When you start out in a from-home business, time management is an area of business management often overlooked or left out of the equation.
We all know someone in small business who races at it like a mad dog all day, never enough hours in the day, all they do is panic and get overloaded - perhaps this person is you! By the end of the day, when the panic settles, what have you completed? Do you replay the day and realise “what happened to the day, I didn’t get so much completed as I hoped. If this is familiar, then you might have an organisational and time management problem.
Successful people seldom appear to rush, they stay composed and unflustered. The difference in them and others is they achieve time management.
What is time management? It is simply scheduling time in your day in an organised and efficient process. Before we can really go ahead with how to time manage our day, we need to figure for ourselves what we are attempting to achieve today, this week, this year and even up to ten years from now. This is “Goal setting”.
The simplest process in my perspective to take on goals is to write them down. You should think about the goals at times to know that they are purposeful and possible but not so simple to do that you don’t have to work hard to achieve them otherwise what is the meaning of the goals in the first place?
From the start of a working year you could takethe time and think about what you desire to accomplish this year. It might be that you need to enlarge your profits by 20%, you could decide to move into different premises, you can want to get rid of your debt substantially. From the first day of a new working week you may write down on a note pad or in your diary the major projects that must to be completed this week, and review them at every day to be sure that you’re making progress and hopefully check some of the jobs off the list.
You may keep the list on your desk or in a location where you should be continually reminded of what must be achieved this week. Your list might be in order of importance so that the major projects at the top of your list get taken care of first. Any of the chores not achieved this week will be taken onto next week at a higher ranking, this will require it gets completed.
The next thing you might not be doing is giving yourself a daily list of jobs to achieve. This should help keep you on schedule on each day. Again, this list might be put where you can constantly see it and write off the items completed. Checking off the items could give you a sense of a job well done and let you review how you are working across the day. Always stick to your list when possible and try to keep working from higher priority to lower priority. I know problems can jump up over the day that can throw the whole day topsyturvy, but you need to either deal with the problem and then return to your list or if the sudden situation isn’t as time sensitive as some of the jobs on your list then put it later on your list and continue on with the job you were doing.
Each project you need to complete must be written down for a multiplicity of reasons. Firstly, so you don’t put off to do it and secondly, so you have the day scheduled and you achieve your daily goals. Be alert to starting items and not completing them. This may come back tomorrow in a mess of half finished tasks and will cause “list blowout”.
You will end up with your list reading a mile long and you will give up in despair and reverse back to bad habits of working in rush all day and achieving nothing.
Remember for every day you set your goals and write off all the jobs on your list, you get a little closer to succeeding in your weekly and ultimately your yearly and long term goals.
A few tips on Time Management:
Get away from time wasters, people that would simply decide to chat all day, and if they are your employees, set them straight, or get rid of them.
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Tags: home business brisbane, work from homeMay 18th, 2010UncategorizedRead More >No Comments