This is a serious problem because I was expecting big starts. It doesn't work that way.

Regardless of what you're doing, regardless of what you're focused on in life, don't expect big starts. Instead, understand that change happens in two ways. You can be making incremental changes externally and this is a good thing.

However, at the same time, you're also changing from within. You think you may be going on a process. In fact, you may be thinking that you're going on a simple journey from point A to point B. But, interestingly enough, this journey changes you.

The process that you're in, regardless of how complicated it may be and regardless of its specific details, changes you. Allow it to happen. Allow the stage to sink in. This is how you become more self confident because this is based on competence.

Competence is based on lived experience. It's not something that somebody gives you. It's not something that happens randomly. It's definitely not something that occurs to you magically, mystically or accidentally. You have to work for it. You have to sacrifice. You have to commit.

To figure out how this all works out to create in you unstoppable self confidence, click here.

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Constantly challenge yourself to maintain your confidence

You have to understand that if you want to build your self confidence, you have to actually do something. When you do anything, you lay the foundation for increasing levels of self confidence. How come?

When you decide to do something and try to get good at it, you start picking out the patterns. You start figuring everything out by breaking things and processes into parts. You start seeing the relationship of these parts and you're able to connect the dots.

Sooner or later, you are able to know the process like the back of your hand. Now, here's the thing. Most people don't do things that way. Most people would rather take things on a superficial level and call it a day. What do you think happens when you get compared to those people?

You are able to do things more effectively and efficiently. Most importantly, you are able to optimize your skills so every single day you're at the job, at school or anywhere else, you increase the value you get from your daily interactions. You stand out from the crowd. It becomes obvious to anyone looking at you or looking at your co-workers that you are not just going through the motions. You are actually doing things to take things to the next level. You go beyond the call of duty.

You're constantly challenging yourself and this creates a competence that actually produces results. The more visible these results are, the more likely you’ll get rewarded with a raise or a promotion. It is precisely those results that enable you to become a more confident person. You have a higher estimation of your ability to get things done. You don’t let the small stuff or challenges get you down. You have a completely different emotional perspective about the things you choose to do.

The more you do this, the more you realize that instead of constantly crying and whining, moaning and asking “What happened?” you become the person who makes things happen. You become the person who takes personal ownership and responsibility over what's happening in your life.

This enables you to develop direction. This enables you to feel that every single day you spend alive is spent pursuing some sort of purpose or calling. Do you see how this works?

The way to do this is to constantly challenge yourself. This means tackling new issues, going beyond what you already know, asking for more assignments, reading the employee manual to figure out the nitty gritty of whatever it is you're doing, networking better not just to boost your sales but to also know the movers and shakers of the industry.

This goes beyond going the extra mile. This is about intentionally seeking challenges because you know that challenges are blessing in disguise. If you don’t think they are, then your mindset is holding you back.

If any of this resonates with you, click here for a practical step by step guide to building unstoppable confidence. The world rewards self confident people. Be one of those people.

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Achieve more by refusing to view challenges in emotional terms

I once had a friend who was having a tough time in graduate school. He was given a problem set that was so difficult for him that he thought the professor had it in for him. I know you're probably rolling your eyes and are thinking that this is the most ridiculous thing that you have read.

You are well within your rights to think that because there's a lot of truth to what you're thinking. You and I live in a world that we did not create. You and I live in a world that operates on rules that we did not have a voice in. We live in a world that operates on a take it or leave it basis.

The world is rough. It's unfair. It seems like a lot of the wrong people are getting ahead in life while good people have all sorts of bad things happen to them. But this is the only world we live in. We can't change the terms.

What we can change is how we respond to it. This is the only thing we have control over. If we were to take ownership over this control, we would be able to affect better changes in the world. We just need to step up and accept that even though the world may be spiraling out of our control, if we choose to respond the right ways, we may end up in an optimal place. This is a much better approach than constantly finding ourselves crying over spilled milk.

One of the best ways to come out winners in this world is to stop fantasizing about how it should be. Instead, focus on how it actually works. Once we get a clear understanding of how the world really works, then the next step is to figure out how we can make this truth work for us instead of against us.

This is why it's always a good idea to refuse to view challenges in emotional terms. The friend of mine that I told you about was having such a tough time because he was viewing everything in emotional terms. His professor probably didn't even know him. But there he was, thinking that the professor crafted this very devious test to somehow humiliate, embarrass and deny him the success that a great graduate diploma normally brings to the table.

In other words, he was looking at his challenges in purely emotional terms. He was taking personal ownership of this challenges and letting the process crush him from within.

You don't have to do that. Refuse to view challenges in emotional terms. Instead, look at challenges for what they truly are. I know this is going to shock a lot of people, but challenges are actually blessings. They push you to be more resourceful, creative and imaginative. At the very least, they push you to change how you normally think about things so you can position yourself to become a more consistent winner and victor in life.

To figure out how to do this, as well as craft and adopt your own personal self confidence plan, click here.

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Self confidence is paid for in terms of problems solved

A lot of people are under the impression that self confidence is some sort of magical jacket that somebody gives you just for showing up to an event. That event, of course, is called life.

I wish I could tell you that this thinking is absolutely spot on. Unfortunately, if I were to do that, I would be flat out lying to you. If I were to tell you that any of this is true, I would just be setting you up for a massive disappointment later on.

Life is not some sort of dinner party where respect, admiration, competence and self confidence are awarded as door prizes. It would be great if this were the case, but unfortunately, we live in reality. The reality is life is unfair. Life can be chaotic. Life, often times, doesn't have some sort of rhyme or reason.

We can cry about this, we can scream to the heavens that all of this is unfair, unwarranted and uncalled for, but let me tell you, if you do that, nothing will change. Life will go on.

You really have a choice at this point. Either you're going to have to take on life based on its own terms, or you're going to just crawl in your shell and hope that somehow, someway, the world conforms to how you wish it was. Which is it gonna be?

Let me tell you, if you want to stay in this world and actually produce some kind of result during your stay, then you need to deal with the world as it is. One key aspect of this is to deal with problems.

A lot of people get so freaked out about problems and challenges. It's almost pathetically funny. They think that it's the end of the world if they confront some sort of challenge and it seems like the challenges don't end.

In fact, some people have such romantic notions of how life should be fair that they're completely blind sided by the fact that people can be mean and there are many unjust things happening in the world. One challenge after another completely crushes them. This really is too bad.

If you look at real self confidence, and I'm talking about your perception of your ability to get things done, it's paid for in terms of the problems you solve. That's the bottom line. In other words, it is based on competence. It's based on what you do. It's based on actions you take. That's what the world pays attention to.

It definitely doesn't pay attention to your feelings. Do yourself a big favor. Redefine your self confidence based on terms and based on a process that will leave you in a better position. Click here to figure out how to do that. Real self confidence is no joke. Real self confidence is something that nobody can take away from you because it's not a product of your circumstances. 

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Your competence erodes the more you coast through life

Before we dig deeper, let’s just establish one basic fact about the human condition: with everything else being equal, we’d rather take it easy. It doesn’t matter which part of the globe you come from or what you do for a living or what you look like, if you are like most people, you’d rather have it easy. You’d rather coast. It seems that this tendency is built into the human consciousness.

There’s a big problem with our very normal human tendency to coast through life: it erodes our personal competence. Bad news. Competence, just in case you are not already aware, is crucial to any kind of success in life. The bottom line is that you have to know what you are doing. You have to meet certain basic levels of competence to move on, much less succeed, with your life.

Personal competence is like a muscle. Your muscles get stronger and more powerful the more you stress them out by putting pressure on them. You're not going to develop huge, well defined and toned muscles if you just eat, eat and eat.

If you don't hit the weights, if you don't do push ups, if you don't put any kind of stress on your muscles, you're not going to develop them. They're just going to get wider and wider because of the fat accumulation under your skin.

You have to remember that any personal trait of yours that you want to improve and take to the next level can be improved only if you challenge them. In other words, you have to use them, you have to put pressure on them, you have to challenge them. That's how it works.

Competence is not any different from this. It's really like a mental and emotional muscle. Unfortunately, if you have stopped challenging your personal competence, it gets softer and softer. It starts to erode. Its value goes down. It becomes irrelevant.

You may think that you're at the top of your game. You may think that you have a lot of people in your network. You may think that you have a lot of things figured out as far as your select body of expertise may go.

Unfortunately, this is all in your head because as you coast through life, the world moves on. The body of knowledge that you think you're competent in starts to change. Unless you put pressure on your competence to at least stay abreast or keep in touch with the latest developments, chances are you will find yourself left behind. Not exactly a good position to find yourself in.

That's how it works. It's a muscle and for that muscle to get stronger or to remain toned, you have to put pressure on it. You have to use it. You have to challenge it.

Click here for a practical approach to build self confidence by challenging yourself strategically. By using this system, you can develop the self confidence you need to achieve continuous and predictable victory in many areas of your life.

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Every challenge is doable if you chop it down to size

It's very easy to get so worried about the challenge facing you that you just freeze up and quit. It's very easy to get discouraged. It's very easy to feel that your problem is so big and so scary that there's really no way you can get out from under it.

You might as well just give up. You might as well lose all hope. If any of these enter your frame of mind, you are simply just taking the path of least resistance. You're looking at the situation from the perspective of somebody who wants to do the least work.

If you are serious about coming out on top and achieving unstoppable victory, every challenge does not have to be scary. Every challenge does not have to have the potential of crushing you and stealing your dreams.

Instead, if you have the right mindset, every challenge is actually going to be an opportunity. Think about it. If you are faced with a challenge that really pushes you back against the wall and incentivizes you to step up your problem solving skills, what do you think will happen?

That's right. Your natural imagination, resourcefulness and creativity are triggered. You figure out a way. If you can't get through the front door, you will try the roof. If the roof doesn't work, you try the basement. If the basement is blocked off for whatever reason, you will try the side door. If that doesn't work, then you will try the back door.

If today is not an option, then you will try tomorrow. If that is off limits, then you will try the next day. In other words, you challenge yourself to become a more competent person all around by tackling every challenge you come across.

One of the most powerful revelations you could ever realize is that every challenge is doable if you chop it down to size. Every challenge actually has many different moving parts. If you pick these apart and you attack one piece at a time in many different sequences, chances are you will achieve a breakthrough.

If anything, you become a different person as you go through this problem solving process. This is what a lot of people miss out on. They're always looking for the short cut or, worse yet, they're waiting for somebody to pull them out of their situation because they have completely given up on coming up with a solution of their own.

If any of this sounds familiar and you are sick and tired of being stuck where you are as far as your challenges and your self confidence goes, click here for a practical road map for developing real self confidence.

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You get less competent the more you run away from challenges

Believe it or not, personal competence is actually like a muscle. If you haven't been to a gym before and you start lifting weights, what do you think will happen?

Well, it doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out that in the morning, you're not going to feel all that well. It seems like your muscles are aching all over the place. It's like they're screaming at you to stop working out.

You put a tremendous amount of pressure on muscles that are not used to that stress and pressure. What do you think will happen? That's right, a lot of pain. The secret here is that you must work through the pain.

A lot of people are under the impression that if their body is telling them that it's in pain that this is their signal to stop. This is the most common mistake rookies make. When you listen to your body, you're basically listening to that part of yourself that is telling you to take it easy. You're listening to that part of yourself that does not want to be stressed, confronted and challenged.

What do you think it will ask for? That's right. It will ask for you to take it easy. It will ask you to do something else that is more pleasurable. It's going to ask you to just lay off anything that may involve discomfort, inconvenience or sacrifice.

But it turns out that if you want to make the pain go away, you go to the gym and lift more weights. Sure, it feels like murder the next day, but if you keep going, the pain evaporates. It turns out that the pain is temporary. It's the small price you pay to achieve higher levels of muscle discipline and strength.

The same applies to your competence. If you want to just focus on your current level of expertise and knowledge, you're not going to improve. You're not going to be curious about what else is out there. You're not going to challenge what you think you know. You're not going to break things apart and try to put them back together and figure out how to connect the dots and see the big patterns.

You're not going to achieve any of that. Those are the things that will take your knowledge to the next level. Those are the things that will enable you to become a greater expert and authority in whatever field you're in.

Unfortunately, a lot of people think that they can coast or take it easy based on their current level of expertise. They end up running away from challenges. They focus on the things they know. They focus on the “tried and proven.”

Unfortunately, the more they do this, the less competent they become because the value of their knowledge erodes over time. Also, if you don't want to challenge yourself, chances are you're not going to figure out better ways to articulate what you already know.

To get away from this catch 22 and position yourself for greater levels of authority and credibility, click here. Competence is built on confidence and you will get a road map that will enable you to step up your game on so many levels.

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Competence is the true building block of real confidence

Let's get one thing clear. There are all sorts of fake types of confidence out there. After all, the whole idea of faking it until you make it is actually still popular in the United States. A lot of people are under the impression that as long as you look successful, that's all that matters. Real success will eventually catch up with you.

By the same token, there are no shortage of people who believe that as long as other people buy into the idea that you know what you’re talking about then this is as good as the real thing. These are the types of people who make a big deal out of formal titles or one’s placement on any kind of organizational chart. The idea is that your role defines you. In other words, if you carry a title, your title somehow some way bestows some sort of instant competence on you.

Both of these idea involve magical thinking. There are simply too many leaps of faith as well as logic required for people to accept these and for these to have actual effects. Sadly, there are so many people who believe in faking it until they make it. The line of people who believe that their titles or how others view them truly determines who they are is actually quite long.

Of course, as everybody knows, all this is a fallacy because there's a profound difference between looking like you know how to do things and actually being able to deliver. Sadly, we have a society that is so obsessed about self esteem that it equates it with self confidence which turns out to be a false type of confidence.

Remember, it doesn't really matter whether you think you know how to build a bridge or not. It doesn't matter if you think you're a genius or not. What matters is whether you are able to perform what society asks of you.

This is where the rubber meets the road. Unfortunately, a lot of people who place a lot more importance on self confidence built on self esteem fall apart. They just crumble like a house of cards because they have build their confidence on something that's not real.

Competence is the true building block of real confidence because it's tried, tested and you only develop competence when you face adversity, challenges and failure. Sure, there's a tremendous amount of discomfort and inconvenience getting to this point, but that's precisely the point.

It's not something that you get just for showing up. It's not just some sort of door prize. It's something that you fight for. It's something that you earn. It's something that you sacrifice for.

If you want to build your self confidence on something real, click here. You will get the inside scoop on how to develop self confidence that will not fall or fade or disintegrate in the face of difficulties. If you want to be the only person in a crowd that will be able to stick to something for however long it takes until you achieve victory, click here.