Business Podcasting Blog

When you start up a home based business, time management is an aspect of business management that can be frequently overlooked or ignored.

Surely everybody knows some person in small business who races about like a mad dog all day, without enough hours in a day, all they do is hurry and get overtaken - is it that this person is you! At the day’s end, when the pace settles, what have you taken from it? Do you replay the day and wonder “what happened to the time, I didn’t get as much done as I thought I should. If this is familiar, then you might just have an organisational and time management problem.

Successful people seldom seem to rush, they always stay composed and unflustered. The difference from them and everybody else is they have great time management.

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

The easiest method in my view to achieve goals is to write them down. You can review these goals sometimes to make sure that they are relevant and realisable but not so simple to do that you don’t have to make the effort to succeed at them otherwise what is the meaning of any goals in the first place?

From the beginning of each working year you can take time and ponder what you hope to get this year. It can be that you plan to gross up your profits by 20%, you might plan to move into better premises, you can desire to take down your debt in a significant way. By the start of each working week you may write down on a note pad or in your diary the important tasks that need to be finalised this week, and look back on them on each day to know you’re making progress and hopefully tick some of your projects from your list.

You may keep the list on your desk or at a location where you should be continually reminded of what needs to be done throughout the week. The list can be in order of priority so that the most important projects at the top of this list get achieved early. All the chores not done this week will be put through to next week at a higher ranking, this should ensure it gets finished.

The next thing you could be doing is creating a daily list of tasks to accomplish. This will help keep you on schedule each day. Again, this list can be displayed where you are able to repeatedly refer to it and wipe off the jobs accomplished. Ticking off the tasks helps to give you a pride of a job well done and let you know how you are going through the day. Always hold to the list if possible and keep working from top priority to the lower priority. I know wormholes do turn up throughout the day that may throw the whole day up, but you must either take care of the situation and get back to your list or if the new problem isn’t as urgent as some of the tasks on your list then place it at the bottom on your list and continue with the item you were doing.

Each task you need to do needs to be written down for a few reasons. Firstly, so you don’t forget to do it and secondly, so you have every day outlined and you realise your daily goals. Be alert to starting jobs and not finishing them. This might show up tomorrow in a disaster of half finished jobs and will cause “list blowout”.

You will end up with the list at a mile long and you will back out in despair and reverse back to old habits of being in a fuss during your day and achieving nothing.

Remember each day you write out your goals and mark off every chore on your list, you will be a little closer to reaching your weekly and ultimately your yearly and long term goals.

A few hints on Time Management:

• Do it once and do it well, it’s frustrating reverting to the work and needing to redo it.
• Learn to nicely say to people when you’re working and that you can get back to them at a later point.
• Learn to give other people jobs that really don’t demand your direct work.
• Don’t take on wild goose chases.
• Don’t spend time on phone calls that aren’t going to assist with something.
• Don’t procrastinate.
• Check back to your list of chores to do regularly through your day.
• “Map out your day” in the shower and make out your daily list as soon as you arrive at work. Accomplish what you start.
• Prioritise everything, always begin chores in their order of importance to you and the clients.

Get away from time wasters, people who would just decide to chat all day, and if they are your workers, 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.