Here's what you missed if you didn't join us live for the Informi Talking Small Business lunchtime webinar, where Sophie Cross talked to Sophie Greenwood from Three Beans Thinking, a business planning and strategy specialist who helps small business owners turn their ideas into practical plans.
Introducing Sophie Greenwood…
After a decade-plus career spanning project management and six years as head of operations for a growing social enterprise, Sophie made the leap to self-employment following maternity leave. She now works with small business owners on strategy, planning and capacity management, and regularly runs time management workshops across the UK.
25 key takeaways from the webinar
25 key takeaways from Sophie Greenwood on time management, capacity planning, and working smarter as a small business owner.
1. Ignore the "we all have the same 24 hours" myth
Your 24 hours look nothing like someone else's. Caring responsibilities, young children, health challenges, and second jobs mean blanket productivity advice rarely applies to you.
2. Good time management starts with strategy, not tools
Before investing in any app or system, get clear on where your business is heading. If you don't know your three-year direction, you can't make good decisions about how to spend your time right now.
3. Do a "day in the life" exercise
Picture what your ideal working day looks like in three years' time. Write it down in detail. Then look honestly at what your days look like now. The gap between the two tells you exactly what needs to change.
4. Brain map regularly to clear the mental clutter
A brain map (everything out of your head onto Post-it notes or a spider diagram) done every three to four weeks helps you stop fixating on shiny new ideas and see the full picture of what you're actually working on.
5. Create a parking lot for ideas
Once your ideas are out of your head, park them somewhere – long stay or short stay. An idea might sit there for three months or three years, but having a home for it stops it from hijacking your focus.
6. Categorise tasks as glass balls or rubber balls
Glass ball tasks will cause real damage if dropped (like preparing for tomorrow's workshop). Rubber ball tasks can bounce – they can be moved or renegotiated. Knowing the difference helps you prioritise without panic.
7. Use the Eisenhower Matrix to tackle overwhelm
Sort tasks across four quadrants: urgent and important (do it now), important but not urgent (schedule it), urgent but not important (delegate it), and neither (delete it). Be ruthless about that last category.
8. Question whether recurring commitments still serve you
Are you going to that monthly networking event out of habit? Reading that newsletter? Posting on a platform your audience doesn't use? If it's not serving you, delete it.
9. Identify the friction in your business first
Tools only help when they solve a real problem. Is your friction around scheduling calls? Social media posting? Task management? Find the friction point, then find the tool that addresses it specifically.
10. Try time tracking for one week
Use a free tool like Toggl and track everything in your business for seven days – client work, emails, marketing, and admin. The results are often shocking, and the insight is invaluable for understanding where your time actually goes.
11. Raise your prices to ease capacity pressure
If everyone is saying yes to your proposals, your pricing is probably too low. Fewer clients at higher rates means better capacity, less overwhelm, and more sustainable work.
12. Treat yourself as a client
Book time for your own business development in your diary and protect it as you would a paid client commitment. If you wouldn't cancel on a client, don't cancel on yourself.
13. Know the "six-week delusion"
If you'd say no to something this week, say no when it's six weeks away too. Six weeks pass fast, and future-you will have just as much on as present-you.
14. Use colour-coded time blocking
Block your diary by category (client work, business development, admin, personal) using colour coding so you can see at a glance where your time is going and where clashes are building up.
15. Block follow-up time after networking events
Book half the event time again the following day for follow-ups. A three-hour networking event means ninety minutes blocked the next morning before you do anything else.
16. Use the "ticket board" approach for prioritising tasks
Keep a prioritised list of tasks ready so that when you have energy or unexpected free time, you pull the next ticket rather than wasting that good time deciding what to do.
17. Plan your whole life, not just your work life
Capacity planning falls apart when your work diary and personal diary are separate. A packed evening social schedule on top of a busy work week is a capacity you haven't accounted for.
18. Don't be fooled into over-capacity by peaks
When work is busy, the temptation is to keep taking on more. It's usually only at burnout that people reassess. Review your capacity before you hit the wall, not after.
19. Hack your brain with gamification
Try coffee shop hopping: assign a bucket of work to each location and don't let yourself move on until it's done. New environments boost focus and creativity, and the treat of a new coffee shop is surprisingly effective motivation.
20. Eat the frog (or the tadpole)
Tackle your most dreaded task first thing, and it won't linger all day. If that feels too daunting, try eating the tadpole first – a small, easy win that generates enough dopamine to take on the frog.
21. Put your phone in another room
The simplest, fastest productivity hack. Ten seconds, done.
22. Show yourself the numbers to force honesty
Write down how many hours you actually have available in a week, then list everything you need to deliver. When you see the real numbers, you can't hide from an over-capacity situation.
23. Nothing changes if nothing changes
If a client relationship isn't working, if a type of work no longer fits your direction, or if your schedule is unsustainable, deciding to do nothing is still a decision. At some point, difficult conversations have to happen.
24. Consistency beats inspiration
Having a regular habit (for marketing, for exercise, for business development) matters more than waiting to feel motivated. Schedule it, make it routine, and the guilty inner voice eventually quiets down.
25. Start with one thing, not everything
If you're watching this and feeling overwhelmed, pick just one tool or technique that resonated. Sophie's starting recommendation: do the day-in-the-life exercise, then try time tracking for a week if you've never done it before.
Watch the whole webinar back…
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Connect with us…
- Connect with Sophie Greenwood on LinkedIn
- Connect with Sophie Cross on LinkedIn
- Informi on LinkedIn