A Day in the Life of an Entrepreneur
Three years ago, I quit my career to get into entrepreneurship, and since then, I have quite the experience. You see, when I meet people and tell them, I am self-employed, almost every one of them thinks I am lucky I only answer to myself and do not have to deal with bosses who are bent on making peoples’ lives miserable. The other groups of people are fascinated with the idea that you have this “unlimited” time in your hands to do anything. Well, I cannot blame these groups of people because I also had such thoughts when I was contemplating quitting my job. Human beings have the innate need to be independent and not to be controlled, and that is why the idea of employment has been equated to a rat race where individuals work to live and not live to work.
However, I have come to realize to be successful in entrepreneurship requires more discipline than being in employment. My first days in entrepreneurship were mostly laid back since I was learning the curves and looking for what worked for me and what did not. However, this period was the least profitable in terms of returns on the investment I made. Over time I have learned to follow this strict work schedule to improve my daily output:
- The morning schedule. This is the most crucial part of the day where I formulate the day’s to-do list with time frames assigned to each activity. After making a list, I check my email and the official communication avenues for any messages; if they are any urgent issues that need to be handled within the given day, I either schedule them within the day’s activities or make correspondence on time extensions. At this point, I make the necessary calls that I need to and then start executing the different tasks.
- The mid-day schedule. Before breaking for lunch, I analyze the tasks I have been able to accomplish thus far. The goal here is to ensure that I have achieved the past 60% of the daily tasks so that the work does not spill into late nights. This also enables mentally map out an execution strategy for the remaining tasks.
- Afternoon schedule. I organize my work schedule such that the afternoons are mostly for reviewing the accomplished tasks and fine-tuning the areas where I feel need more work. Depending on how much I have accomplished during the given day, afternoons can be used to source for potential clients through cold calling, emailing, and also getting in touch with the market trends in my line of entrepreneurship.