Time is the great equalizer. We all get 24 hours in a day and 52 weeks in a year. How to use them is what matters most.

I truly believe that people can do anything. I have written many times about how to do more with the time you have available. You can read those articles here.

But today I want to share something different. Something I have experienced many times, and will likely experience again. Just being real.

What do you do when you are out of time?

What to do when …

• You are working as hard as you can and still not getting the results you want.

• You simply can’t put in more effort because of health challenges.

• You have run out of gas and no amount of motivation is going to help you do more.

What do you do when you are stuck and out of time?

I believe there are three answers. These are the things that have worked, and continue to work, for me.

I share them openly in the hope one or more of them work for you as well.

Because these topics are vital to success I’m going to cover them in three separate posts.

Today we cover point one …

Method 1 – Simplify

It would be great to be able to do it all. But that’s not the real world. We all have a finite amount of time.

But we all also have a finite amount of energy.

According to Riverside SEO Agency, when you run out of time and energy, and are against the wall, the first move is to simplify.

I have a client who faced this exact dilemma.

She was stressed out, burned out and out of options.

When we examined her work life it came to light that she was trying to do the following things …

• Build a squeeze page to build her list.

• Create her own product.

• Record videos for her own product.

• Take a course on paid traffic.

• Post to her blog every day.

• Create ad trackers for all her advertising.

• Create products in her shopping cart so people could buy.

• Recruit affiliates to promote her product for her.

There were a few more that escape my memory but I will stop there.

Makes you tired just looking at it!

No wonder she was tired and not getting it all done!

My advice to her was to simplify. While it would be nice to do all of that, no one person can do it all.

She was facing a steep learning curve and expecting too much. And not all of those things were vital right now.

This is where she had lost perspective.

She really believed she needed to do it all, and do it now, or her business would not take off.

Now I want to be clear here. I believe that we should challenge ourselves and do our best. We should rise to the highest level possible.

But burning out in the process serves no purpose.

What she did was simplicity itself, and it worked.

• She outsourced the building of the squeeze pages.

• She focused on recording videos for her product.

• She repurposed part of the videos into blog posts, eliminating the need to write blog posts.

• She focused only on paid traffic and did not open an affiliate program on day one of her new product.

• She used the ad tracker in her shopping cart instead of learning a new program that was more sophisticated but turned out to be overkill.

The result? Her time came back in balance. Today she runs a successful online business.

How many things are you trying to do at once?

Many clients tell me they are reading a book on using surveys, learning a new autoresponder, getting 200 emails a day, trying to learn new traffic methods and wanting to post to their blog and Facebook … all in the same day!

If you feel like something has to give you are right.

Make a list of your activities for one week and then have a planning session with yourself where you lay out your true priorities and choose how much time you want to give to each.

This one simple step can put you back in control.

Next we will look at Step 2 in our plan to regain control … automation.

Automation is a beautiful thing when done right. It can set you free and put your marketing literally on autopilot.

We will cover that in depth in the next post.

For today, please remember this … taking time to think and time for yourself is the road to wellness.

If you feel overwhelmed by trying to do too much you probably ARE trying to do too much.

So take a few minutes (it really only takes about 20 minutes) to list everything you do in your online business to see if you are taking on too much.

If you are like me, and most people I help, you will instantly see what you can live without and what matters most.

Do that and you will be on the way to a simpler, more manageable, more effective work life.

And that is a beautiful thing indeed!