Operating a business isn’t easy and time management is hard. As a content entrepreneur, you create the product(s), connect with your audience, market to grow the company, and handle the administrative and financial responsibilities.
Oh, and you also have a personal life and maybe a part- or full-time job to ensure the bills get paid as you build the business.
Whew! That’s a lot.
To help make being an entrepreneur a little easier, we’ve pulled together some planning and time management things to do.
1. Create a content calendar: This plan pulls together all your content elements into a single trackable calendar. You can use this simple template as a starting point. Each line identifies the publishing date, content type/format, topic/category, headline or angle for the individual asset, and the status of the piece. Outline a calendar like this for the upcoming quarter – even if you don’t know the headline or specific angle for the asset. It lets you know what you’re doing, what you still need to decide, and when you need to do it.
Lightbulb idea: Use this calendar as a tracker for your metrics, too. Add columns to the right of the entry for the relevant analytics.
2. Budget time for your content business: Do you need to create content 50% of the time to keep consistent? Then do it. However, keep in mind that the average content entrepreneur spends only about 30% to 40% of their time on content creation. The rest is spent running and growing the business, according to The Tilt’s research.
Unsure how you spend your time now? Use a tracking tool, like Toggl, for a few weeks or a month to better understand how you spend the hours.
3. Create a schedule for the week: This should align with your content calendar and personal life. It should also include time to complete business activities to keep your content business running. Schedule these blocks of time on your calendar.
Plan your day according to the freedom and independence you want as a content creator. Need to drop the kids off at school? Then, plan to check emails, catch up on LinkedIn, read your newsletters, and finish other smaller tasks that can be completed in short bursts during this time. Save your more focused content for later in the day when you have long, uninterrupted stretches of time.
4. Create to-accomplish lists: Write a to-do list each day. In fact, writing it the day before can be a great mind dump. Prioritize the items into urgent, important, and not important. This organization ensures the most important items are more likely to get done. It also can give you a sense of accomplishment when you cross things off the list.
5. Delegate when possible: There are tasks you love, tasks at which you excel, and tasks you have to do even if you don’t love or excel at them.
As your business grows and revenue begins to roll in, ask yourself what you could give up and what you could delegate. Now, this doesn’t mean you need to go out and hire full-time employees, but as Morgan Timm says, “Even paying $75/week to have someone schedule your social media for you can free time that you need to expand your business.”
Helpful Resource: How To Make the Most of Your Content Business Time
About the author
Ann regularly combines words and strategy for B2B, B2C, and nonprofits, continuing to live up to her high school nickname, Editor Ann. An IABC Communicator of the Year and founder of G Force Communication, Ann coaches and trains professionals in all things content. Connect with her on LinkedIn and Twitter.
