Time Management When Working from Home
When starting up a from-home business, time management is an area of business management that is frequently overlooked or ignored.
Surely we all know a person in small business who races around like a chicken with its head cut off all day, rarely enough hours in the day, all they do is push and get worked up - maybe this person is you! At the day’s end, when the panic settles, what have you taken from it? Do you replay the day and wonder “what happened to the hours, I didn’t get so much done as I intended to. If this feels familiar, then you might simply have an organisational and time management problem.
Successful people do not seem to rush, they seem composed and unflustered. The difference in them and the other people is they possess time management.
What is time management? It is just allocating minutes in your day in an organised and efficient scheme. Before we can actually take on how to time manage our day, we need to ask ourselves what we are attempting to accomplish today, this week, this year and even up to ten years from now. This is “Goal setting”.
The best key in my view to achieve goals is to write them down. You should think about the goals from time to time to make sure that they are meaningful and possible but not so easy that you don’t have to work hard to succeed at them otherwise what is the reason of your goals in the first place?
At the start of every new working year you can take time and ponder what you plan to get this year. It might be that you hope to increase your profits by 20%, you can decide to move into different premises, you could plan to reduce your debt substantially. By the beginning of every new working week you can write down on a note pad or in your diary the signifcant projects that must to be achieved this week, and look back on them on every day to check that you’re making progress and hopefully tick some of those tasks off your list.
You may keep your list on your desk or on a point where you should be continually reminded of what will be finished throughout the week. This list might be in order of urgency so that the most important jobs at the top of this list get taken care of first. Any of the chores not completed this week should be brought up to next week at a higher urgency, this will require it gets finished.
The next thing you may not be doing is writing a daily list of tasks to accomplish. This will help keep you on track in the day. Again, this list might be placed where you can continually check on it and wipe off the projects accomplished. Wiping off the projects helps to give you a feeling of accomplishment and let you reflect on how you are progressing throughout the day. Always stay to this list where possible and continue working from top priority to the lesser priority. I know problems sometimes come up during the day that sometimes throw the whole day up in the air, but you need to either take care of the problem and return to the list or if the new project isn’t as important as some of the projects on your list then list it later on your list and continue with the chore you were doing.
Each job you have to complete could be written down for a multiplicity of reasons. Firstly, so you don’t put off to do it and secondly, so you keep every day scheduled and you achieve your daily goals. Be careful of starting jobs and not completing them. This might show up tomorrow in a plethora of half baked work and could cause “list blowout”.
You will end up with a list at a mile long and you will give up in despair and revert back to those habits of being in a hurry every day and accomplishing nothing.
Remember for every day you write out your goals and write off every project on your list, you will get a step closer to finalising your weekly and soon your yearly and long term goals.
A few tips on Time Management:
- Do it once and do it well, it’s frustrating returning to the work and having to redo it.
- Learn to nicely communicate to people when you’re busy and that you would return to them later.
- Learn to issue chores that actually don’t need your hand.
- Don’t take on wild goose chases.
- Don’t waste time with phone calls that can’t take care of something.
- Don’t procrastinate.
- Look at your list of things to do regularly at points through your day.
- “Map out your day” in the morning and make out your daily list when you start work. Don’t stop what you list.
- Prioritise as a matter of habit, always do issues in their order of necessity to you and your work.
Avoid time wasters, people that would only like to chat all day, and if they are your workers, set them straight, or get rid of them.
For more information about self employment Brisbane, home business Brisbane, or work from home Brisbane, contact Lifestyle Switch. Make the switch to your own business today.
Sphere: Related Content