Britt Bravo is hosting the Nonprofit Blog Carnival this month and asked for some of our favorite time saving tips. Here are some of the things I’ve used this year to really help me manage my own time better. I can’t wait to hear what everyone else comes up with for the Carnival, because I’m sure there’s more I could be doing.
Delegating
I like to piddle around, especially with technology. But it can suck up a bunch of time. So, I’ve gotten better about delegating tasks to my virtual assistant. We’ve had to set aside some good chunks of time to train her to do things the way I want them done, but that’s let me let go of them, freeing up more of my time.
What can you hand off to someone else?
Bringing in Guest Experts
You may have noticed more guest posts on this blog, and that’s by design. Our goal is to have one guest post per week, coupled with a Mixed Links roundup a few times a month, both of which mean I have more time to focus on the blog posts I write. We are also bringing in more guest speakers for the webinar series.
Bringing in guest experts is a win-win situation, because it saves me time while allowing our guest experts to connect with you. How can you better use the experts in your network?
Thinking Six Months Ahead
Planning our webinar programming six months ahead, instead of three, has saved me a bunch of time, because I’m not scrabbling as much. We still publish the schedule only three months at a time in case we do want to make adjustments, but behind the scenes, we have the programming sketched out through December.
I still think only a couple of weeks at time for our editorial calendars for this blog and my e-newsletter, but having a longer timeframe in mind for our core activities has really helped us focus.
Would thinking further ahead save some of that scrabbling time you waste?
Creating a Marketing Bank
Seems like not a day goes by that I’m not adding a file or using a file in our marketing bank. It’s another great time-saver to have all of that stuff in one place. What’s in yours?
Time Blocking
I use multiple Google calendars layered on top of each other to manage my time. One of them is dedicated to time blocking, where I schedule time for specific projects and tasks. Because these are all self-imposed items on the schedule that can be changed if needed, I like to keep them on a different calendar than my appointments calendar, which is much more rigid about what I have to do and when. That way I can turn off and turn on the calendars to see only what I want to see at any given time.
How do you manage your calendars?
Using Technology Tools
I’m still a big believer in using lists to deal with information overload and I’m still relying heavily on technology tools to keep me organized, which saves a tremendous amount of time.
Share your tips in the comments!
P.S. I’m hosting the Nonprofit Blog Carnival in August and the theme will be “Kooky, Quirky, and Off-Beat Marketing and Fundraising.” I’ll be asking you to identify the best creative ideas you’ve seen out there. More details next week . . .
