6 Time Management Tips from Entrepreneurs

Fastcompany asked the top entrepreneurial coaches for time management tips:

1. Avoid the email time suck.

• Email is my worst enemy, so I only check it three times a day
• Keeping email open all day is the quickest way to kill your productivity
• First thing in the morning I glance over most emails and address only the critical ones. Midday I check progress on the critical emails I addressed in the morning. And before I go to sleep my main goal is to clear volume and smaller or menial tasks. On especially busy days I only check twice a day, cutting out the midday scrub.
• Delaying or ignoring emails is a good way to make people not as dependent on you.

2. Choose your most important goal each week.

• Focus time and energy on it at the cost of other, less important things, and do it until completion

3. Know your productivity limits. 

• Everyone has a maximum number of productive hours per day, after which output drops off significantly

4. Be like Dorsey: Take breaks to prevent burnout. 

• We encourage founders to not underestimate the importance of exercise, sleep, and taking breaks to restore energy and creativity.
• It’s better to average eight solid hours of productivity a day than it is to output 12 hours of mediocre ones.
• Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey is running two $1 billion plus companies and he finds time to take Saturdays off to recharge.

5. Skip some meetings. 

• One meeting can blow an entire day of productivity.
• Know why you’re meeting, and make sure it’s important–try to keep them to 30 minutes, max.

6. Say “no” when you need to. 

• A critical skill we all need to learn.

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