When you start up a from-home business, time management is an aspect of business management that is overlooked or ignored.

Everybody knows some person in small business who races at it like a bull all day, without enough hours in a day, all they do is panic and get overwhelmed – is it that this person is you! By the end of the day, when the dust settles, what have you taken from it? Do you review the day and wonder “what happened to the time, I didn’t get so much finished as I intended. If this is familiar, then you might simply have an organisational and time management problem.

Successful people do not seem to rush, they always stay composed and unflustered. The difference from them and other people is they command time management.

What is time management? It is just allocating time in your day in an organised and efficient process. Before we can actually go ahead on how to time manage our day, we must decide for ourselves what we are planning to accomplish today, this week, this year and perhaps ten years from now. This is “Goal setting”.

The best method in my opinion to complete goals is to write them down. You can go back to your goals at points to feel that they are relevant and possible but not so simple to do that you don’t need to work to accomplish them otherwise what is the purpose of your goals in the first place?

At the start of every working year you can take time and think about what you desire to achieve this year. It could be that you hope to gross up your profits by 20%, you might want to move into larger premises, you may plan to reduce your debt finally. By the start of every working week you can write down on a note pad or in your diary the important chores that have to be achieved this week, and look back on them on each day to check you’re making progress and hopefully mark some of your projects from the list.

You could place your list on your desk or in a location where you will be continually reminded of what will be finished throughout the week. The list might be in order of urgency so that the key jobs at the top of this list get taken care of earlier. All jobs not checked off this week need to be taken through to next week at a higher priority, this should ensure it gets checked off.

The next thing you could be doing is giving yourself a daily list of tasks to achieve. This can help keep you focused on each day. Again, this list might be put up where you can constantly look back to it and tick off the chores accomplished. Checking off the items should give you a pride of achievement and let you check on how you are working across the day. Always hold to the list when possible and try to continue working from higher priority to low priority. I know loopholes do jump up throughout the day that can throw the whole day in the air, but you have to either take care of the problem and get back on to your list or if the sudden chore isn’t as serious as some of the work on your list then put it after these on your list and continue on doing the work you were doing.

Every issue you plan to achieve can be written down for a numerous reasons. Firstly, so you don’t forget to do it and secondly, so you keep your day scheduled and you accomplish your daily goals. Be careful of beginning jobs and not finishing them. This would show up tomorrow in a mushroom cloud of not completed chores and could cause “list blowout”.

You will end up with your list a mile long and you will give it up in despair and change back to old habits of getting yourself in rush during your day and finishing nothing.

Remember every day you plan your goals and polish off every chore on your list, you will get a little closer to polishing off 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 frustrating returning to the job and having to redo it.
• Learn to politely communicate to people when you’re busy working and that you would speak to them at a later time.
• Learn to delegate items that truly don’t need your participation.
• Don’t make off on wild goose chases.
• Don’t fizzle away time on phone calls that can’t achieve something.
• Don’t procrastinate.
• Look back on your list of chores to do frequently at points through the day.
• “Map out your day” in the car and plan out your daily list the minute you arrive at work. Finish what you initiate.
• Prioritise all your jobs, always take things in their order of necessity to you and the work.

Be evasive with time wasters, people that will only decide to chat all day, and if they are employed by you, set them straight, or get rid of them.

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