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When you start a home based business, time management is an aspect of business management frequently overlooked or neglected.

We all know a friend in small business who races around like a madman all day, without enough hours in every day, all they do is push and get worked up - maybe this person is you! At the week’s end, when the dust settles, what have you completed? Do you think about the day and ponder “what happened to the time, I didn’t get so much accomplished as I intended to. If this sounds familiar, then you might have an organisational and time management problem.

Successful people don’t seem to rush, they are always composed and unflustered. The difference in them and the others is they possess time management.

What is time management? It is just arranging time in your day in an organised and efficient way. Before we can fully get how to time manage our day, we first need to ask ourselves what we are aiming to achieve today, this week, this year and perhaps even ten years from now. This is “Goal setting”.

The top way in my preference to complete goals is to write them down. You might think about your goals at times to ensure that they are relevant and achievable but not so achievable that you don’t need to work to complete them otherwise what is the reason of the goals in the first place?

At the start of a working year you can sit down and plan what you plan to achieve this year. It could be that you desire to raise your profits by 20%, you could would like to move into different premises, you might wish to get rid of your debt finally. By the start of every new working week you can write down on a note pad or in your diary the important projects that have to be accomplished this week, and check up them on every day to know that you’re making progress and hopefully polish some of those jobs off your list.

You should have this list on your desk or on a place where you should be constantly reminded of what will be undertaken throughout the week. Your list can be in order of priority so that the major chores at the top of your list get taken care of first up. All the tasks not completed this week will be brought through to next week at a higher ranking, this should demand it gets checked off.

The next thing you will be doing is having a daily list of chores to do. This will help keep you focused throughout the day. Again, this list will be put up where you can repeatedly see it and tick off the tasks accomplished. Checking off the jobs could give you a feeling of a job well done and let you know how you are moving throughout the day. Always hold to the list if possible and try to continue working from the highest priority to the lowest priority. I know problems sometimes turn up during the day that could throw the whole day up in the air, but you need to either take care of the dilemma and get back to the list or if the unplanned problem isn’t as time sensitive as some of the issues on the list then put it after these on the list and continue on with the chore you were doing.

Every item you plan to do can be written down for a multitude of reasons. Firstly, so you don’t put off to do it and secondly, so you keep every day organised and you complete your daily goals. Beware starting tasks and not completing them. This may become tomorrow in a disaster of half baked jobs and could cause “list blowout”.

You will end up with the list being a mile long and you will throw it up in despair and change back to old habits of getting in a hurry each day and realizing nothing.

Remember each day you write out your goals and tick off all the items on your list, you become a day closer to succeeding in your weekly and finally your yearly and long term goals.

A few hints on Time Management:

• Do it once and do it well, it’s fruitless reverting to the work and having to redo it.
• Learn to civilly tell people when you’re busy with work and that you can return to them later.
• Learn to give out jobs that really don’t need your involvement.
• Don’t go on wild goose chases.
• Don’t fizzle away time during phone calls that are not going to achieve something.
• Don’t procrastinate.
• Refer to your list of chores to do repeatedly at points through the day.
• “Map out your day” in the shower and plan out your daily list as soon as you begin work. Achieve what you list.
• Prioritise every day, always take issues in their order of necessity to you and your clients.

Get away from time wasters, people who would just go off to chat all day, and if they work for you, set them straight, or get rid of them.

 

For more information about self employment Brisbane, home business Brisbane, or work from home Brisbane, contact Lifestyle Switch. Make the switch to your own business today.

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