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

Surely everybody knows some person in small business who races at it like a mad dog all day, rarely enough hours in the day, all they do is rush and get overwhelmed – perhaps this person is you! Come the end of the day, when the panic settles, what have you accomplished? Do you reflect on the day and ponder “what happened to the hours, I didn’t get as much accomplished as I hoped I could. If this reads familiar, then you might have an organisational and time management problem.

Successful people don’t appear to rush, they stay composed and unflustered. The difference in them and everybody else is they have mastered time management.

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

The most effective method in my opinion to achieve goals is to write them down. You could review these goals from time to time to make sure that they are relevant and workable but not so simple to do that you don’t need to work hard to accomplish them otherwise what is the purpose of the goals in the first place?

At the start of each new working year you can takethe time and think about what you wish to accomplish this year. It can be that you desire to increase your profits by 20%, you could desire to move into different premises, you could hope to take down your debt finally. From the first day of a new working week you may write down on a note pad or in your diary the signifcant projects that must to be finished this week, and reflect them on every day to make sure you’re making progress and hopefully mark some of your projects from the list.

You could have your list on your desk or at a location where you will be repeatedly reminded of what must be finalised this week. Your list can be in order of necessity so that the most important chores at the top of this list get completed first. Any projects not checked off this week need to be carried forward next week at a higher ranking, this will demand it gets completed.

The next thing you might not be doing is writing a daily list of projects to accomplish. This will assist keep you focused in the day. Again, this list can be put where you are able to persistently see it and wipe off the chores finished. Wiping off the tasks will allow you a feeling of success and let you know how you are going during the day. Always stick to this list if possible and continue working from top priority to the lowest priority. I know things sometimes jump up during the day that can throw the whole day in the air, but you have to either take care of the crisis and get back on to your list or if the newly arisen work isn’t as urgent as some of the items on your list then put it after these on the list and continue with the job you were doing.

Each piece of work you need to accomplish can be written down for a number of reasons. Firstly, so you don’t forget to do it and secondly, so you have the day scheduled and you complete your daily goals. Beware beginning jobs and not completing them. This might show up tomorrow in a plethora of incomplete chores and will cause “list blowout”.

You will end up with your list a mile long and you will throw it out in despair and change back to those habits of being in panic every day and finishing nothing.

Remember that every day you write out your goals and polish off all the tasks on your list, you become a bit closer to achieving your weekly and soon your yearly and long term goals.

A few essentials on Time Management:

• Do it once and do it well, it’s fruitless coming back to the project and needing to redo it.
• Learn to nicely inform people when you’re too busy and that you can speak to them at a later point.
• Learn to give out items that actually don’t need your direct participation.
• Don’t take on wild goose chases.
• Don’t fizzle away time with phone calls that will not take care of something.
• Don’t procrastinate.
• Look back on your list of work to do regularly at points through the day.
• “Map out your day” in the shower and write out your daily list the minute you get to work. Complete what you list.
• Prioritise as a matter of habit, always begin items in their order of urgency to you and your business.

Don’t get in with time wasters, people that only start to chat all day, and if they are your workers, set them straight, or get rid of them.

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