Time Management When Working from Home
When starting up a home business, time management is an aspect of business management that can be overlooked or ignored.
Surely everybody knows a friend in small business who races about like a chicken with its head cut off all day, without enough hours in the day, all they do is panic and get worked up - perhaps this person is you! At the end of the day, when the pace settles, what have you done? Do you review the day and think “what happened to the day, I didn’t get as much done as I thought I could. If this feels familiar, then you might just have an organisational and time management problem.
Successful people seldom appear to rush, they are always composed and unflustered. The difference from them and other people is they have accomplished time management.
What is time management? It is just arranging hours in your day in an organised and efficient process. Before we can fully take on how to time manage our day, we must question ourselves what we are attempting to complete today, this week, this year and perhaps even ten years from now. This is “Goal setting”.
The best process in my opinion to complete goals is to write them down. You could reflect on all your goals from time to time to make sure that they are appropriate and achievable but not so easy to do that you don’t need to put in the hard work to succeed at them otherwise what is the reason of your goals in the first place?
From the start of each new working year you should pause and think about what you desire to take away from this year. It may be that you desire to increase your profits by 20%, you perhaps decide to move into different premises, you might want to get rid of your debt once and for all. By the beginning of every new working week you might write down on a note pad or in your diary the major projects that need to be done this week, and check on them every day to check that you’re making progress and hopefully mark some of those projects from your list.
You can keep the list on your desk or at a spot where you could be persistently reminded of what has to be done throughout the week. This list can be in order of importance so that the major projects at the top of your list get accomplished first. Any of the work not checked off this week should be taken up to next week at a higher urgency, this should demand it gets taken care of.
The next thing you might not be doing is having a daily list of tasks to take care of. This can assist keep you on track during each day. Again, this list should be displayed where you are able to persistently see it and tick off the jobs finished. Wiping off the tasks helps to allow you a pride of a job well done and let you check on how you are working across the day. Always adhere to your list where possible and keep working from higher priority to low priority. I know problems can turn up over the day that could throw the whole day out of whack, but you need to either take care of the crisis and then get back to the list or if the unplanned chore isn’t as time sensitive as some of the work on the list then target it lower on your list and continue with the work you were doing.
Every aspect of work you plan to get done needs to be written down for a multitude of reasons. Firstly, so you don’t neglect to do it and secondly, so you have every day scheduled and you complete your daily goals. Be sensitive to starting chores and not completing them. This will show up tomorrow in a mess of half finished jobs and can cause “list blowout”.
You will end up with the list being a mile long and you will give it up in despair and reverse back to those habits of getting in confusion each day and finishing nothing.
Remember each day you achieve your goals and tick off every chore on your list, you become a day closer to completing your weekly and ultimately your yearly and long term goals.
A few hints on Time Management:
- Do it once and do it well, it’s frustrating returning to the chore and having to redo it.
- Learn to politely communicate to people when you’re busy and that you can speak to them at a later point.
- Learn to delegate items that really don’t require your involvement.
- Don’t go on wild goose chases.
- Don’t use up time during phone calls that will not achieve something.
- Don’t procrastinate.
- Check back to your list of work to do frequently through your day.
- “Map out your day” in the morning and schedule out your daily list the second you start work. Finish what you list.
- Prioritise all your tasks, always start items in their order of necessity to you and your business.
Avoid time wasters, people that would simply go off to chat all day, and if they work for you, 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.
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