Successful young entrepreneurs working an 8-hour workday need to hustle and maintain productivity. Setting daily objectives and following best practices allows you to work a fully productive day, while maintaining balance. Whether you work from home or an off-site location, remember every hour of your time is valuable. Maximize your hours per day by focusing on your business plan and work-from-home best practices.
It is never too soon for a young entrepreneur to learn how to maximize time and create work-life balance. Get more done by following work-from-home best practices. It’s important not to allow your day or distractions to manage you.
Why 8 vs. 4 or 12 hours? An eight hour workday is the global norm. Studies show that no one is productive for eight hours straight – common sense tells you the same, right? However, we need a standard – a basis – a set of hours where you work toward your to-do list, schedule time to take a walk, and figure out how you work best.
Maximize peak energy levels and plan to remain highly productive overall. If 9-to-5 isn’t your thing, that’s fine.
Maintaining this overall productivity is what elevates you. Uses your energy and focus on following through on important tasks.
Successful young entrepreneurs are easy to recognize. They like working, knowing where they’re going, and they keep taking the next strategic step toward. It is about peak productivity.
Time is money. Spend it wisely.
Your success is most important to you of course. However it’s also literally important to our thriving economy. Both the product you produce and jobs you created for yourself and others accelerates economic growth. Your win is more important than you may realize.
If we are checking off boxes, to make this work, you must come prepared with your skills, productive habits, and business plan with SMART goals. Have your objectives and tasks ready.
Here’s what you need to hustle and boost your productivity:
Ø Create a great ENVIRONMENT.
Ø Don’t compromise your commitment to SHOW UP.
Ø Maintain your commitment to a work SCHEDULE.
Ø Focus on DAILY TASKS & SMART GOAL ACTIVITIES.
Ø Maintain your HEALTH & PERSONAL WELL-BEING.
Ufuoma Emefeke is a successful young entrepreneur who followed best practices for entrepreneurs, remained consistent, focused, and now runs a large successful business.
She took a need to create work and a substantial enough income to feed, cloth, and house her family, thought through her skillset and opportunities, branded herself, and became a living example of exactly what you should be doing every day. I asked her what she does on a daily basis while running her home-based business.
She said, “Number one, I set daily goals and stay focused to make them a reality. Number two, I always have a daily to-do-list. I check off all activities in the order of priority and track my progress at the end of every week.”
Sounds easy? Basic? Trite?
Well no one ever said best practices needed to be complicated.
There are no magic solutions, and you need to create your own luck, but you do not need to create best practices – just implement them.
Be truly productive.
Instead of working endlessly and feeling out of control, break a 40-hour week down into 5 productive days.
40 Hour Breakdown
Use 8 hours a day, 5 days a week as a baseline.
Working more or less is up to you, but as a general productive and healthy guideline, following the 8:8:8 strategy has been proven successful. Remember – productivity is more important than the number of hours worked.
Follow the 8:8:8 Strategy
Plan 8 hours of work, 8 hours of recreation, and 8 hours of sleep.
Realize, in a 40 hour workweek, that still leaves you two entire days – 2880 minutes – to energize (or reenergize) and spend important time away from your work.
The key takeaway is that you have lots of time in a week. Get your work tasks and projects done. You time have ample time to work extra on whatever area of your business, your commitment to self-development and personal needs, while refreshing your mental energy. There is no good excuse for a serious young entrepreneur to be continually distracted during work hours.
The entrepreneurship mentality comes from knowing you will win, but also happily knowing there is no finish line!
“Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.”
Stephen King
THIS IS YOUR CAREER
This is when and how you treat your business like a business.
Set yourself up for success. Productive young entrepreneurs create rules; then abide by them.
ENVIRONMENT
Your home office space must be designated as such and designed to allow focus. Consider the 8:8:8 philosophy when setting up your workspace.
· Eliminate distractions.
· Ensure your space and lighting are ideal.
· Set boundaries for yourself and others.
· During your 8 hours of work, make sure everyone is clear: you are working.
· Protect your space.
What does “protect your space” look like in real life? It means you work without getting distracted, and read and return personal text messages on your next break.
SHOW UP
Not kidding. Take yourself seriously.
· Start on time.
· End on time.
· Get dressed.
· Do not give in to continual distractions.
“Don’t watch the clock; do what it does. Keep going.”
Sam Levens
SCHEDULE
Rethink your schedule and plan to get things done!
Know yourself. Know your business. Schedule accordingly.
· Establish working hours.
· Break the day into 120-minute increments.
· Formally acknowledge and utilize frequent break times.
· End your day as planned.
· Stop when scheduled.
· If you need overtime or make up time, fine. Include it in your plan.
About breaks – use them. Schedule two 10-15 minute breaks and schedule 1 hour for a meal. Use that to stretch, walk and scroll. Change this several short breaks if or as you prefer, but this time recharges you, lessens stress, supports your personal and family needs, and is a normal part of everyone’s day.
Productive people DO take breaks!
What five 8-hour days may look like:
DAILY TASKS & SMART GOAL ACTIVITIES
Work off your weekly plan, and line your activities up to execute against your priorities.
It’s NOT easier said than done. Email will not take over your day unless you allow it.
· Use a task list.
· Stick to the timelines.
· Adjust as needed, but because your work requires it, not because you got distracted or couldn’t stop answering emails.
· Close each day with a quick review of accomplishments and prep for the next day.
HEALTH & PERSONAL WELL-BEING
Last and absolutely not least. The area with the most opportunity for easy success is also the area with the highest risk of failure – taking care of you.
Working from home offers so much opportunity to take care of your health and well-being, but it can be unexpectedly challenging and demotivating too.
- You’re in a smaller overall space.
- Miscellaneous physical steps that added up while going to class or into a place of business are eliminated.
- There’s less standing.
- There’s more opportunity to eat wrong and snack too much.
- Plus you must manage family, neighbors, unexpected noise, and distractions.
It can feel more confining than having a cubicle and reporting to a boss!
Find and appreciate your many positives!
Use free tools and online apps to support your ability to manage your time, your health, and increase your creativity.
You save on commuting, and can create a space you genuinely enjoy. Get those steps back in by walking down the hall, and stretch while wiping your counter. Seek out the possibilities!
· Eat right (as you define it) and stay hydrated.
· Use self-motivation tactics that work for you – that make you smile.
· Pat yourself on the back.
· Take frequent, brief brain breaks. Change your view, or gaze off into the distance.
· Consciously breathe.
· Get fresh air on your scheduled breaks.
· Do not forget to move. Every hour, stand, move, stretch. Step up and down on a curb. Walk the steps. Keep a kettlebell on your desk.
· Elevate your feet. Don’t kick back and relax, actually move your feet off the floor and put them up on a pillow, a box, or tip over a chair.
Focus on your health and personal well-being is NOT 10 steps to a refrigerator for ice cream lunch during a meeting. Yes, eating ice cream is convenient and quiet while on a conference call – but NO!
“We need to do a better job of putting ourselves higher on our own ‘to do’ list.”
Michelle Obama
Following the 8:8:8 strategy helps creates your best version of you. The best version of you is who should be running your business.
Sum up your strategic effectiveness and productivity by answering this question:
Do you want to work for you?
If yes, you are there. You got this!
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