When you are starting a home business, time management is an aspect of business management often overlooked or ignored.
Surely we all know some person in small business who races about like a madman all day, rarely enough hours in each day, all they do is panic and get overwhelmed – maybe this person is you! To the end of the day, when the pace settles, what have you completed? Do you think about the day and realise “what happened to the time, I didn’t get so much completed as I thought I would. If this feels familiar, then you may simply have an organisational and time management problem.
Successful people don’t seem to rush, they always remain composed and unflustered. The difference with them and others is they have mastered time management.
What is time management? It is merely planning minutes in your day in an organised and efficient process. Before we can fully get how to time manage our day, we first need to ask ourselves what we are trying to do today, this week, this year and perhaps ten years from now. This is “Goal setting”.
The simplest method in my view to take on goals is to write them down. You might review your goals from time to time to know that they are relevant and possible but not so achievable that you don’t have to work to complete them otherwise what is the point of those goals in the first place?
At the start of a new working year you could takethe time and plan what you plan to complete this year. It may be that you hope to raise your profits by 20%, you might hope to move into other premises, you might desire to reduce your debt in a susbstantial way. At the start of every new working week you could write down on a note pad or in your diary the large jobs that have to be finalised this week, and review them on each day to ensure you’re making progress and hopefully polish some of your projects from the list.
You may keep this list on your desk or in a location where you could be constantly reminded of what needs to be done throughout the week. This list might be in order of urgency so that the key tasks at the top of your list get achieved first. Any projects not completed this week must be brought up to next week at a higher ranking, this will make sure it gets ticked off.
The next thing you might not be doing is having yourself a daily list of projects to take care of. This should assist keep you organised in the day. Again, this list could be displayed where you can persistently look back to it and tick off the chores finished. Marking off the projects is a way to give you a sense of a job well done and let you know how you are moving through the day. Always stick to the list if possible and try to continue working from higher priority to the lowest priority. I know issues could jump up during the day that sometimes throw the whole day out, but you have to either take care of the situation and then return to your list or if the newly arisen problem isn’t as urgent as some of the chores on the list then list it lower on your list and continue doing the work you were doing.
Each chore you need to complete could be written down for a number of reasons. Firstly, so you don’t put off to do it and secondly, so you keep each day scheduled and you accomplish your daily goals. Be sensitive to beginning items and not finishing them. This would become tomorrow in a disaster of half finished work and can cause “list blowout”.
You will end up with your list at a mile long and you will throw the towel in in despair and go back to those habits of getting yourself in panic during the day and accomplishing nothing.
Remember that each day you accomplish your goals and write off every item on your list, you get a bit closer to accomplishing your weekly and eventually your yearly and long term goals.
A few pointers on Time Management:
- Do it once and do it well, it’s pointless returning to the job and having to redo it.
- Learn to simply say to people when you’re too busy and that you would speak to them later.
- Learn to give other people items that really don’t demand your direct work.
- Don’t embark on wild goose chases.
- Don’t fizzle away time with phone calls that can’t do something.
- Don’t procrastinate.
- Look back on your list of tasks to do regularly through your day.
- “Map out your day” in the car and plan out your daily list the minute you get to work. Accomplish what you begin.
- Prioritise everything, always do issues in their order of priority to you and the work.
Avoid time wasters, people who merely go off to chat all day, and if they are your workers, set them straight, or get rid of them.
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