This post is written at the time of COVID-19, where many of my students and pet sitters are locked inside their homes. This allows them to work on their businesses. Here is the problem: they are having a hard time creating tangible results for their business.

Most of the time, the issue is with Parkinson’s law: Work expands to fill the time available for its completion. Whatever time you allow yourself to work, you will find enough work to fill that time.

For example, if you give yourself seven days to complete a project, you will find enough work to fill that time. If you give yourself two days to work on the same project, it’s going to take you two days.

Remember, work does not only expand to fit the time. It also contracts to fit the time you allow for it. It’s best to decide how much time something is going to take.

How do you do this? By putting a container around your time.

Utilize Your Calendar

What results do you want to create by the end of the week? It’s not about watching a video or completing worksheets. It’s completing the worksheets and implementing strategies that are going to get you results. By putting a container around your time, this leads us to the next tip below…

Give Yourselves Deadlines

You can’t have loose, haphazard time parameters or it’s going to fill up that time. If you don’t give yourself a deadline for let’s say, building out a full hiring system for your company, it might take you two years to finish because you didn’t give yourself a container.

If let’s say, you give yourself two weeks for the same work, that work is going to contract and you are going to produce that result in two weeks.

The best way to grow your business is to work on your time management skills, creating a container around your time, and to utilize your calendar to complete your deadlines.