As a business owner, time is the one thing that seems to get away from me every single day. I feel it, I know it, and I am sure you do too. In the almost three years that I have been a business owner, I have tried many things to get more time out of the day and save time on activities and necessities in my daily work and personal life. Today I want to share with you what has been working for me, to help me reclaim my day and time. All of these tips I have talked about previously. Some in blog posts and others in YouTube videos, but combining these tips allows me to save and optimize my time, and I am excited to share them with you. So let's get started. 

Automate Social Media Marketing

I have shouted from the rooftops about the benefits of this specific tip. Automating your social media marketing literally saves you hours every month. I used to work with Hootsuite, but they have raised their prices too high for me. I have been working with Loomly and have been extremely happy. They can post to all social platforms and Google. Their price is really, really good for what you are getting. This saves me time because I dedicate one week to creating and curating all my social media marketing towards the end of every month (aside from my blog posts and Youtube videos, which I could do a month in advance, I don't.) Everything else gets designed and created in that one week. I can’t stress this enough; this alone- could be the only tip for business owners like you and me. I strongly encourage you to check out any social media automation platform today and get started on reclaiming your marketing time. 

Set up direct booking online.

How much time do you spend on the phone with potential clients? How much time do you spend screening those clients? For every phone call a client makes to me to set an appointment, I spend between 3-10 minutes on the phone. That might seem like a little bit of time, but add it up. If we're looking to save time, any amount of time we save counts as a win. Automating your appointment booking is one of the most streamlined and consumer-friendly things you can do. It also frees up your time. You can spend more time on the things that need to get done. More than that, if you can’t answer your phone because you are at an appointment, giving callers the option to book you directly through your website or Google makes you a rock star and keeps those dollar bills in your pocket and not your competitors. The direct booking platform I use is Calendly. I love it. Clients can choose what kind of appointment they need. For some, there is a base fee, and they must pay first to set that appointment with me directly. Calendly sends emails, text reminders, and confirmations, and after the appointment, I have set it up to send a thank you note with a review request and link. It links up with my Google calendar and really streamlines my client appointment-setting process. Remember, if you decide to set this up, make sure everything you're doing is in your linked calendar. I learned this the hard way when a client directly scheduled a notary appointment for 7:30 pm, and my husband and I had just been seated at the restaurant we were eating at. I had to reschedule that appointment, but this could cause major issues with your daily life. So keep your calendar updated with everything you have going on.

There are other direct booking providers, but Calendly is my favorite. For the cost, first, and for ease of use. Check it out here. 

Create a system for zero-inbox living.

Don’t roll your eyes at the title of the next time-saving tip. I'm sure that statement seems like an unattainable dream, but let me explain. I have written and spoken about the wonder and magic of Tiago Forte and his book, “Building a Second Brain.” When I tell you that you can live at email zero, I am not saying it will be easy. Getting there- and living there most of the time- will take some work. Still, it's worth adding to this list because I have done it. I have read the book, watched Forte’s videos, and created a system that allows me to touch each email once. I am not going to try to teach you Forte’s system, he does an excellent job of doing that himself, but I want to explain a little bit about how it all works. 

To achieve the email zero life, you have to have a place for the emails that come in, to go.  For example, if you get blog posts or industry articles in your email, you need somewhere to send them so that you can read them when you have time, and between when you get the email and when you read it, it's not cluttering your inbox. You have sent it to your reading app, like Instapaper, and then archived your email. We aren’t deleting all of our emails, we are directing them. By archiving the article or blog post, when you go to your reading app to read it, it will link back to the original email. You haven’t lost anything. 

Having systems for other emails that may require immediate attention or can be added to your to-do list also contributes to email zero. Google has a to-do list you can link with Gmail. When you open an email and determine it needs to get done, just not right now, you click the to-do list or task list icon, and that email gets moved to your task list. For events that you need to calendar, you can create a folder in your email for that.

The trick is to address all emails, send them somewhere, and respond to or archive them. That's the trick. But you have to have systems in place. Also, sending them to these places doesn’t mean you never see them again. You need to set aside time to address all of them. To fully understand the value of this process, I encourage you to buy Tiago Forte’s book today. It's really a life-changing experience.

Morning and work routines

This is another tip that I have spoken and written about extensively. Still, the reason it made it to today's list is when worked into our lives, it has the power to both allow us to take some important self-focused time and also open up our days and nights. I will link my blog posts, Start of Work Routine and End of Work Routine. I also wrote about morning routines and will link that here. If you have never heard of morning routine work routines, it's a good place to start. Let's discuss morning routines and how they contribute to our time-saving list. 

The basic foundation of a morning routine is getting up 30 minutes to an hour earlier to take care of yourself. During this time, you might spend some time in meditation or prayer, you might practice saying positive affirmations, and or spend some time visualizing your complete goals. It might include reading or journaling, working out, or simply stretching- but whatever it includes, it should be what you can accomplish for your self-development and care in that time frame. These steps I suggested are part of Hal Elrod's Miracle Morning. If you haven’t read it, it's on my suggested reading list. Hal has his book written for people in all sorts of industries and stages of their lives. Check them out.  Having to get up a little earlier means you aren’t taking time away from anything else in your life, but also, you are adding time to your day. A morning routine practice can create a healthy start to your day, allowing you to be more productive and on top of your tasks. That's all great, but how does it save you time? It amplifies your productivity- automatically making your toughest tasks easier to tackle. This article from Medium.com says a morning routine will save you 20 hours per week.

Start and end of work routines save you time by automating your systems. Before you start work, you might do a few things to prepare you for the day. At the end of your shift, you take steps to prep for the next day, saving time for the next work day. Having routines in place for both workday times will work together in sync and save you minutes a day and hours a week.

Meal planning and Meal Prep.

I can’t say enough good things about the benefits of meal planning and meal prepping every week. Here's the truth about me: I am nearly always uninspired and unmotivated when I have had a busy day- which is most days when it comes to lunch and dinner. I love to cook, and I love food, but most days of the week, I would rather order in. This tip will save you time, and if you're not ordering takeout, it will also save you money. Meal planning and meal prepping aren’t always about eating the same thing every day for a week, but if that's your jam, then go for it. Let’s talk about meal planning first. The following are a few of the benefits of meal planning. 

1. Saving money by using what is in your pantry and fridge already.

2. Organizing your grocery shopping list.

3. Removing the need for thought bandwidth when deciding what's for dinner.

4. When the meal plan is posted, it stops your family's incessant questioning of “What's for Dinner.”

5. Saves time when cooking and cleaning up from meals.

I have a great blog post about planning your meals if you want some tips on planning your meals. You can check that out here.

Meal Prepping can work in tandem with meal planning. This could be simply prepping some or all of the ingredients you need for your week of meals. Cleaning and chopping vegetables, grilling a batch of chicken breasts, baking loaves of bread, and anything else you can think of to make lunch and dinner time easier. Meal prepping can also be putting together a series of meals for lunch or dinner. These might all be the same, or maybe there are two or three varieties, but this is also an option. Spending a Saturday or Sunday afternoon prepping will save you hours throughout the week regarding meal times. 

Meal planning and meal prepping will not only save you time and money, but these practices can also help improve your health. Cooking from scratch or just at home and having food ready lessens the chance that you’ll go for more processed convenience foods. That, my friends, is a massive step towards a much healthier you.

I hope these five steps have given you some inspiration, motivation, or direction on saving more time and money and improving your overall life and health. 

Since my new webpage is up and these blog posts have moved over, you now have the opportunity to leave comments. So if you're reading this in your email, please follow the link to the original post and say hello. Or even better, give me some of your time-saving tips. I would love to learn from you as well.

Until next time- take care of yourself and optimize your days with time-saving tips.

Jennifer Cooper- JKC Mobile Notary