Time: our mortal enemy (Wow…The puns are starting already). We never have enough of it, and it seems to slip through our fingers like fine sand. Pessimistic thoughts aside, there is a lot we can do to make our lives better, and simple time management tools will help.

Real vs. Clock Time

In an article from Entrepreneur, there was a clear distinction between Clock time (60 seconds in a minute, etc.) and Real Time (when you actually get stuff done). Simply stated, we do many things in a day, but how much of it is doing things that generate success? We can all get sucked into things (social media among them) that waste our time rather than build our businesses or complete our project list.

Thankfully, there is hope. We’ve talked about planning already, and now it’s time to get down to the business of managing our time.

Real Time Management Tools

I am a fanatical user of Hootsuite. It saves my bacon every day. I don’t have a lot of time as a new business owner and mother of 2 wonderful, if spritely, boys. So, I use Hootsuite to help me schedule my posts during the day. It makes sure I have a presence online, share my ideas, links and blogs, and generally keeps my social window open for business. Then I’m managing responses and other conversations in real time. Bingo!

In Hootsuite, or Tweetdeck if you prefer (it kept crashing a while ago when I got into this time management thing, so I abandoned it. Now Twitter owns it.) you can set up all your social media streams including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Foursquare, plus RSS feeds. It’s sweet. It works for you. But you still have to put in some effort to take the time (see Commitment from Step 4 in this series). Check it out at www.hootsuite.com. I recommend the Pro version, otherwise you can’t post photos, videos, etc.

The most important thing you need to think of all day long, is “Am I spending time on the things that will help my business/life/goals/etc.?” If the answer is “yes” fairly consistently, then you’re good. If not, it’s time to take a good hard look at your habits and jiggle the norm.

Succeed

Wrestling Time into submission is success, because you can more efficiently spend your time on things that bring you success. So, get onto Hootsuite, upload your streams, and start posting. Then get on with your day, but be sure to always check back to be sure you keep up with responses and interaction. After all, that’s what social media is all about!

Happy posting!

Rebecca

About author:

Rebecca has been in Marketing for over 12 years now. She has worked at all sorts of companies – large public ones, small private ones, medium sized firms and now she works for herself. She specializes in training companies to use social media intelligently, so they can use it to grow their business, get found in social and Google searches and integrate their online and offline marketing strategies. Follow her on Twitter or Facebook

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