How to Get Ahead When You’re Too Busy Trying to Get By

Managing your workload and keeping priorities, well, prioritized could be a full-time job. In fact, it’s just one of the reasons established executives do have full-time assistants – to help them organize their schedules and ensure important meetings are taking place.

But that’s not you…yet. So, until you are in a place where you can afford to hire additional staff, you need to find a way to stay focused and get ahead, even as you work tirelessly to just get by each day.

Here are some tips to enable you to push your bounds and find success as an entrepreneur:

• Get organized and prioritize initiatives that matter – It’s easy to always be doing something when you’re running your own business, but to get ahead, you have to be doing the “somethings” that truly matter for your business.
  
  That means first taking time to reflect on what’s working and what’s not for your business. Then, to establish goals and priorities that focus on making those impactful initiatives even more impactful.
  
  The main takeaway here is that you should be putting most of your time, effort and energy into the activities that are yielding the most returns for you and your business, be that in the form of financial returns, new relationships formed or some other metric you deem important for success.

• Divide larger tasks into manageable wins (and celebrate them) – It may seem like there’s a huge mountain ahead of you. And who cares if there is? That’s a sign of having a big vision and the will to get there. But when all you have ahead of you is one huge dream, it can be difficult to stay motivated on the day-to-day tasks at hand. When you break down those tasks into smaller bite-size projects, however, you’ll be able to achieve success more quickly.

• Outsource if you need to – So maybe you can’t hire a full-time assistant, but what about bringing on some additional part-time help or a freelancer for a one-off project here and there? Understanding your limits and knowing when to ask for help can work wonders if you find yourself stuck in a rut.

When you’re struggling to get by, the most important thing to do – albeit one of the hardest – is to stop what you’re doing and reflect on what you can change. Then, you can start afresh with a clear goal ahead of you and the motivation to tackle it.