As an entrepreneur who does it all, how do you prioritize your day's activities?

I begin my prioritization the night before and review what, if any, client visits I have the following day. Based upon the time of my client visit I decide on what time to get up so I have enough time to review email, my Google alerts, answer a question on Focus and finalize my preparation for my client visit.

While visiting clients I devote 100% of my time to their issues. I will check email or messages just before noon and respond if needed.

If I don't have a client visit I review my schedule and work on projects based upon expected delivery dates. I do have more flexibility as to administrative and marketing tasks when not at a client and tend to mix things up so as to keep myself engaged.

For me the key is to begin planning the night before, review the plan again in the morning and during the day keep 100% focus on one project at a time.

Sales is at the top of the list - call early and at lunch or the evening (15 minutes each)
Sales is second on the list of priorities - schedule meetings, write proposals, etc. (1 to 2 hours)
Design is next. Design for clients and design for future (1 to 2 hours)
Delivery takes precedence over everything when it is needed (adjust everything accordingly)
Accounting, invoicing, collections, etc. twice per month (1 to 2 hours)
Self development is critical. Networking, attending classes, seminars, conferences, etc. (8 hours per month)
Building business infrastructure like website, marketing materials, filing systems, etc. are weekend and evening work

You will never have as much time to commit to these as you want but if you keep to this schedule you'll make a living

I have three roles, which are:

1. My life, which includes, family, etc
2. My first company http://edocr.com
3. My second company http://techcelerate.org

Which means, I have teams to manage in all three - (1) wife, kids, me, etc. For (2) and (3) we use various tools. But I only have 24 hours. So I have my own personal tools. Recently, I started using www.teamly.com to bring perspective to all three.

Hope this helps

Hi Jackie:

I have one simple rule: I do what's "closet to cash" every day. That could be writing a proposal, following up on a referral, asking for referrals, sending a contract, or working on new sales with existing clients.

As entrepreneurs, we want to do everything. That doesn't work. Business development is a critical sales activity. I don't clean out my Inbox anymore. If answering an email doesn't move my business forward, I don't take the time to read it. When I finally have a few minutes to review, frequently the message isn't important anymore.

A good tip is to create Folders in Outlook, and review those items every few days. You won't miss anything, because those messages aren't urgent.

It is especially true for those of us working in the search industry that if we fail to plan, we are planning to fail. For me personally, there are two general concepts that come into play when planning my day. The first is to plan my work day and the second is to plan for everything else.

This was actually a topic I covered on a blog post about one year ago (http://blog.searchentrepreneurs.com/2010/01/28/validation-for-the-checklist/) so this must be the time of year to think about getting organized.

Priority 1 - Work Day: Recruiters normally find success with a fairly common schedule that other than WHO we are scheduled to speak with during the day, the structure of it does not veer much from this normal course: closing and/or follow up calls in the first part of the day, a block of at least 2 hours for marketing calls (time where most feel little or no interruption should be allowed), then a break for lunch (possible networking meetings, social media maintenance over a sandwich or just getting away from the desk for a bit). After lunch is a great time for reference check calls (highly overlooked and a valuable marketing tool as well), then another 2+ hour block of time dedicated to recruiting calls, and then one of the most important segments of the day which is a planning time where you will map out your plan for the following day.

Priority 2 - Entire Day: The beauty of being an entrepreneur is that you actually control all aspects of your priorities. But as I mention in the blog post referred to above, there is a way to get more into life than just approaching it willy-nilly. (insert "Big Rocks" story here: analogy about filling the "jar" of life the most efficient way possible - begin with the big rocks first, then fill the small stones and settle them down in, followed by the tiny pebbles and then the grains of sand. You can even then pour water in and find still more room in the jar.) This CAN be a double edged sword as if you allow too many distractions you will never get your work done and build your business. So within reason, I manage the important things when I need to, and prioritize very similar to the Franklin Planner Days when I ranked items on my to do list A, B, C (big rocks = A) and get them done as time allows while adhering to the work day as closely as possible.

Sometimes a really big rock (child performance at school) just outweighs the call plan for an afternoon.

Each morning, the first thing I do is to check my e-mail for any urgent messages. At that point I begin to prioritize my day. Any vital tasks and/or phone calls are taken care of first. Then mundane tasks such as correspondence, bookkeeping, filing, paying bills, general e-mail are dealt with to make sure that they get done and are not pushed aside until they are a big problem. After that, I focus on client tasks that require my undivided attention.

Getting the routine, often boring but essential tasks out of the way allow to give full attention to my client assignments and I don't have worry about them at all. That organization keeps down the clutter as well as saving me time because I can find items and am totally up to date.

I simply do that which produces or sustains revenue first. Typically this is sales related but it might also be mundane paperwork like invoicing.

Jackie,
This is a great question, and one near and dear to many entrepreneurs.

Like Joanne, our company is in business to grow revenues - and doing activities that lead to sales is a priority each day.

For us, we have a sales meeting every Monday - with a handful of revenue-producing goals for the week.

We have a quick review each Friday to see how our goals matched up to actual actions taken.

By working this way, it gives us flexibility during the week - as long as we generally hit our goals. Sometimes a goal is an activity (Q1 mailing to strategic partners) and other times it is about bringing a sales opportunity to closure. We find this strategy works well for growing business.

Prioritisation is key (and I note that most of the entreprenears who have answered note this).

I have a young family (three boys under the age of six), I spend a lot of time on the road and I have recently been impacted by the Queensland floods (all of our furniture is currently in a Pod somewhere in Brisbane having been moved to avoid flood damage).

Why do I raise these points? Because plans are useless but planning is essential (Eisenhower). Be willing to adapt to changes, be flexible in your approach, consider job redesign into your options (i.e take up or decrease in technology) and consider a day to be a whole day (all waking hours available for business, family and play).

First, Shane shows how we can't ignore the military adage "all battle plans go to hell at first contact with the enemy," or if you prefer, Murphy's Law.

Instead of High, Medium, Low, or A, B, C, I use Mike Scott's ranking: Must Do, Need To Do, Want To Do. Anything involving a client or project work is Must Do. Administrative stuff, marketing, Focus discussions, training, are Need To Do.Everything else is Want To Do.

At night I leave a post-it note with the 6 things that really have to get done, Must Do's at the top, etc.If something doesn't get done, it stays on the list for tomorrow.

If I'm really getting somewhere on a project, phone calls go to voice mail, but I'll always answer calls from my wife and daughter. Simple rule.

My projects have relative priorities. Something that has royalty or licensing revenue potential like a book or an online course are significant but longer-term.

Then there are ongoing critical projects like blogging to maintain my website visibility, articles to remind my customers about me and marketing calls to book seminars.

And then there's just “stuff” that isn't that important but needs to be done.

I make sure that each day I block out time to work on long-term projects as well as the critical ongoing projects.

I also consider my energy and time of day. For example making calls to prospective clients is best done at higher energy period as well as early in my day since my time zone is three hours behind the East Coast of the US. Things that relate to the website or administration can be done "after hours."

I use a Mac and I love the project / to do manager called THINGS. You can drag an email out of your in box to Things and it makes a "to-do" linked to the email. I can keep my in box EMPTY!! The developer of Things is http://culturedcode.com