When starting out in a from-home business, time management is an aspect of business management that is overlooked or neglected.
Surely everybody knows some person in small business who races around like a chicken with its head cut off all day, never enough hours in their day, all they do is panic and get overwhelmed - is it that this person is you! By the end of the day, when the panic settles, what have you done? Do you review the day and think “what happened to the time, I didn’t get as much accomplished as I thought I should. If this reads familiar, then you might have an organisational and time management problem.
Successful people don’t ever seem to rush, they are composed and unflustered. The difference between them and the other people is they have accomplished time management.
What is time management? It is simply scheduling the clock in your day in an organised and efficient process. Before we can actually understand how to time manage our day, we need to figure for ourselves what we are trying to do today, this week, this year and possibly ten years from now. This is “Goal setting”.
The top way in my perspective to complete goals is to write them down. You should think about the goals from time to time to know that they are appropriate and achievable but not so simple to do that you don’t have to try to succeed at them otherwise what is the purpose of the goals in the first place?
At the start of every new working year you can sit down and think about what you wish to get this year. It can be that you need to increase your profits by 20%, you can hope to move into bigger premises, you perhaps hope to take down your debt substantially. By the beginning of each new working week you can write down on a note pad or in your diary the large chores that need to be finalised this week, and check up them each day to check you’re making progress and hopefully polish some of your chores off your list.
You can hold this list on your desk or at a point where you could be repeatedly reminded of what has to be finished each week. This list can be in order of necessity so that the key jobs at the top of this list get taken care of earlier. Any jobs not completed this week must be carried onto next week on a higher ranking, this should ensure it gets checked off.
The next thing you should be doing is having a daily list of tasks to do. This should help keep you organised during each day. Again, this list may be put up where you can repeatedly see it and check off the projects done. Checking off the chores is a way to give you a feeling of accomplishment and let you know how you are going throughout the day. Always adhere to your list if possible and keep working from the top priority to the lesser priority. I know difficulties will appear over the day that might throw the whole day up, but you have to either take care of the situation and return to your list or if the unplanned job isn’t as important as some of the items on your list then place it for later on the list and continue on doing the item you were doing.
Every task you plan to get done should be written down for a couple of reasons. Firstly, so you don’t forget to do it and secondly, so you keep the day planned and you get your daily goals. Be sensitive to initiating tasks and not completing them. This could become tomorrow in a plethora of half finished projects and can cause “list blowout”.
You will end up with your list at a mile long and you will give it up in despair and change back to bad habits of working in confusion during the day and realizing nothing.
Remember for each day you plan your goals and tick off all the tasks on your list, you get a little closer to polishing off your weekly and eventually your yearly and long term goals.
A few tips on Time Management:
Do it once and do it well, it’s fruitless coming back to the job and having to redo it.
Learn to politely communicate to people when you’re busy with work and that you would return to them some time later.
Learn to give other employees items that actually don’t demand your direct participation.
Don’t embark on wild goose chases.
Don’t waste time on phone calls that will not assist with something.
Don’t procrastinate.
Check back on your list of work to do often throughout the day.
“Map out your day” in the car and list out your daily list right when you begin work. Finish what you begin.
Prioritise in everything you do, always begin jobs in their order of urgency to you and the clients.
Stay away from time wasters, people who will just choose to chat all day, and if they are your workers, set them straight, or get rid of them.
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