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

Surely we all know some person in small business who races at it like a bull all day, rarely enough hours in every day, all they do is push and get overwhelmed – is it that this person is you! Come the week’s end, when the panic settles, what have you accomplished? Do you review the day and think “what happened to the time, I didn’t get so much accomplished as I hoped to do. If this feels familiar, then you may have an organisational and time management problem.

Successful people never appear to rush, they are always composed and unflustered. The difference with them and others is they command time management.

What is time management? It is merely scheduling the clock in your day in an organised and efficient process. Before we can fully take on how to time manage our day, we first must ask ourselves what we are trying to complete today, this week, this year and perhaps even ten years from now. This is “Goal setting”.

The simplest process in my perspective to accomplish goals is to write them down. You can reflect on all your goals at times to make sure that they are relevant and possible but not so achievable that you don’t need to work to complete them otherwise what is the reason of the goals in the first place?

From the beginning of every new working year you should take time and plan what you desire to get this year. It may be that you need to raise your profits by 20%, you could plan to move into bigger premises, you may desire to take away from your debt finally. By the first day of every working week you can write down on a note pad or in your diary the important chores that must to be taken care of this week, and check back them on each day to make sure you’re making progress and hopefully check some of your chores off the list.

You could place your list on your desk or in a location where you should be continually reminded of what will be completed this week. This list may be in order of necessity so that the most important tasks at the top of this list get completed first up. Any tasks not completed this week need to be taken through to next week at a higher priority, this will make sure it gets taken care of.

The next thing you may not be doing is having yourself a daily list of tasks to accomplish. This may help keep you organised during each day. Again, this list might be put where you can continually check on it and write off the jobs done. Checking off the jobs is a way to allow you a sense of success and let you check on how you are moving during the day. Always adhere to your list where possible and continue working from the top priority to lower priority. I know changes will appear throughout the day that could throw the whole day out, but you must either take care of the problem and return to the list or if the unplanned situation isn’t as urgent as some of the work on the list then place it lower on your list and continue on doing the work you were doing.

Each task you plan to get done must be written down for a number of reasons. Firstly, so you don’t neglect to do it and secondly, so you keep every day planned and you achieve your daily goals. Be careful of starting tasks and not finishing them. This may show up tomorrow in a cloud of half finished tasks and can cause “list blowout”.

You will end up with a list a mile long and you will back out in despair and revert back to bad habits of running around in panic every day and realizing nothing.

Remember that every day you plan your goals and polish off everything on your list, you become a step closer to completing your weekly and soon your yearly and long term goals.

A few basics on Time Management:

• Do it once and do it well, it’s frustrating going back to the item and having to redo it.
• Learn to simply tell people when you’re busy with work and that you would return to them at a later time.
• Learn to delegate items that actually don’t need your direct work.
• Don’t take on wild goose chases.
• Don’t waste time by phone calls that will not take care of something.
• Don’t procrastinate.
• Review your list of tasks to do often at times through the day.
• “Map out your day” in the shower and plan out your daily list the minute you get to work. Achieve what you begin.
• Prioritise all your work, always take issues in their order of urgency to you and your customers.

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

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