Get More TimePotentially the number one issue facing all of us, both personally and professionally, is not having enough time.  This is particularly an issue for small business owners and entrepreneurs.  In fact, according to the most recent Bank of America Small Business Owner Report, almost three out of every four business owners (72%) reported making sacrifices in their personal time for their business.  And I have to think the other quarter aren’t being truthful!  We sacrifice personal time, vacations, time with our families, sleep and more to get work done.

So, wouldn’t you like to find ways to get back some time in each day?  I recently moderated a Google Hangout presented by Bank of America and Mastercard, and including small business owners and experts Steve Strauss and Jeff Korhan, on how you can reclaim some time.

You can watch the full event here or below, but some takeaways included:

Prioritization- Rate your tasks, and focus on only the ones that are the most important.  Include personal time as a priority item that rates over non-critical tasks (or at least ones that are not critical right now).

Chunking Your Time-Focus on important projects for several hours at a time, avoiding the desire to multi-task. 

Minimizing Distractions-Turn of your email, social media or even get out of your office if it’s a high traffic area, especially when focusing on the priority items that generate the biggest return for your business. 

Embracing Technology-Including Time Management Apps-While some technology can be distracting, other technologies can help to make you more efficient.  Try out different ones or ask your network about favorites to find the ones that work for you. 

Getting Help, From Outsourcing to Delegating Tasks-You should only be doing the work that is an efficient and worthwhile use of your time.  Enlist contractors, freelancers, service providers or employees to help you with some more mundane tasks. It can be hard to cut the cord, but once you do it, you will wonder why you didn’t do it sooner!

You can get more details on these tips and some additional tactics to get more time back in your day by watching the 30 minute video of the event.  Make sure to make the time to do this and pursue other strategic endeavors where you can work on your business, not just in it. It’s worth investing a half hour of your time to get back hours each week!