Entrepreneurs Guide to Taking Back Your Schedule.
- Jessica Hatfield
- Mar 22, 2024
- 9 min read
How to reclaim your time and run your business instead of it running you.
Time and proper Scheduling are an entrepreneur's biggest asset, so manage them wisely.

As entrepreneurs, we manage many things. We have many assets at our disposal to accomplish the countless tasks required to run our businesses on a daily basis, no matter what those businesses may be. I would venture to say that every human, entrepreneur or not, has one asset that we must manage better than all other assets. That asset is something that we have a limited amount of, it is under strict constraints, it can be wasted, it can't be borrowed, bought or sold. The asset is our time.
I have made many changes in how I do things and have given myself permission to take a step back and look at what I was so “busy” doing. Why does my calendar look like I’m tracking the activity of 10 people?
After all, I’m a human being, not a human doing.
I finally settled on a method that works for me. I find I return to this method anytime I allow my tasks to take over and let them run me. I am in charge; I set the space, I determine how important things are, and I set my deadlines. I finally realized that as an entrepreneur, I was a bad boss and had poor management skills when managing my time. The first thing I had to realize is I can only manage tasks; time is time and can't be managed. It will pass at the same rate regardless of what I'm doing.
We all have a lot to do and lots of people who count on us to do them. But there is a fine line between productive work and being “busy” just for the sake of being occupied. Why are we so afraid to just sit still? I can only speak for myself and say my number one reason is feeling guilty when I relax or do nothing.
I have a lot on my plate, running a growing business with my husband. I am four administrative departments rolled into one; I multitask while I’m multitasking and do it fairly effectively.
But how much is necessary on that plate?
How many of the things on my to-do list are mission-critical?
What are those tasks accomplishing?
Do those things need to be accomplished?
Why do I feel the guilt when I slow down?
If you talk to me, you will think the answer to all those questions is YES! You would think that if I didn’t do X, Y, Z right now, the world would implode!
Honestly, in my defense, it feels like it would at times. But what was this list of things? Who made them mine to take care of? Who put the urgency on the task? Am I even the best person for the job?

What I found while trying to answer these questions was the things on the list are usually very important but there are plenty that where just filler. I put them on my plate, I let them seem looming and urgent, and honestly, someone else could probably do some of them better. So, when I looked at it that way, I realized I’m my own worst enemy. When you’re your own boss, and you wake up at 4:30 am and troll the internet for other jobs, it’s time for a change! And not a career change.
Yes, that actually happened. I was so stressed out that I couldn’t sleep, thinking about how this or that would turn out. So, I sat up and Googled job openings that fit what I currently do.
It wasn't a great moment for me or my mental health, but it did help me realize how valuable I am! I couldn’t afford to replace me in a million years!
How do we move forward and change?
Tip #1 - Evaluate what you are spending your time doing.
First, we have to see what we are doing and why before we can step back from anything. We want to free up time and feel good about it, not let the proverbial ball drop. We don't want to step back and drop the tasks we need to do and should get done just for the sake of stepping back to relax a little.
If you are anything like me, you are many people; I fit the titles of wife, sister, daughter, and small business owner. Each one of those titles has responsibilities and tasks that need to be done to fulfill that role. For the sake of focus and writing this as an entrepreneur, let's look at the small business owner role. Where do I start this evaluation?
Okay, so who am I? Accountant? Marketing Director? Director of Ops? Booking agent? Accounts payable? Corporate trainer? Business developer? IT professional? If you're a small business owner like me and my husband, the answer is YES! to all the above. You need to realize that you can not be all of them at once. We are constantly clocking in and out of roles throughout the day. So, when am I clocking in and out, and what tasks am I doing?
I take a planner and do a time study for this step. For example, the day entries might look like this.
7 am: check email
check on bill payment, and email reminded me of
spend an hour on QuickBooks, categorizing transactions
8:30 am Checking booking platform, fall down a rabbit hole in organizing the workflow on the platform
10am Check email again
10:30am Update calendar events and get them ready to print
12am Create social media marketing
1pm forget what I was doing and talk to kitchen staff about scheduling
2pm scroll social media while in my office (everyone else thinks I'm working on the schedule)
3pm actually works on the schedule
This isn't an exhaustive list, but you should write down every little thing you do in a 24-hour time frame.
I have lived my entire life going to a job with a clear job description and a training manual telling me my responsibilities, the guidelines for the scope of my position, and the expectations I’m to meet. I have had upper management to lean on in times of doubt when learning new things in those jobs. Now, YOUR ON YOUR OWN. Yippy, the day has finally come. I’m my own boss I live by my own rules, I make my own schedule! How liberating and exciting and wait a minute…. annoying and terrifying. Where do we start? Why don't I feel like I'm ever getting anything done?

First, figure out what really needs to be done, if it needs to be done by you, or if it should be left for someone else or just doesn’t really matter. I feel an enormous amount of pressure some days to do things that end up not being important. When I step back, I’m unsure why I thought they were so important. Honestly, I think some of those things fill space that could be spent being "normal," like going to the gym or keeping connected with friends. I feel like the business needs constant attention, or if I’m not thinking about something or working on improving it, something will slip past my notice, and the entire ball of wax will go up in flames. That is not true, of course.
I talk to Mothers who get this feeling, too. Any spare moment is taken up with dishes, laundry, or getting the shopping done—all stuff that needs to be done, but does it constantly need to be done? Can you sit a day while you take an hour to yourself? Will the house explode if the clothes don’t get put away?
My sister, a stay-at-home mother of three, confessed she worries about these things. We all feel compelled to be busy every minute of the day, being productive.
Once we have the grand list of tasks, we can sort through it and start to make sense of it all and see if we are being efficient or just busy.
Tip #2 - Categorize the tasks with like tasks and create categories.
After studying my day or events throughout the week, I can do what is called clumping or categorizing. I feel that doing a week-long study gives me a better idea of what I'm doing, when I'm doing it, and why.
The answer I had when I first did this was that I was doing it when it came to mind. I didn't really have a plan. I would open my emails and as I did the email would be about a bill to pay so I would go pay a bill, the next would be about booking a food truck so I would follow up on that, the next would be a staffing issue or something with the schedule do I put on the HR hat and get to it. How exhausting!
After reviewing a week's tasks, I created all my jobs and my departments, if you will. I gave each department a name and defined what that department is responsible for.
My departments are:
Accounting: Quickbooks, bill paying, and invoicing.
HR: Scheduling, staff meetings, training, and payroll
Marketing: Newsletters, social media, promos in house
Booking: correspond with leads to acquire new business.
Maintenance/ IT: All the stuff that involves maintaining the physical restaurant or IT things like menus, online ordering ext...
Something I noticed was that something like booking required three departments: booking (talking to the lead and securing the event), Accounting (invoicing and collecting payment), and HR (scheduling staff to work and communication with the team).
I would never start a new job and expect to do three people's jobs, at least not all simultaneously. So, why was I expecting this from myself?
Where did I get all these hats?

"Include quotes by experts in your post to add credibility." – SEO specialist
Tip #3 - Take each task and assign it a priority level 1-5
5= critical and 1= who actually cares if this gets done
Once we have all our tasks, we can evaluate whether they matter. My payroll is a solid 5 on the scale, and checking my emails 15 times a day because I feel like I have to be working all the time should be a 1. This is a pretty self-explanatory process and shouldn't be given too much thought. A quick review reveals your high-priority items.

Tip #4 - Review the critical 5s and ask what you're good at and what you should trust to someone more skilled (if you can afford to).
As you review the items you marked as 5s, you will reveal your business's true heartbeat and key performance factors. Also, be honest about your skills and ability to do things. I know that I have been learning from a fire hose for seven years straight. I learn platform after platform so I have the best tools to run my business. But at the end of the day, we have to know where to draw the line. I have learned that keeping accurate books is essential. I am not a bookkeeper or accountant. We hired a CPA to do the tax prep and to be an advocate and guide when it comes to larger financial choices, and we hired a bookkeeper to handle day-to-day financial tracking. That freed up 5 hrs a week for myself each week.
When it cames to HR and staffing and training, I didn't mind the scheduling and payroll, but with the day-to-day accountability and training, I knew I could find someone who would do it better. I hired a GM.
As for all the other tasks, once prioritized and tasks for each "department have been identified, we lump them together and schedule each department's time for the week. By setting a schedule and doing like tasks together, we take the back and forth out of the equation, we can find deeper focus in what we are doing, and you will be amazed at how much time you have for, dare I say it, other things.

Tip #5 - I dare you to delete all tasks scoring 2 or less.
This was hard for me. For some reason, I like holding on to the little things that keep me busy. Part of this is because my husband is such a hard worker. I feel I need to be present and working every minute he is. But this is unrealistic. We have different responsibilities, and his are more physical, which requires him to be in the restaurant on the line working a good part of the time the restaurant is open. My responsabilites aren't so. I can do them at home or the office, at the restaurant or anywhere, really. I found that deleting my tasks that score 2 and under freed up almost an entire day! It was just busy work and had no impact on the performance of the business, and more importantly, it was overwhelming me and making me feel understaffed and too busy for anything outside of the business.

Remembering what time to ourselves feels like...
After grinding for so long, I think we forget that there is more to life than the hustle; we need the flow, too. We need time to recharge and feel relaxed, to decompress and unwind. We don't need every moment filled with stuff to do!
I have a new way of gauging my effectiveness. I limit my administrative work to three days (as best I can). I have focused time on each department and pride myself on taking the least amount of time possible while getting the most done. How can I streamline each department? How can I make them more effective? As I develop the way I do these things, I keep track of the process, and when the time comes, I will have the manual to hand to someone else.
I hope this was helpful and gives you a good starting point for taking back your schedule. If you are looking for more help in this department or want someone to walk through it with you, one of my plans for coaching might be what you're looking for. Schedule a call
Comments