How to Determine What to Prioritize in Your Business When Everything Feels Important

One of my mantras in business (okay, and life!) is that everything is important, but everything isn’t urgent. Settling into this stance has been freeing in so many ways, especially when it comes to how to determine what to prioritize in your business when everything feels like it’s yanking you in different directions. Please tell me I’m not alone?!

In the early days especially, it can feel like every piece of your business needs your constant attention and coddling. Even once you’re a few years in, there are always going to be items and tasks you feel behind on. You start thinking about email marketing, branding, updating your website, building your next product or creating a new service, supporting existing clients and customers, preparing social media content. It goes on and on, and it’s… a lot.

I understand how it can be so easy to get overwhelmed by all of the things that you could or should be doing in your business. Everything feels valuable and attention worthy, and it is. Yet, you can’t spend every last minute of your time fine-tuning every piece of your business. You’d work yourself around the clock and into the ground if you did.

So, I want to help simplify it. Let’s walk through some steps to take to figure out what to prioritize and where to spend your energy and time, so you have some leftover to do things other than work, too.

Step 1: Focus on what’s in front of you.

It might sound almost too simple, but let me break it down for you. The clients or customers you already have? They are your most valuable business asset. Full stop.

Even if you have two clients and you’re two months into running your business, your time will be much more effectively spent if you focus on serving those two clients fully and impeccably, rather than going out and trying to snag more clients or build your online presence.

I know, I know—it’s tempting to go send cold emails or reach out to your network or invest in social media advertising to bring in new clients. And there’s certainly a time and place for those strategies. But if you’re overwhelmed with everything you need to do business-wise, the best place to start is with the people who make up your business currently.

Serve them well, offer various ways for them to work with you, and stay in communication with them. Before you consider building an email list or redoing your branding, remember that none of that matters if you aren’t able to retain a client or customer base that is well pleased with the work you do for them.

Step 2: If you can, outsource.

Even from the earliest days in running my business, I’ve prioritized outsourcing tasks in my business. I know it seems like outsourcing is a thing you should do once you’ve made a certain amount of money, and I agree to an extent. It’s of the highest importance for your business to be profitable. That’s one of the biggest things I preach!

But also consider this… Could you turn more of a profit if you’re not spending a bunch of time on things in your business you’re either not good at or don’t enjoy doing? (Pssssst, by the way, we often procrastinate the things that we’re not good at or don’t enjoy, thereby wasting MORE time!)

If you hate marketing, would it be worth it to remove any marketing-related tasks from your to-do list and pay someone 5 hours a week to totally handle it for you? Not only would you get to cross a task off your list that you don’t like (praise hands for days), but you could also spend more time on serving your clients and customers. 

IDK about you, but that sounds like a prime way to beat the system and infuse more joy into the work you do. Win-freakin’-win.

Step 3: Create margin in your business.

It’s as simple as this: When we have space to brainstorm, dream, and goal-set, we have the ability to grow and scale to the next level. On the flip side, if your daily to-do list is packed to the brim and you constantly feel behind, your days will be spent barely keeping your head above water and never having the opportunity to even consider ways to improve and expand your business. 

The best way to build margin into your business starts with YOU. Aka, you need to set boundaries. Take the weekends off from work. Give yourself a hard start and stop time on workdays. Delete your email app from your phone or turn off notifications. Build breaks and non-work-related activities into your daily schedule.

It doesn’t have to be ALL of these things, but try starting with one or two! By giving yourself some breathing room and boundaries around work, you’ll be freed up to focus on the important things. You’ll also create more mental and creative capacity to think up new offers and opportunities to grow your business.

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