The way to get more things done and ensure you are bringing more income into your business is to build time for it in your schedule: time for getting clients, time for marketing, and time for completing projects.

I’ve learned you can’t squeeze in marketing in between client appointments, errands, and phone calls. You need to have dedicated time when you are in the flow. Being in the flow is when you’re doing one type of thing only.

I prefer to often have a full day of coaching calls back to back because I’m energized and in the flow. Then, the following day I can have the day wide open to work on creating a new offering or just be focused on marketing.
 
It’s called clustering and batching your days, and it can completely transform your business.
 
For example, you can schedule business development days and client days. Ideally, you want to create specific hours for clients and specific days and hours for business development (aka marketing). This is how you build that time for completing and working on your marketing.

I do this with my schedule—my team only schedules my coaching calls on Tuesdays through Thursdays. Mondays and Fridays are devoted to business development, every single week. I have a colleague who only schedules calls the first 3 weeks of the month. The last week of the month is blocked off for business development only.

This is all part of how you systematize your marketing.

After a while, when I had built up my business and become more productive, I started taking Friday afternoons off a couple times of month. That time to decompress really fueled me.

The idea is that you always want to have business development days, and you always want to cluster your client appointments, and even your networking. If you’re at a point in your business where you have more time than clients, pick one morning a week where you do them all at once.
 
The more you can cluster things together, the less travel you have, and the less preparation you need to do.
 
Other examples of activities you can batch? Sales calls, writing time, checking email, travel days, in person client appointments, personal appointments, and errands.

Another tip: if you do need to go out and do things during the business day, consider doing things off-peak, when most of the general public is not doing them. For example, going to the gym or the grocery store. It makes things SO much less aggravating.

Plus, you’ll have more time to focus. That time needs to be protected—that means no distractions such as calls, house cleaners, repairmen appointments and so on.  

The key is to systematize how you use your time. If this is one of the only things that you begin doing this year, you WILL get more clients and make more money.
 
Why? You’re going to get much more done in less time, therefore increasing your productivity. And because of that, you’ll get more clients with much less effort.

Photo Credit: imore.com