When you start out in a home business, time management is an area of business management frequently overlooked or neglected.
Sure enough, we all know a person in small business who races around like a madman all day, seldom enough hours in each day, all they do is rush and get overwhelmed – is it that this person is you! To the week’s end, when the rush settles, what have you taken from it? Do you replay the day and think “what happened to the time, I didn’t get as much done as I hoped to do. If this feels familiar, then you may just have an organisational and time management problem.
Successful people never seem to rush, they are always composed and unflustered. The difference between them and others is they command time management.
What is time management? It is just arranging minutes in your day in an organised and efficient way. Before we can truly go ahead on how to time manage our day, we first need to decide for ourselves what we are attempting to do today, this week, this year and perhaps ten years from now. This is “Goal setting”.
The most effective key in my preference to take on goals is to write them down. You should think about all your goals from time to time to know that they are meaningful and realisable but not so easy that you don’t have to put in the work to complete them otherwise what is the meaning of your goals in the first place?
From the beginning of each new working year you could sit down and think about what you want to complete this year. It could be that you wish to gross up your profits by 20%, you perhaps would like to move into better premises, you might desire to reduce your debt significantly. From the start of each working week you can write down on a note pad or in your diary the important jobs that have to be finished this week, and look back to them at each day to ensure you’re making progress and hopefully wipe some of the jobs off the list.
You could keep the list on your desk or on a place where you could be persistently reminded of what will be achieved throughout the week. This list should be in order of priority so that the most important jobs at the top of the list get accomplished first up. All jobs not achieved this week must be put through to next week at a higher urgency, this should require it gets checked off.
The next thing you should be doing is writing a daily list of tasks to do. This can help keep you on schedule throughout the day. Again, this list might be displayed where you can constantly look back to it and tick off the items completed. Wiping off the jobs helps to give you a touch of success and let you check on how you are progressing throughout the day. Always adhere to the list when possible and try to continue working from high priority to the lower priority. I know problems can show up during the day that may throw the whole day off schedule, but you have to either take on the problem and get back on to your list or if the unplanned job isn’t as time sensitive as some of the chores on your list then place it after these on your list and continue on with the work you were doing.
Every issue you need to complete must be written down for a number of reasons. Firstly, so you don’t forget to do it and secondly, so you keep your day outlined and you get your daily goals. Be alert to initiating chores and not finishing them. This will become tomorrow in a disaster of half finished projects and can cause “list blowout”.
You will end up with a list at a mile long and you will give up in despair and change back to those habits of running around in a fuss every day and finishing nothing.
Remember for every day you set your goals and mark off everything on your list, you get a little bit closer to achieving your weekly and eventually your yearly and long term goals.
A few hints on Time Management:
Do it once and do it well, it’s fruitless going back to the chore and having to redo it.
Learn to politely inform people when you’re busy and that you can return to them some time later.
Learn to pass out chores that actually don’t demand your direct work.
Don’t take on wild goose chases.
Don’t spend time with phone calls that won’t assist with something.
Don’t procrastinate.
Look at your list of things to do regularly through the day.
“Map out your day” in the morning and write out your daily list right when you get to work. Achieve what you start.
Prioritise everything, always do chores in their order of priority to you and your business.
Be evasive with time wasters, people that simply go off to chat all day, and if they work for you, set them straight, or get rid of them.
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