7 Tactics To Get More Done In Less Time For Yoga Teachers: Yoga teacher life can be exhausting.
Running from studio to studio, teaching private clients, perhaps another job on the go and then finding the time to build your yoga business, it’s hard work!
If you feel like you’re working all the time but not making progress, it’s time to start working smarter so you can get more done in less time.
These 7 tactics to get more done in less time for yoga teachers have literally transformed the way I work and I’m so happy to share them with you.
1. Turn off notifications on your phone
It’s easy to become distracted with the constant buzzing from Facebook, Twitter and Whatsapp. Once you start scrolling, ten minutes can pass and you’ve not actually retained anything you’ve seen – it’s easily done!
I’ve now removed Facebook and Twitter and turned off notifications for all other apps and it’s made a huge difference.
Now, instead of immediately checking Facebook at the first buzz of my phone, I open it on my desktop when I’m spending time in any Facebook group and will give myself 5 mins at lunch to have a quick scroll.
It’s amazing what you don’t miss when you don’t have it.
2. Eat that frog!
I used to make to-do lists. At the end of each day, I’d list about 108 things for tomorrow with no deadline or level of importance. It made me feel super productive but at the end of the next day, I’d feel frustrated having only ticked off three, and none of those being the most important task of the day!
Now my day starts with the mantra “eat that frog”, which means to start the day chewing the most important, biggest job – you know, the one you keep putting off!
Once that’s crossed off, the day and your life can only get easier. So ask yourself, what one thing can I do today that will make everything else so much easier. And then eat it like a boss!
For everything else, try using priority lists instead of to-do lists. You basically just make your to-do lists in separate, organised lists, and then order each item by importance and urgency.
It means “do the washing” isn’t listed higher than “launch new yoga website” and is shown in a separate priority list. Add deadlines to each item in each list and before you know it you’ll have a plan of action for the week!
3. No emails and Facebook ‘til lunch
I know how tempting it is to wake up and sit in bed scrolling Instagram and then spend the morning responding to emails. By the time lunch comes around, you feel cross-eyed trying to get your inbox down to zero.
Now, I try not to check my email or any social media until after lunch.
Instead, I’m up at 6 am and immediately start working on the big items for the day that are listed on my priority list.
I also exercise every morning and sometimes teach a class as well, but focusing on these things instead of emails and social media means I get so much done by lunch, which feels awesome! This is a really important piece of advice to get more done in less time for yoga teachers.
4. Create a weekly schedule
If you’re serious about making this yoga business work, it’s not just your amazing teaching that’s going to get you there!
There’s a whole bunch of other stuff to take care of such as creating content for your website, developing new workshop ideas, social media post writing and scheduling and keeping your accounts up to date.
You might have all this on your priority list but unless you allocate some time between teaching, those other tasks to grow your business will still be on the list at the end of the week.
Take a look at your teaching schedule and then build some time around that to work on specific tasks. Then every week at those times you work on the same tasks, for instance:
Monday PM – Social media post writing and scheduling
Wednesday PM – Write a new blog post
Thursday AM – Create and send an email newsletter
Friday AM – Maintaining website and creating new images
5. Use tools
There are loads of great apps and tools to help you with your quest for smarter working. Here are a few I use every day:
- Evernote for creating and saving blog content, class planning, sequencing and saving documents and screenshots. It saves everything for you and syncs across your devices.
- To do list apps such as Clear which has priority list features
- Online planning software such as Trello and Asana
- Bookmarking to save all the websites you use on a daily basis so you can access at a click of a button
- Hootsuite for creating and scheduling all of your social media posts in one place
6. Create your workspace
When things get a little crazy, I stop everything and tidy up! A clear workspace equals a clear(er) mind and having your space in order really helps you to feel more organised.
So clear your desk, sort our your folders and file them away and then sort out what’s happening on your laptop.
Are your files and folders in order? If you can’t easily find what you’re looking for it’s time to start a file management system! Delete old files, empty the trash and then close your computer down and give it a good clean.
Hey presto, you’re ready to take on the world!
7. Don’t be hard on yourself and get help when you need it
This is something I’ve struggled with a lot and still do. I’d spend waaaaay too long doing nothing when I should have been doing a whole lot of somethings and then I’d get angry and upset with myself. Not very yogi!
Being mad at myself certainly didn’t make me want to do more, it actually made me do even less!
Now, when I realise I’ve been lazing around for too long, I forgive myself, get some fresh air and move on.
I’ve also realised that it’s important to get help with things to move forward faster. So don’t be afraid to reach out to your immediate network and to learn from the people around you.
Sometimes when you feel stuck it’s because there’s a little knowledge gap there waiting to be filled. If this feels familiar, head to my free resources page to see if there’s something there to help get you unstuck in your yoga business.
Are you ready to utilise these tactics to get more done in less time for yoga teachers and take your Yoga Biz to the next level??
Take the 12 Days to Boost Your Yoga Biz Challenge!
