Time Management for Dance Teachers and Fitness Instructors

How do you manage your time?

We all have the same 24 hours! So how do you use yours?

 

Running around like a headless chicken?

Busy all the time?

Drumming your fingers on the table?

 

Often we are all so busy trying to keep up with it all that sometimes we just turn into busy fools!

 

Are we too busy trying to do everything and not actually focussing on what matters?

 

We often like to stick our heads in the sand and ignore what we know needs addressing.  Keep putting off what we know we should be doing, but take solace in the fact that we are “busy” and that must be the right thing to do?

When was the last time you stopped?

When was the last time that you said “now that’s what I really want to focus on”?

When was the last time that you felt that you were organised, calm and happy?

As we said in a previous blog:

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it” (we do love Ferris!).

It’s so true.  Sometimes we get so caught up in making sure we are busy that we don’t realise that it’s actually ok not to be busy ;)

Whenever anyone asks you how’s it’s going, is your response generally “busy”?

Well, we’ve decided to be less “busy” and to really focus on the things that matter.

What makes you happy in your business/classes?

What do you love to do the most?

What brings you a good income?

What brings you satisfaction?

We’ve all tried to do everything – and it really doesn’t work. Concentrating on certain elements of what you do, and doing it fantastically well does work!

Start saying no to the things that you don’t want to do.  To the things that don’t make you any money.  To the things that bring you no satisfaction.

 

 

Here’s our Top Ten Tips of Time Management for Dance Teachers and Fitness Instructors:

 

 

1. Take time off

Take time out for you. Perhaps participate in another dance/fitness class and enjoy some “me” time.  Sit and read a magazine. Take a long soak.  Me time!

 

 

2. Plan your week

You know when you are teaching or dancing, but do you know when you are marketing, doing registers, invoicing, choreographing, blogging or scheduling your social media?  Set a time each week to do these things and do them in one block rather than doing bits here and there – diarising admin tasks has made a massive difference to our time management (thanks June Cory aka My Mustard) ;)

 

 

3. Schedule in Social Media

Sit and spend a good 20 minutes or so every Monday and schedule your tweets/posts for the week – then all you need to do is dip in and out to engage once or twice a day.  Hootsuite is a fab platform for this.

 

 

 

4. Keep a bank of posts/tweets

Whenever you write a good post or tweet, or see something you think you would like to use in social media, keep a record of it in a spreadsheet and build up that bank of posts.  Then when it comes to scheduling, you can simply copy and paste – job done.

 

 

5. Delegate

A hard one for many of us – but if you can, delegate. Do you need to be doing all the registers? Could you pay a fellow mum from school to handle them for you?

 

 

 

 

6. Plan Ahead

Diarise all the events you have coming up, including school holidays, Halloween, Christmas and plan when you will market, what you need to do and by when – then stick to it (ooh, we’ve mentioned Christmas already – eeks – will be here before we know it).

 

 

 

7. Dump what isn’t making you money or giving you satisfaction

Don’t keep doing what you always do, unless you want to keep getting what you’ve always got! Another Coryism! But it’s true. Don’t do what doesn’t make you happy or make you money. Dump it.

 

 

8. Join Forces

Can you join forces with another teacher/instructor or a fabulous dance company – Popdance perhaps ;) and maximise each others skills.  Let them do the marketing, so you can do the choreographing that you love so much.  Let them do the social media, so you can plan the Christmas production that you love.

 

 

9. Share the Load

Talk to other people. Don’t bottle things up. Share concerns.  There are tons of Dance Teacher Forums and Fitness Instructor facebook groups – talk to like-minded people – most people want to help you in life ;)

 

 

 

10. Dance! :)

Did you know that dance is amazing for both body and mind?  It’s what it’s all about afterall!

 

 

 

We would love to hear your time management tips – do give us a shout at [email protected] and also let us have your feedback – did you enjoy these tips?

 

 

If you haven’t yet done so and would like to receive our weekly Marketing Tips for Dance Teachers and Fitness Instructors straight into your inbox every Saturday morning at 10am, and also get offered paid work from Popdance – then do register HERE

 

 

If you would like more information on working with Popdance – take a look at our short video HERE