How to Get the Right Stuff Done: Time Management for Solopreneurs
Contributed by SBOC Member:
Pat Miller
Founder of the Small Business Owners Community
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The Wrong Question
“How do I manage my time better?” is the most common question in the small business community. And it’s the wrong question.
If you’re asking how to get everything done, you’re setting yourself up for failure. Because there is no end to the list. The to-do list of a solopreneur is infinite. It regenerates. You will never get to the bottom of it.
The right question is: How do I get the right stuff done on time?
That’s a different problem with a different solution.
Strategy #1: Time Protection
This is the foundation of everything else. The best way to manage your time is to stop giving so much of it away.
Look at your calendar from the last two weeks. You’re going to find:
- “Pick your brain” sessions that went nowhere
- Random one-on-one intro calls where someone said “you two should meet” and you sat on Zoom for 40 minutes wondering why you were there
- Networking events that used to work for you but don’t anymore
- Favors, obligations, meetings that have nothing to do with serving clients or getting new ones
All of that time is gone. And then you wonder why you can’t get your actual work done.
Here’s the truth: 90 minutes of protected, focused deep work will split the atom. If you’re actually getting stuff done—not context-switching, not checking email, not “just taking this one call”—you can accomplish more in 90 minutes than most people accomplish in a day.
But you have to protect that time.
The solution: Schedule study halls. Block out appointments with yourself. Maybe it’s 9 AM to noon on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Put it on your calendar like it’s a meeting with your most important client—because it is. That’s time for deep work.
When someone asks for that time slot, your answer is “I have a meeting.” Because you do.
Strategy #2: Eliminate Tasks
Most solopreneurs are performatively busy. They’re doing things that feel like work but don’t actually move the business forward.
Look at your to-do list. It’s probably full of:
Things you think you should do. You saw some people on Twitter doing a thing. Maybe you should do that too? So you go down a rabbit hole that has nothing to do with serving clients or getting new ones.
Other people’s priorities. Someone asked you to make an introduction, set up a meeting, do a favor. It has nothing to do with your business, but you feel obligated.
Tasks you shouldn’t be doing yourself. If you don’t have contractors, you are falling behind. There are things on your list right now that someone else could do faster and cheaper than you can.
Get ruthless about what belongs on your list. If it’s not serving clients or getting new ones, question whether it should be there at all.
Strategy #3: Add Urgency with Due Dates
This is the game-changer that most people miss.
Your to-do list probably has a bunch of important things on it with no deadlines. They’re all important. They all need to happen. So they all sit there, weighing on you, making you feel overwhelmed.
Here’s the fix: Schedule tasks as close to their due date as possible.
Parkinson’s Law says work expands to fill the time available. If you give yourself two weeks to do a 30-minute task, it’ll take two weeks of mental bandwidth even though the actual work takes 30 minutes.
But if you schedule that 30-minute task for the day before it’s due? You’ll do it in 30 minutes. Because you have to.
How to apply this:
- Take each task on your list
- Ask: How long will this actually take?
- Ask: When is it actually due?
- Schedule it as close to that due date as possible
If it takes 15 minutes and it’s due Friday, put it on Thursday. You’ll get it done.
The Permission to Forget
Here’s the real payoff of this system: when you schedule tasks by due date instead of importance, you give yourself permission to forget.
If your to-do list has 100 things on it, you’ve got 100 browser tabs open in your brain. Each one takes a little bit of cognitive energy. You’re carrying all that weight around constantly.
But if you schedule a task for two weeks from now—because that’s when it’s actually due—you can forget about it until then. That’s not irresponsible. That’s strategic. The task is captured. It’ll come back to you when it’s time. In the meantime, you can focus on what actually matters today.
This frees up brain space for the work that’s actually critical right now.
The Missing Accountability
One more thing: as a solopreneur, you don’t have a boss. That’s good and bad.
Good because not having a boss is kind of awesome.
Bad because nobody’s holding you accountable to get stuff done. You have to create systems that do that job for you.
Time protection, task elimination, and due-date scheduling are those systems. They tell you what to do and when to do it—so you can actually follow through without someone looking over your shoulder.
The Bottom Line
Don’t ask how to get everything done. Ask how to get the right stuff done on time.
Protect your time. Eliminate tasks that don’t belong. Schedule by due date, not importance. And give yourself permission to forget everything that doesn’t need to happen today.
That’s how solopreneurs stay sane—and actually get things done.
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Contributed by
Pat Miller
Founder of the Small Business Owners Community
Pat spent two decades in broadcasting management and hosting. After leaving the radio industry, he spent time consulting small businesses and realized the support system for entrepreneurs was broken. Where could you find help for improving small businesses and building real connections with other like-minded people. In June of 2020, the Idea Collective Small Business Community was born.