6 Ways to Free Up Time in Your PR Agency

How to Free Up Time in Your PR Agency 

Entrepreneurs have packed schedules, but reaching your agency’s goals takes time and effort. Taking advantage of small pockets of time each day won’t lead to major progress — you need to make big shifts in your daily routine to get your hours back. Here are six powerful ways you can free up time in your day that will allow you to work on your business instead of in your business. 

#1: Delegate, Delegate, Delegate!

Honestly, there’s no better way to free up time in your day than just…taking things off your to-do list! But unless a task is truly unnecessary, everything that gets moved off your to-do list has to go onto someone else’s. The prospect of delegating tasks and relinquishing control of some responsibilities can be really scary for agency owners! But delegating tasks is the key to regaining control of your time and energy. 

If you’re not sure where to start (especially if you’re coming off a solopreneur lifestyle!), list out all the tasks you have on your plate right now. Is there anything that doesn’t come naturally to you or that you don’t enjoy? What about things that you know one of your team members would knock out of the park? Do you need to be the one doing these things or can someone else step in? 

Mark those tasks down as things to delegate! With those tasks off your to-do list, you’ll free up time in your schedule to focus on executing your vision for your agency — developing this vision is one of our main priorities inside my Elevate High-Performance Coaching program. As you stay in your zone of genius to push your business forward, one of your team members will get to work on something they excel at, too
 

Related: 7 Things You Need to Do to Grow Your Agency This Year

#2: Free Up Time by Cutting Back on Meetings 

Look at your weekly schedule right now. It’s probably pretty booked with a lot of pointless, unfocused, or unhelpful meetings, right? You can easily free up time in your day (like, an hour or more!) by saying no to unnecessary meetings and scheduling important calls for smaller time blocks. 

Start by cutting back on your meetings with your team: weekly check-ins can easily become biweekly ones, and some of your calls would definitely be more effective as emails. Next, schedule your necessary meetings for shorter lengths of time. The change might be daunting at first, but knowing you’re on a time crunch helps everyone stay on track and accomplish more. 

The next step to free up your time? Cut back on meetings with clients. This can be intimidating, especially if your partners are used to a certain meeting schedule! But it’s truly the best thing for your agency — I’ve found that meeting with clients once or twice a month lets us demonstrate real progress and implement new strategies in a meaningful way. 

#3: Hire a New Team Member or Contractor 

This goes hand-in-hand with delegating your less important tasks. If you go to pass off a task and realize that no one on your team has the right skill set (or time in their day) to complete it to your standards, you’ll have to bring on someone new for extra help. Yes, it’s an extra cost for your agency, but the time you get back will open up so many doors for your business!

Whether you hire a new team member or outsource the work to a freelancer is up to you. Onboarding them and helping them get settled in their new routine can take a while, but you’ll free up a ton of time in the long run. The most important thing is that you find someone you trust who has a purpose at your agency. 

#4: Implement Project Management Software 

Adding project management software to your agency might seem like overkill, especially for small teams, but they transform the way your business operates. Software like Asana, Monday, or Hive (or any of the dozens out there) cements your team’s flow and helps everyone move through projects quickly and efficiently. 

With project management software at your fingertips, everyone on your team knows what is being done when and by who. And you, as the leader, can rest easy knowing that tasks are being completed by their deadlines. Say goodbye to wasting time tracking down missing pieces of a project or constantly checking in with teammates for updates! 

This can free up time for your team members, too. They’ll know exactly what they need to know each day, which seriously lessens the chance of someone dropping the ball and calling you in to help catch up. 

#5: Prioritize & Time-Block Your Schedule 

Once you free up time in your day to work on high-impact projects that push your agency forward, you need to protect those valuable hours! The best way to do this is by time-blocking your schedule and dedicating your most productive time to your most important tasks. That way, you know you’ll have space each day to work on them and can stop wasting energy stressing about it. 

Set a private meeting on your calendar for the time of day when you feel most focused and efficient. Uninterrupted time to work improves your focus and motivation so you can put your full brain power behind key projects. This is when you’ll complete high-priority tasks that are vital to your agency’s success. These should be projects that are yours and yours only: we go through the process of identifying and executing these tasks in my Elevate High-Performance Coaching program. 

Encourage your team members to do the same with their schedules! They could block out time for their high-priority tasks, for daily responsibilities like emails or pitch writing, or use those hours to work together on bigger client projects. Everyone on your team will complete better-quality work and free up time in their day to focus on what moves the needle forward!

#6: Get Your Boundaries in Place ASAP! 

You cannot free up time in your agency if you keep letting clients take it from you. Your time is yours and you deserve to spend it on what matters most to you! Set boundaries with clients so they know exactly when you are and are not available. You don’t need to work early mornings and late nights to show clients that you’re effective, diligent, and efficient. 

Enforcing your boundaries can immediately free up hours per week. Sure, you’ll get your nights and weekends back (no more responding to emails at 8pm!), but you can free up time before work as well. If clients know you only respond between certain hours, they’ll wait to reach out and hold off on scheduling meetings until they know you’re online. 

Don’t forget to set boundaries with meetings, too! When you send out a meeting invite, always mention that the ending time is a hard stop for you and your team. That, along with an attached agenda, will ensure everyone stays focused and purposeful on the call and no one’s time gets wasted.
 

Related: How to Avoid Burnout When You're a Busy PR Professional

As a digital agency owner, working on projects that push the needle forward in your business is crucial. You can’t get caught in the weeds and spend all your time working on low-impact tasks instead of major initiatives! Using these six strategies will help you free up time in your day that you can dedicate to powerful, game-changing projects that get you closer to your goals.