7 Time Management Tips For Personal Trainers

Every time I survey members of programs we run or talk with personal trainers at our events – the topic of time management comes up.

“How do I manage my time better?”

My answer to this is always a work in progress because I’m always looking for ways to better manage my own time, but here are 7 tips that I think will make a difference for you, because I know they’ve made a difference for me.

There Is No Perfect System For a Personal Trainers Time Management – No combination of tools and strategies is ever going to be perfect.  I use Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, my I-Phone, a Franklin Covey Planner, a small Moleskin Notebook, my dry erase board and Basecamp as the tools in my time management & organization system.

You may use Outlook instead of Gmail.  You may prefer a Blackberry instead of the I-Phone.

Doesn’t matter.  They’re all tools and they’re all flawed.  So here’s what you do:

Make a list of all the tools you use (Post It Notes count too) and how you use them.  Then identify the areas your system is letting you down.  The idea is to get better – because it will never be perfect.

For me, when I looked at my system I found that I sometimes forgot ideas that I didn’t jot down when I was networking or out and about.  I didn’t want to carry my planner everywhere and I type too slow to list everything in my phone.  So I found the small Moleskin notebook that I could always keep in my pocket and eliminated one bottleneck in my system.

Schedule Everything That’s Important – If you’re not spending enough time marketing or carving out enough quality time with your family – you’re probably not scheduling it.

Anything that is important deserves you to dedicate time to it.  Otherwise it will always get pushed to the bottom of the list.

Set Tight Deadlines – Procrastination is a battle almost all of us face, but it’s amazing how efficient we can be when we have a deadline coming close.

When you were in college and were assigned a paper, if you were like most people you didn’t spread the workload evenly over the time you had available – you crammed most of it right at the deadline.

When you’re getting ready to go on vacation you’re a model of efficiency, getting more accomplished the day before leaving than you typically do in a normal week.

So set tight deadlines and hold yourself to them.  If you need to write an article or a blog post, set a kitchen timer and focus on getting your writing done before the bell rings.

In fact, I started writing this with only 53 minutes of battery life left on my computer with a goal of finishing before the screen went black…

Every Offer Doesn’t Need To Be Accepted – You don’t have to answer the door just because someone knocks.  You don’t need to answer the phone whenever it rings and you don’t need to respond to every email the minute it hits your inbox.

Taking that a step further – not every opportunity presented to you needs to be accepted.  Just because it has some potential upside doesn’t mean it’s a good fit for you right now.

There will always be people knocking, calling, emailing and offering – and all of them will be asking you for your time.  Just because they ask doesn’t mean you need to accept.

Plan Ahead – The most important time management strategy I employ is planning out every day the evening prior.  If you don’t plan out what you need to accomplish you’re leaving the day to chance and you’ll likely be allowing everyone else decide how you spend your time. Not good.

Get Help – Every day there are low return activities that you do and there are high return activities.  Here’s how I’d quantify each for the purposes of this post:

Low Return Activities:

• Activities that could be outsourced for significantly less than your hourly worth. If you can make $75 per hour training or can generate $1200 worth of new business public speaking – then you can certainly delegate $8 an hour work to free up your time.
• Activities you don’t enjoy at all.  If you really don’t enjoy some facet of your personal trainers business, find someone who can do it effectively.
• Activities you are bad at.  If you’re bad on the phone – outsource Business of the Month calls & confirmation calls.

High Return Activities:

• Activities that generate significant revenue – close to or exceeding your hourly worth. Most marketing activities, sales, delivering service, program design, retention work, etc.
• Activities you enjoy. If you enjoy mowing your lawn, mow it.  Doesn’t really matter if you could earn more doing something else if it really makes you happy.
• Activities you’re best suited for.  If you’re the best person at program design in your business or the best salesperson – those should be among the last things you delegate.  Delegate the lower skill activities first.

You don’t have to spend a lot to start delegating.  Offer a few hours to a client or a camper that would like to earn some extra money or train for free.  Then your job is simple – you need to more than make up for the money you’re spending delegating with the new time you’ve freed up.

Finish – One of the biggest time wasters of all is not bearing down and finishing stuff.  As I’ve often said – ‘You Get Paid For Done’, so until something’s finished it seems like time wasted.

So the solution is simple, when you start a project – put the blinders on and finish it.

There you have it – 7 time management tips for personal trainers.  If you have some good tips or strategies I’ve missed, do me a favor and share them below.

Dedicated to your success,

Pat Rigsby

Pat Rigsby is a Co-Owner of the International Youth Conditioning Association & the youth fitness franchise Athletic Revolution as well as a fitness industry consultant serving thousands of personal trainers and fitness entrepreneurs. Sign up for his fitness business free newsletter to discover proven marketing, sales and business strategies, along with blog updates, news, and more! While you’re at it, follow him on Twitter.

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