You likely became a business owners because you wanted more freedom, especially time freedom.
When you started your business, you probably dreamt of spending your working life doing what you love doing and are passionate about.
You wanted the time freedom to spend more of your time not working too.
So you can have a full life, spend more time with the people who matter most, plus have the time for your personal interests.
For some entrepreneurs though, they’ve ended up with just a job.
Time freedom
Time freedom is about spending your time doing what you really love doing with the clients and people who mean the most to you.
Having more freedom of time is about having the ability to live a full life and have the time to pursue other interests outside of work.
But finding time freedom for entrepreneurs can be tough.
Rather than having the time freedom they dreamt about, they are working longer and longer hours, doing activities that neither excites them or motivates.
They wear every hat in the business and spending a large part of their time dealing with the complexities and complications of simply running their business.
There is no time to step back and think or plan or have time for themselves.
Can you relate?
Focus on creating more freedom of time
The good news is there are some strategic steps you can take to increase time freedom.
Bring your focus and excitement back to expanding that time freedom you hoped to achieve.
By using these 6 strategies, your life will get simpler and your time freedom will expand.
Your decisions and actions will become clearer and you’ll have a framework to create more and more time freedom.
Rather than feeling as though you don’t have enough time, you’ll have time abundance.
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How to achieve time freedom
You can achieve time freedom by freeing up more of your time to work on the activities that you are great at, love to so and make the most money and delegate or outsource all other activities.
With more freedom of time, you’ll feel more energised, creative and productive.
With the time freedom you’ve created you’ll have more time to focus on your biggest revenue generating opportunities and relationships.
Let’s jump into the 6 ways you can use right now to increase your freedom of time:
1. Get clear on where you’re spending your time
In order for you to focus on the activities you love to do and bring in the biggest revenue, you need to eliminate the other stuff you’re currently doing.
Set aside 30 minutes, grab yourself and pad and pen and find somewhere quiet.
Time frustrations
Write down all the activities you’re currently doing in a typical week that you hate doing, are frustrated with, know you’re not very good at, and that you just wish would wither go away or someone else could do.
For many people the activities on the list often include:
- things they procrastinate about getting done
- activities that take a long time when doing them
- Stuff that lowers their energy.
Now this list will be personal to you.
Everyone has a different list of what they can tolerate in their business.
But, it’s important to tell the truth if you really want to increase time freedom.
Greater clarity increases freedom of time
This list will give you greater clarity on what you should stop doing if you really want to grow your business and increase time freedom.
When you have your list, pick 5 of the activities you want to eliminate immediately.
Then write down the first action step you can take to make that a reality.
2. Start freeing up your time
Now you have your list, you may be feeling some resistance.
Many business owners I speak to feel like they have to justify stopping doing the activities they simply don’t want to do.
Or, they actually don’t know what to do with that time as they’re so used to firefighting and stepping in.
In both instances, they feel that doing these “stuff activities” is simply part of running a business.
They’ve always done them and they’ve become a bad habit.
It is what it is.
Create time freedom for your biggest priorities
To really grow your business to the next level, you simply have to create more time freedom to spend on your best money making activities that you love to do.
You have to build a team or find other people to take on some of the activities you shouldn’t be doing.
If you feel you can’t work any longer or any harder, you’re going to reach a ceiling in terms of how far your business can grow.
Tough questions to ask if you want more freedom of time
If you were to analyse where you are now and where you want to get to in your business, you are going to have to ask yourself some tough questions.
“What can I stop doing?”
“What is really holding me back?”
“Is my time best spent doing certain activities?”
“How could I free up 10 hours a week?”
“What difference would more time freedom really make?”
If you have big goals that you’re shooting for, you have to be prepared to make some changes, otherwise you’ll simply stay stuck at your current level.
3. Transform your time with the right team
One of the hardest shifts for ambitious solopreneurs and small business owners to make is to think of themselves as the CEO of their business.
They’re so busy doing everything that it becomes difficult to separate out what they want to do and don’t want to do.
Rather than leading the business and focusing on future vision and growth, they become mired in managing every day to day activity.
But, what if you looked at yourself as the CEO.
As a CEO, is it really beneficial to be doing some of your current activities?
When you make the decision to really grow your business and increase time freedom you have to focus more on what you love to do and are best at.
Then, it becomes about finding other people who are great at the work so you can be freed up.
Finding the right people creates more time freedom
Finding the right people to support you and your vision for your business isn’t a quick fix, but every person you can find will make a big difference.
If you’re a photographer, think about how many hours could be freed up if you had help with editing.
If you’re a mortgage or insurance broker, think about how many hours could be feed up if you had more case workers.
One of my clients hired a virtual assistant, who freed up 20 hours of their time a week.
Another found marketing expertise to handle social media, blog writing and sales copy.
The main point is. Do more of what you are great at, and find other experts or support to free you up from the things you’re simply not great at.
If you can focus on how to get more of the right things done, and how can I get freed up to do more of that, you’ll be taking the first step.
4. Price based on value, not time spent
For many ambitious solopreneurs and business owners I speak with, pricing is a big obstacle to their time freedom.
They simply haven’t got their pricing right.
Rather than pricing based on results, they are charging for time and effort.
This puts them in a commoditised market, where they can be beaten on price.
To get pricing right, you must have a “value creation” mindset.
When you are clear on the value you create, who you want to create value for and the results you deliver, the only thing stopping you charging what your worth is you.
5. Charging your worth frees up more time
Three main reasons why so many entrepreneurs I speak to don’t charge enough are:
- They don’t feel worthy or good enough to ask for high prices in the marketplace
- They don’t feel they have the right training or accreditation to ask for what they’re worth
- Their ‘competitors’ are charging a specific price so they feel they should follow suit
Many are suffering from imposter syndrome, thinking “who am I to be charging that much”, while others haven’t tapped into what really makes them great.
To charge what your worth you have to truly believe in the value you create and the results you deliver.
If you’re delivering fantastic results that wow your clients, your worth whatever price you want to charge.
6. Referrals increases freedom of time
When you get referrals from happy customers, your worth whatever price you want to charge.
If you get people calling you up asking to work with you, your worth whatever price you want to charge.
Pricing starts with you deciding what you want to charge. If it scares you that’s a good thing.
If you feel you haven’t been charging enough, look at the value you create for your clients and pick a new number.
The size of your price is made up in your own mind, not the mind of your client.
Ready to take action?.
What’s one simple step you can take to increase your time freedom?
What’s one activity you can stop doing right now?
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