How to get more free time…

…For work life balance

Question: does technology give us more free time?

As a systems expert, I’m biased, but I 100 percent believe that technology gives us more free time. Without tech, software, and apps, businesses would operate much slower. Think old school pen and paper, printed receipts, delayed payments, cash to count—yuck.

Work life balance for entrepreneurs

Most of my students come to me feeling frazzled, stressed out, and sometimes on the brink of burnout because they don’t have any kind of work life balance in their business. Balancing work and life as an entrepreneur is difficult—I know because I’ve been there before. But what I really love about running my own business (aside from getting to work with amazing clients around the world) is the freedom to travel too. Did you know that I started my business with a trip to Zimbabwe?

I know it’s hard sometimes, but this ride can feel easy if you dedicate time and energy to set up systems that set you free. Let me show you how… 

How to get more free time: 5 must-dos

1. Set boundaries

I’m all for setting boundaries to grow your business. It’s something that I help my students with in Ease Seekers Society. As part of the workflow planning session, we talk about details like client meeting hours and email responses. When you learn to set boundaries with your clients, your calendar, and yourself, business feels a lot easier.

2. No meeting days

One of the boundaries I try to keep for myself as well as my clients is choosing (and sticking to) meeting-free days every single week. Meetings can be disruptive, so if you try to group focused work on the days you don’t have meetings, you’re likely to be more productive. Try to keep at least 2 days each week free of meetings so you can get work done… and actually switch off for a while. Here’s how I plan my ideal week.

3. Peak productivity hours

When you start a business, you get to set the rules. You don’t have to work 8-4 or 9-5 anymore. Instead, pay attention to when you’re most productive and set your schedule around those hours.

For example, I work early mornings and often take afternoons off. And I mean early—I feel most productive before 9am, so it’s not uncommon for me to wake up at 5am. This works especially great for me because a lot of my clients are in North America, while I live in Sydney, Australia. My early mornings line up with afternoons and evenings for my clients, so communication across oceans is never an issue.

4. Outsource anything you can

Hi, I’m Charlotte and I’m addicted to outsourcing *raises hand.* This blog might even be outsourced content, but you’d never know it because I choose good people. Why waste time struggling to do things you don’t want to do? The moment I had enough revenue to start passing off tasks is the moment I went all in. The result? More time to serve more clients (and make more money), but also more free time to enjoy life.

My best advice for outsourcing is to start with your weaknesses. What distracts you from moving the needle each day? Find help there first.

Think about outsourcing outside of work too! For example, I have a cleaner come to my house every second Friday because I know I work and relax better with a clean home, but either don’t want to clean or just don’t want to make the time to.

5. Optimise systems for busywork

Systems can do the busywork for us. Why waste time on things when you can pay or program a robot to do it?

Side note: I’d love a robot to do stuff for me in real life. In the meantime, Dubsado acts as that robot butler service for my business.

Dubsado is the obvious tool I always suggest to service providers, but there are plenty of others you can use for things like marketing, meeting scheduling, to-do lists, organisation, etc. Check out the complete list of business tools I recommend here.

Want to have more free time?

If you want to have more free time, you need to start by setting up streamlined client management systems in your business. How? With Dubsado, of course! Dubsado is a CRM designed by small businesses for small business owners. It’s automation capabilities don’t sacrifice any of the client experience you offer, but it does save you a ton of time—it’s like a virtual assistant that you’ve programmed to be exactly what you need. Yes, please!

If you want to create work life balance in your business, get started with my free mini course: 7 Steps to Automation. Find all the details here.