How I Reclaimed 10 Hours a Week with a CRM (A Solopreneur's Story)

If you're a solopreneur, you probably wear the badge of "busy" with a strange sense of pride. Long hours are the norm, and a chaotic desk is just a sign of a creative mind at work, right? That’s what I used to tell myself.

My name is Alex, and I’m a freelance graphic designer. For years, my business ran on a precarious combination of a cluttered inbox, a dozen different Google Docs, a well-meaning but chaotic spreadsheet, and a small mountain of sticky notes that threatened to take over my monitor.

I was working 50, sometimes 60, hours a week. I was busy, but I wasn't always productive. I was drowning in "work about work"—the endless searching, organising, and remembering that took up my day. I felt like I was constantly running on a hamster wheel, and it was burning me out.

Then, I made one change that gave me back an entire working day, every single week. This is the story of how I stopped being just "busy" and started being truly productive.

The "Before" Picture: My 10+ Hours of Wasted Time

To understand the change, you have to see the chaos I was living in. My weekly routine was a masterclass in inefficiency. Does any of this sound familiar?

• The Monday Morning Inbox Avalanche (2 hours wasted): Every Monday started the same way. I’d open my inbox to a flood of messages. I'd spend the first two hours just trying to get organised, flagging emails, reading long threads to remember the status of a project, and manually building a to-do list. I was busy, but I wasn't doing any actual design work.

• The Lost Lead (1 hour wasted): On Tuesday, a promising lead called. I was in the middle of a project, so I grabbed a sticky note and scribbled down his details. By the time I was ready to follow up on Thursday, the note was gone—lost somewhere in the shuffle. I spent an hour trying to find his details, feeling unprofessional and foolish.

• The Follow-Up Guessing Game (2 hours wasted): I knew I had sent out three proposals the week before, but who were they? When did I send them? I had to manually search my "Sent" folder, piecing together the timeline for each one so I could send a follow-up that didn’t sound clueless.

• The Hunt for Files & Feedback (3+ hours wasted): "Where is that final version of the logo the client approved?" I'd ask myself, diving through endless email threads and Dropbox folders named things like logo_final_v3_final_USETHISONE.ai. Client feedback was scattered across multiple emails, making revisions a nightmare.

• The Friday Scramble (2+ hours wasted): I’d end each week trying to plan the next, pulling together tasks from all my different "systems." It was exhausting, and I’d inevitably forget something critical, leading to a stressful start the following week.

Total Time Wasted: Over 10 hours. Every. Single. Week. I was losing a full day to pure disorganisation. It was unsustainable.

The Turning Point

The breaking point came when I missed a follow-up with that lost lead. A week later, I saw on LinkedIn that he’d hired another designer. He was the kind of dream client I wanted to work with, and my broken system had cost me the opportunity. I realised I wasn't just losing time; I was actively losing money and damaging my professional reputation.

The "After" Picture: Finding My Command Centre

I knew I needed a central hub—a single source of truth for my entire business. That’s when I decided to try a simple CRM built for solopreneurs. I chose Solo CRM because it didn't look complicated or have a million features I'd never use. It looked clean and focused.

Here’s how it gave me my 10 hours back:

1. A Home for Every Client (Time Saved: 3+ hours/week) Instead of a dozen different places, every piece of client information now lives in one profile in Solo CRM. Contact details, notes from our calls, links to project folders, and our entire email history are all in one place. When a client calls, I pull up their profile in seconds. The "hunt" is over.

2. A Visual Sales Pipeline (Time Saved: 2+ hours/week) The follow-up guessing game is gone. My Solo CRM dashboard has a simple, visual pipeline with my four stages: Lead, In Conversation, Proposal Sent, Won. I can see every deal at a glance. Now, I spend 10 minutes every morning checking my pipeline and sending out follow-ups. It's focused, fast, and incredibly effective.

3. Tasks Tied to Clients (Time Saved: 3+ hours/week) My chaotic to-do list is now a thing of the past. Every client and every deal in Solo CRM has its own task list. When I finish a discovery call, I immediately add tasks like "Send Proposal" and "Follow up in 3 days" directly to that deal. Nothing gets forgotten. My Monday mornings are no longer about sorting an inbox; they're about tackling a clear, pre-prioritised task list.

4. Templates for Everything (Time Saved: 2+ hours/week) For repetitive processes like onboarding a new client, I created a task template in Solo CRM. When I drag a deal to "Won," I apply the "New Client Onboarding" template, and tasks like "Send Contract," "Send Welcome Packet," and "Schedule Kick-off Call" are automatically created. It’s seamless and ensures every client gets the same professional experience.

What I Do With an Extra 10 Hours a Week

Saving over 10 hours a week didn't just make me more productive; it changed my life. I now have time to:

• Work on my business by writing blog posts (like this one!).

• Take an online course to improve my skills.

• Finish work at 3 PM on Fridays and actually enjoy my weekend.

• Go to the gym in the middle of the day to clear my head.

My story isn't a miracle. It's the natural result of swapping chaos for a system. The cost of a simple CRM is nothing compared to the cost of lost time, missed opportunities, and chronic stress.

If you feel like you're stuck on the hamster wheel of "busy," I urge you to find your own command centre. You're not just buying a tool; you're buying back your most valuable asset: your time.

Ready to reclaim your time and trade chaos for clarity? See how a simple CRM can transform your business with a free trial of Solo CRM today.