There are as many ways to plan your work as there are solo business owners.

There are as many ways to plan your work as there are solo business owners. That’s one of the attractions of owning your own business – you’re free to do things however you like. So what’s the best way? Let’s look at some popular methods. (In the 10+ years I’ve been working with small business owners I have seen every one of these “methods” used, although there are some I definitely don’t recommend!)

1. “Answer emails” Method

It’s natural to want to open email first thing in the morning – something important could be waiting for you! Maybe it’s a new client, or a yes to some proposal you’ve sent out. And what if there’s a problem of some kind? You want to get it handled ASAP, right?

Usually, however, most email you get isn’t that important. A lot of it is from people wanting you to buy something from them. Or from people asking you to do something for them. Their priorities, not yours. If you let your email inbox set your agenda, you’ll use up lots of time that you would be better off working on your priorities. The fact is, you can stay busy all day without being productive.

2. “Fight fires” Method

If you’re running a business, it seems there are always things that need doing – right now! You’re way overdue writing something for your blog. Your talk at the Chamber of Commerce is tomorrow, and you haven’t finished putting it together. You made one small change on your website and now everything’s out of alignment. A client who was perfectly happy last week now says what you did isn’t what he wants after all. Urgent matters need to be taken care of right away, buteverything can’t be a top priority. If all your days are like this, when will you get the important things done that will move your business forward?

3. “Squeaky wheel” Method

Sometimes you’ve got a client who demands special treatment. It’s always something with her. She reschedules appointments. She changes her mind. Whatever your plan for the day may have been, you end up rearranging it to accommodate her. You can’t give other clients the time and attention they need because this one is always pulling at you. She requires an inordinate amount of your time and attention, but she’s a big chunk of your income, so how can you say no?

You run a huge risk if you let someone like this take over your business. Your squeaky wheel could decide to disappear, and if you’ve been shortchanging your other clients, you risk losing them too. It’s in your own best interest to set boundaries, or planning your work may be the least of your problems.

4. “In the mood” Method

Life can be very demanding when you’re a solopreneur and have to do everything yourself. Besides doing that thing you love to do – the reason you started your business in the first place – there are all these other things you know you’re supposed to do but don’t like doing. Some people drift into the “I do what I feel like doing when I feel like doing it” way of planning their work. This means the more uninteresting or unpleasant aspects of running a business just don’t ever get done. While this may be satisfying in the short-term, it’s clearly not going to work as a long-term strategy. This method is deadly for those who tend to procrastinate. You’re never going to be in the mood to do things you hate.

5. “Stack of stuff” Method

Some people just aren’t meant to have a clean desk with their paperwork all filed away in some orderly system. In their office, there are papers all over the place, with some projects half completed, and others waiting to be started one of these days. They prefer to keep all their work out in the open, fearing that out-of-sight will mean out-of-mind. Days unfold more or less spontaneously as they choose to work randomly on things that attract their attention. If a distraction intervenes, they’ll drop what they’re doing and move on to something else. This makes it very difficult to meet deadlines or to work collaboratively with others. In the meantime, their business is in constant chaos.

6. “Preferred activity” Method

Solopreneurs, like everyone else, have strengths and weaknesses and prefer some kinds of work over others. Unlike everyone else, however, solopreneurs don’t have a boss keeping an eye on them making sure all the bases are covered. Creative freelancers can lose themselves for hours writing, or designing, or engaging in whatever their talent draws them to. In doing so, tasks they find boring are happily overlooked until some emergency arises.

Task-oriented loners may prefer the solitude of online research or computer coding to marketing and networking that forces them out of their comfort zone. In avoiding activities that require lots of social contact, they also miss opportunities for business-building, and they’re likely to run out of clients. Like it or not, you can’t just ignore things that must be done.

7. “Due date” Method

There’s nothing like an approaching deadline “to concentrate the mind wonderfully,” to paraphrase Samuel Johnson’s sound bite in reference to a man whose hanging was imminent. Some people claim to work better under pressure, and there’s a certain logic to that position. Work has a way of expanding to fill the time allotted to it and if you wait until the due date is near, you have no time to waste. Prioritizing by due date makes perfect sense; however, to be sustainable you’d better be accurate in estimating how long each project will take. If you don’t begin early enough and miss that due date, you’re sunk. And managing multiple projects with overlapping due dates can be a nightmare.

8. “Morning of” Method

Some time management experts advocate taking a few moments at the beginning of each day to choose two or three critical tasks you’ll accomplish that day. It seems to me, however, that it’s a little late to be planning your workday when it’s already started. If you don’t have a good idea of what else is on the horizon, it’s difficult to know what to prioritize. What seems important today might be changed by something that’s going to happen tomorrow. If you don’t look ahead, you won’t know that. And what about involved projects that stretch over several days? How do you take those into account?

9. “Night before” Method

To my mind, this method shares the same shortcomings as the “morning of” method. However, it does seem a little bit better because at least it prepares your mind for the day ahead and encourages a good night’s sleep. One of the benefits of any kind of planning is that you theoretically “hit the ground running” and you don’t require yourself to make on-the-spot decisions. Especially for people who are inclined to procrastinate, it’s helpful to decide, in advance, what you will do and then not give yourself permission to change your mind.

10. “Bottom line” Method

“If an activity doesn’t contribute to the bottom line, it’s not worth spending time on.” That’s a philosophy that’s hard to argue with. After all, you’re in business to make a profit, right? In general, I would agree. I might say it slightly differently, though. I would say you should spend your time doing those activities that ONLY you can do, and have others do the rest.

Administrative tasks must be done, but most of them don’t need to be done by you. If you can outsource them to others, you free yourself for those activities that will generate business. And the impact on your bottom line is likely to be more favorable hiring virtual assistants or other independent contractors than hiring employees, with all the regulations and complexities they bring.

Some activities, such as marketing and networking, may not contribute immediately to your bottom line because they’re longer term strategies, but you hope to see payback at some point in terms of increased recognition and referrals.

11. ‘To-do list” Method

People have used to-do lists for generations. In fact, most of us grew up believing that making a “to-do” list is the way to plan work. The truth is that lists are helpful only for remembering what we intend to do, not for actually getting anything done! We add items as they occur to us, there’s no way to prioritize them, and there’s no provision made for the time, location or equipment required. Worst of all, we tend to review our lists only when we’re not busy doing something already – and how often does that happen?

In addition, to-do lists mislead us into feeling we’ve accomplished something simply by writing it on a list – then we can forget about it! Too often, that’s just what happens. Or we put so many tasks on our list that it becomes meaningless. The average professional worker in the US has a to-do list that would take 10 weeks of uninterrupted time to complete. Now, what does that tell you about to-do lists?

12. “Scheduled action” Method

Since to-do lists don’t get things done, people need a better way of planning work. In my opinion, the simplest and most effective way to keep track of tasks AND actually complete them is to enter them immediately into available time slots in your planner just as if they were appointments. Most of my clients agree!

Here’s how they make the transition from to-do lists to scheduled action planning. After all their time-specific appointments and commitments are entered in their calendar/planner, they add tasks from their to-do list based on priorities and due dates, blocking out the estimated time each task will take. During this process, they often realize many items are of such low priority they simply aren’t worth transferring! Thinking concretely about exactly when to schedule them, and how much time you’re willing to devote, can make it clear you should drop them altogether.

From that day forward, when a task presents itself, they immediately choose a time that’s compatible with its priority and due date, and they schedule the action right into their calendar. If something of a higher priority comes along, they relocate the original task. Each day, they simply complete the tasks scheduled for that day. Tasks don’t get forgotten, they avoid over-scheduling and their to-do items actually get done!

What methods have you tried to plan your work? What are the pros and cons? What seems to work best?  Share your perspective in the comments!