When you start out in a home based business, time management is an aspect of business management that can be overlooked or neglected.

Sure enough, everybody knows some person in small business who races at it like a chicken with its head cut off all day, seldom enough hours in each day, all they do is hurry and get overtaken – perhaps this person is you! By the end of the day, when the pace settles, what have you taken from it? Do you think about the day and realise “what happened to the time, I didn’t get as much accomplished as I thought I should. If this sounds familiar, then you might just have an organisational and time management problem.

Successful people do not appear to rush, they stay composed and unflustered. The difference with them and others is they have accomplished time management.

What is time management? It is simply allocating time in your day in an organised and efficient scheme. Before we can actually go ahead with how to time manage our day, we first need to question ourselves what we are trying to master today, this week, this year and perhaps even ten years from now. This is “Goal setting”.

The easiest key in my preference to accomplish goals is to write them down. You should think about these goals at points to make sure that they are appropriate and achievable but not so simple to do that you don’t have to try to complete them otherwise what is the point of any goals in the first place?

From the start of each working year you could pause and ponder what you plan to complete this year. It may be that you desire to raise your profits by 20%, you can hope to move into different premises, you can want to take away from your debt significantly. By the beginning of each working week you could write down on a note pad or in your diary the major tasks that have to be completed this week, and look back to them at each day to know that you’re making progress and hopefully check some of the projects from your list.

You may hold this list on your desk or on a spot where you will be constantly reminded of what needs to be finished throughout the week. The list could be in order of urgency so that the most important chores at the top of this list get finished first up. Any chores not achieved this week must be taken forward next week at a higher ranking, this will make sure it gets completed.

The next thing you should be doing is giving yourself a daily list of jobs to get done. This may help keep you on track during the day. Again, this list may be put where you are able to repeatedly see it and tick off the items done. Polishing off the items helps to allow you a feeling of completion and let you check on how you are progressing across the day. Always stay to this list when possible and try to continue working from high priority to the lower priority. I know issues will turn up during the day that can throw the whole day off track, but you must either take care of the crisis and get back on to your list or if the sudden situation isn’t as urgent as some of the issues on your list then list it after these on your list and continue on doing the chore you were doing.

Each item you hope to accomplish needs to be written down for a number of reasons. Firstly, so you don’t put off to do it and secondly, so you keep every day organised and you get your daily goals. Beware starting jobs and not finishing them. This may become tomorrow in a cloud of not completed jobs and will cause “list blowout”.

You will end up with the list at a mile long and you will give it up in despair and change back to those habits of running around in panic during the day and finishing nothing.

Remember that each day you plan your goals and polish off every project on your list, you get a bit closer to achieving your weekly and finally your yearly and long term goals.

A few basics on Time Management:

Do it once and do it well, it’s pointless coming back to the work and needing to redo it.

Learn to nicely inform people when you’re busy with work and that you will get back to them at a later point.

Learn to pass out work that actually don’t demand your participation.

Don’t take on wild goose chases.

Don’t waste time with phone calls that are not going to do something.

Don’t procrastinate.

Look at your list of jobs to do repeatedly during your day.

“Map out your day” in the shower and plan out your daily list as soon as you begin work. Don’t stop what you initiate.

Prioritise all your jobs, always begin jobs in their order of urgency to you and the clients.

Don’t get in with time wasters, people who merely like to chat all day, and if they work for you, set them straight, or get rid of them.

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