Time is money – this is especially true for coaches.

Effective time management for coaches is important from the very first day of your business. Especially if you have no hires yet, your time management is key to productivity, profit, and survival.

Many become online coaches because they seek a better work-life balance – you can only have this if you manage your time effectively.

As a coach, your time management will dictate how much money you make and how quickly you grow. It’s that balance between marketing activities, working in your business with clients, and working on your business that will slow you down or speed things up.

Here are 5 simple ways to ensure you’re making the most of your time in your business:

1.  Time management for coaches – a bird’s eye view

    

   When I started my coaching business my goal was to work less and make more. I can assure you this is possible with the right systems in place. I earn more than 5x what I made in my own agency a few years ago working less than half the time (that’s 3 to 6 hours a day).
   
   Before you begin planning where your time will go you need to make a list of the essentials in your business…
   

   Marketing:

   Marketing for coaches means doing all the things that establish you as a trusted coach and put you in front of your audience like blogging, podcasting, going live, posting on FB, LI or IG. Even if you hire a VA to help you, a personal brand will always need your input.
   
   Admin:

   Admin refers to all those little things that really add up. Sending coaching call follow-ups, booking calls, answering emails, answering client queries on WhatsApp or Voxer, uploading client replays on Youtube etc.
   This is probably the stuff you find most boring and annoying, but it’s all the little things that keep your business running smoothly. The good news is that there is plenty of automation out there to help you save time with this.

   
   Finances and Accounting:

   This should be the first thing you outsource, it takes specialist knowledge, but you can also collect the data yourself and use tools that make it simpler.
   
   

   Coaching:

   This one can’t be delegated (unless you train a team to teach your system). So for most coaches, this cannot be delegated. You can however leverage your time and income with groups or online courses.
    

   

    

2. Allocating time and priority – better time management for coaches

   It helps if you have a coaching business plan but if you don’t a list of goals might suffice. No matter how detailed your planning is, some idea of where you want to get to is a must. To begin allocating time you need to know how much of it you have. If you work Monday to Friday from 8 am to 1 pm then that’s 5 hours a day. The best way to begin is to break the week down into 5 days of 5 hours each.
   
   Give each day a purpose – I align each day with a goal I want to achieve in my business. So
   
   Monday is content-writing day – one of my goals is to produce as much writing as possible every week. 2 blogs, 1 email, and 1 set of show notes at least per week plus some social posts.
   
   Tuesday is my client-happiness day. The main goal of this day is to make sure my clients are happy. I check that I’ve sent everything they need, and take a few minutes to think about how I can make each one’s experience better and support them more. 

   Wednesday is publishing day, this is the day that I record and edit my podcast and publish the blog posts + send my emails. This means spending time creating or sourcing imagery and scheduling blogs on my website.
   
   Thursday is my coaching day, I book a lot of back-to-back calls and spend the day with clients. 

   Friday is catch-up day – I block some time for admin and finances here and leave time open for anything that remained unfinished earlier in the week.
   

    

3.  Theme your Days for easier schedule management

   
   Giving each day a theme doesn’t mean I’m not flexible if a client needs to see me on a Tuesday or a Friday. I usually have space for that, I also have 1 evening 1-hour slot for clients from the US because I’m on CET (in Malta).
   The important thing is that I have time booked for what is non-negotiable and for me that is my marketing and my client time.
   It also allows me to clearly see how much time I have to play with if I don’t want to end up working more hours.
   
   You also need to keep in mind that if you want to keep running your regular 1:1 coaching whilst launching a group program or course, then you’ll need more hours. When using the daily system above I always keep the same routine and daily priorities but align my marketing and publishing with the launch requirements.
   
   I also make sure that on other days (except for coaching day Thursday) I’m blocking off 2 hours to work on my launch. It’s never as organized as it sounds, everyone’s backstage is messy – so don’t be too hard on yourself.

    

    

   

    

4. Knowing how long everything will take to better manage your timeThe biggest difficulty coaches find when breaking down their week is to understand how much time they need for each task. I have a simple way of finding out…
   
   The Pomodoro technique. I love this technique and have used it for years. It was invented by Francesco Cirillo and it’s a simple technique that includes working for 25 minutes (a Pomodoro) and then taking a 5-minute break. It works beautifully for 2 reasons.
   
   After you’ve used it for a couple of weeks (or less) you will have a very clear picture of how long it takes you to do any task. In fact, I plan my week in pomodoros, and that way I can so easily see when I’m not being realistic with my goals.
   
   
5.  Adding automation saves time in your coaching businessEvery task I do gets vetted for automation. I love automation because I like simplicity. I’m always looking for the simplest tools to automate tasks and simplify my day.
   
   For example, I use a plugin that automatically posts my blogs to social media. Then another tool duplicates my posts onto other social platforms. I also use software that requests payment automatically from clients, issues refunds or rebills at the press of a button. I use an automatic scheduler that also creates a zoom link for my discovery calls.
   
   My goal is to always simplify. And then simplify and automate some more. This helps me avoid busywork.

 

Would you like to have your marketing and admin processes simplified so they fit snugly in your routine?
I’ve created a program that helps you do just that, using efficient marketing techniques that get your discovery calls booked automatically.

– If you’d like to find out how I can help you book a free call here at stephaniefiteni.com/call