How To Make Your Startup A Success By Using Your Free Time Efficiently

Founding your own startup will take up most of your time and you’ll find that you’re investing most of your energy into your idea and vision. This article shows you 5 different ways to use your free time efficiently and in a way that you can keep on improving yourself and your business. There are many tools, courses and other ways in which relaxing can be educational. Don’t believe us? Let us prove you wrong!

#1 Podcasts

What do you do on your way to work? Whatever it is, you should be listening to one of these podcasts instead. They are filled with ideas and tips on how to increase your productivity, get rid of all procrastination patterns, and could ultimately help you become a better founder.

Here are three which we can highly recommend, but there are thousands more out there:

1. Getting things done is a series of podcasts aimed at making you more productive. They are updated once a month and cover topics from ‘Defining your areas of focus’ to ‘Self Leadership’ to ‘Making it all work’.
2. 5AM Miracle by Jeff Sanders. This is a weekly podcast on how to be more efficient even before breakfast. Topics include ‘How to choose your best productivity tools and resources’ and ‘Networking like a pro’.
3. Cortex by Grey and Mike Hurley focuses on big tasks and how to achieve them. The two of them talk about the journeys to success and share the process (and progress) with their listeners every two weeks.

#2 MOOCs & Other Online Courses

MOOCs (massive open online courses) are a great way to improve your knowledge, find a strategy for your startup and just generally learn more about the scene, discover ways how to set up a business, scale up the competition and more! Coursera is just one of many sites that offer new courses starting every few weeks. Most of them are free and held by renowned professors from outstanding universities. Below are three websites with great resources:

1. Udacity: How to Build a Startup
2. Coursera: From Idea to Startup
3. edX: Innovation and Entrepreneurship courses

#3 Mindfulness Journaling

Increase your productivity through channeling your creativity and mindfulness. There’s plenty of resouces (like this one and that one) which argue that keeping a journal increases productivity and makes you more mindful of the tasks you achieve on a daily basis. Prioritising your tasks and staying mindful for what you have already achieved can greatly improve the way in which you work on your startup!

• This TED Talk by Shawn Achor will teach you more about productivity
• If you can’t get enough, we’ve also put together a list of 5 TED Talks every entrepreneur needs to watch.

#4 Connecting To Others

You are not alone. There are hundreds – thousands – of other entrepreneurs in your city. StartUs.cc is one great platform to connect to others online. There are also many ways to connect to fellow founders, potential co-founders and others who understand what you are going through. Connecting to others in your area helps you expand your network and may even solve some problems you have been working on for a long period.

#5 Scheduling

If you’re already making schedules at work, keep it up for your free time. There are times when you’ll want to keep working on your startup in your free time, but it is equally as important to take breaks – and we mean it! These are ideal to take a step back, do something else and get your mind off your work for a few minutes, hours or even days. If you keep a schedule for your free time, you can relax every once in a while without feeling guilty about it. These breaks are necessary for you to keep going – after all, you’re your best resource!

What are your tricks to stay productive in your free time? Let us know in the comments!

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