When starting out in a home based business, time management is an element of business management that is overlooked or ignored.

We all know a person in small business who races around like a mad dog all day, rarely enough hours in each day, all they do is rush and get overwhelmed – perhaps this person is you! Come the end of the week, when the panic settles, what have you done? Do you replay the day and realise “what happened to the day, I didn’t get as much completed as I thought I could. If this reads familiar, then you may just have an organisational and time management problem.

Successful people never seem to rush, they always stay composed and unflustered. The difference in them and the other people is they have exceptional time management.

What is time management? It is just allocating minutes in your day in an organised and efficient process. Before we can really understand how to time manage our day, we first need to figure for ourselves what we are trying to complete today, this week, this year and as far as ten years from now. This is “Goal setting”.

The best way in my perspective to complete goals is to write them down. You can go back to the goals from time to time to ensure that they are purposeful and realisable but not so simple to do that you don’t need to try hard to achieve them otherwise what is the reason of the goals in the first place?

At the start of a working year you should pause and plan what you desire to accomplish this year. It might be that you need to raise your profits by 20%, you can decide to move into other premises, you can plan to take down your debt finally. At the beginning of each working week you may write down on a note pad or in your diary the large projects that must to be done this week, and check on them at every day to be sure you’re making progress and hopefully tick some of the projects off your list.

You should hold this list on your desk or on a spot where you will be continually reminded of what will be finished this week. Your list should be in order of priority so that the impending jobs at the top of your list get taken care of first. Any chores not accomplished this week must be taken forward next week on a higher priority, this should make sure it gets finished.

The next thing you will be doing is having yourself a daily list of chores to get done. This should assist keep you organised on each day. Again, this list should be displayed where you can constantly look at it and wipe off the jobs accomplished. Ticking off the items helps give you a touch of completion and remind you how you are progressing through the day. Always hold to the list if possible and try to keep working from higher priority to lower priority. I know problems can turn up during the day that can throw the whole day up in the air, but you need to either deal with the situation and return to the list or if the new task isn’t as important as some of the chores on the list then list it for later on your list and continue on doing the project you were doing.

Each chore you plan to get done must be written down for a couple of reasons. Firstly, so you don’t neglect to do it and secondly, so you have every day outlined and you accomplish your daily goals. Be careful of initiating chores and not completing them. This would turn tomorrow in a mess of incomplete 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 go back to those habits of running around in a fuss during your day and realizing nothing.

Remember for every day you accomplish your goals and tick off every project on your list, you will get a little 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 wasteful going back to the issue and having to redo it.
• Learn to politely communicate to people when you’re too busy and that you would return to them later.
• Learn to give out items that actually don’t need your involvement.
• Don’t take on wild goose chases.
• Don’t fizzle away time during phone calls that are not going to accomplish something.
• Don’t procrastinate.
• Review your list of things to do regularly throughout the day.
• “Map out your day” in the car and write out your daily list right when you get to work. Finish what you start.
• Prioritise all your tasks, always begin jobs in their order of importance to you and your business.

Get away from time wasters, people who will just start to chat all day, and if they are your workers, set them straight, or get rid of them.

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