When you work full time, it’s difficult to find time to work on your home-based business. Fully utilizing the time you have is key.
So how can you balance time off and time for working on your business?
Ultra-Productive Bursts
As part of the Ultimate Guide to Productivity Group Writing Project, I wanted to tackle weekend productivity for those looking to make the leap. Weekends can be the best time for those working a regular job and building a home-based business, to get some solid work done.
We all have built-in rhythms — times of the day when we’re ultra-productive, and times when we’re not. Knowing your rhythms can help you better schedule your work.
The secret is working with your own cycles. It seems to be a common theme for productivity — Chris talks about his flow time, Dawud describes his 50 minutes bursts, and Ben covers productivity rhythms. This is how I tend to work as well.
If you’re super productive in the morning, get started early and take advantage of that “flow-time.” If you tend to be more focused and get more done in the afternoon, set aside time later in the day to work.
Schedule short bursts of work time during the weekend — 3 to 4 hour blocks during your ultra-productive time. The idea is that if you’re focused, you can get a larger amount of work done in a shorter period of time. Then take the rest of the day for yourself and your family.
Work When You’re Working and Play When You’re Playing
Working on your own business tends to make you more focused. You enjoy the work.
That, coupled with utilizing your most productive times, will allow you to get more done in less time. It’s like getting extra hours. You’re able to spend your work time moving your business forward, and then take the rest of the weekend to play (or clean out the garage, if you prefer).
You’re able to enjoy your time off, because you won’t be thinking about the work you have to do.
Building a home-based business while working full time can eat up your weekends. Learn to work around your natural bursts of productivity, and have more of your weekend for other things.
It’s the next best thing to having 28-hour days…
As I typically do with these projects and memes, instead of tagging individuals, I’m encouraging any of my readers interested in participating to write their own post. Don’t wait for a tag! Tell us your productivity secrets…
Hi Tony, I found your blog through StumbleUpon. Great stuff here. I love the design. It’s fun and easy to read for old farts like me. Excellent tips too.
I think the best home business will allow you to work at your time. If you have the strong desire you will make it happen.
Hey Tony. Nice tip. Finding when we’re most productive during the day is pretty important. The funny thing for me is that I’m most productive very early in the morning (4am to 7am) and very late at night (midnight to 3am). Things just seem to flow out of me at those times. That doesn’t leave me much time for sleep.
Hey, thanks for the link love.
Ev – Thanks! I’m glad you Stumbled Upon me 🙂
Priscilla – True. Learning to design your schedule is important, rather than letting it happen randomly.
Dawud – Mornings are my most productive time too. Besides, who needs sleep 😉
Tony, great post, thanks for bringing it up — it got me thinking more about it 🙂
Dawud, lots of folks share the late night/early morning preferred time slot for productivity 🙂
Actually, that might be fun to ponder…
Tony, do you mind if I pose the question to everyone here if they’re aware of any “famous” or not so famous (it’s in the eye of the beholder anyway right?) folks who were known to be more productive or preferred to work late at night/early morning?
Off the top of my head it seems like I read that Og Mandino (speaker & author) did much of his writing later at night (I reserve the right to be wrong on that — it wouldn’t be the first time…lol). Looking forward to hearing what everyone has to share on this… Josh 🙂
Josh – That’s an interesting question. It might be cool to do a post on it 🙂
Tony, I think it’d make for an interesting post too. Hopefully it’s one you’ll tackle soon 🙂 .. best, Josh
Those are great tips. i agree that we need to take advantage of our productive time. We all have our flow time and we just need to identify when we work best.
Taking advantage of our flow time is indeed a good idea. I often forget about this because of the routine. I guess it’s one of the benefits we get from having a home-based work.
Thank you for this tip, Tony. I really appreciate this blog. It helps me to stay motivated.
My most productive time is graveyards, however, it is difficult to balance that with a day job so I’ve decided to quit and just go for it. Keep providing these great tips and I might just make something of myself 😉
I think this is the article for those who work full time and difficult to get time to work for small business,so Weekends can be the best time for those working a regular job and building a home-based business, to get some solid work done.If you are really motivated to build a thriving small, solo or home based business and would like to know how to build a profitable business in one year, this is a great no cost resource.
A lovely piece of info!