When you start up a from-home business, time management is an element of business management that is overlooked or ignored.

Everybody knows someone in small business who races about like a chicken with its head cut off all day, rarely enough hours in their day, all they do is rush and get overloaded – maybe this person is you! By the end of the week, when the panic settles, what have you achieved? Do you replay the day and ponder “what happened to the day, I didn’t get as much done as I planned. If this reads familiar, then you might simply have an organisational and time management problem.

Successful people never seem to rush, they stay composed and unflustered. The difference between them and the other people is they possess time management.

What is time management? It is simply planning hours in your day in an organised and efficient method. Before we can actually go ahead on how to time manage our day, we must ask ourselves what we are trying to achieve today, this week, this year and perhaps even ten years from now. This is “Goal setting”.

The easiest way in my view to accomplish goals is to write them down. You might review these goals at points to ensure that they are meaningful and achievable but not so achievable that you don’t have to put in the effort to accomplish them otherwise what is the reason of the goals in the first place?

At the beginning of a new working year you should take time and plan what you desire to end up with this year. It can be that you need to gross up your profits by 20%, you might want to move into different premises, you might wish to take down your debt as much as possible. From the beginning of a new working week you may write down on a note pad or in your diary the major jobs that need to be done this week, and check back them at the end of each day to make sure that you’re making progress and hopefully wipe some of your tasks off your list.

You should keep this list on your desk or on a place where you could be repeatedly reminded of what must be undertaken this week. The list can be in order of importance so that the most important tasks at the top of the list get completed earlier. Any projects not accomplished this week should be put through to next week at a higher ranking, this should require it gets completed.

The next thing you might not be doing is giving yourself a daily list of projects to take care of. This should assist keep you on schedule in the day. Again, this list will be placed where you can constantly refer to it and mark off the projects finished. Polishing off the projects could give you a pride of accomplishment and let you review how you are progressing throughout the day. Always hold to the list where possible and keep working from higher priority to low priority. I know difficulties can come up over the day that may throw the whole day topsyturvy, but you have to either take care of the situation and get back on to the list or if the new dilemma isn’t as urgent as some of the work on the list then put it later on the list and continue on with the work you were doing.

Every project you hope to get done could be written down for a few reasons. Firstly, so you don’t neglect to do it and secondly, so you keep every day outlined and you achieve your daily goals. Be alert to initiating chores and not finishing them. This would come back tomorrow in a cloud of half baked chores and will cause “list blowout”.

You will end up with your list a mile long and you will give up in despair and change back to those habits of working in rush during the day and accomplishing nothing.

Remember for each day you set your goals and polish off every item on your list, you will be a little bit closer to reaching your weekly and soon your yearly and long term goals.

A few pointers on Time Management:

• Do it once and do it well, it’s wasteful reverting to the work and having to redo it.
• Learn to simply communicate to people when you’re busy with work and that you will get back to them later.
• Learn to give other people items that actually don’t need your direct participation.
• Don’t embark on wild goose chases.
• Don’t waste time on phone calls that will not do something.
• Don’t procrastinate.
• Look back on your list of tasks to do repeatedly through the day.
• “Map out your day” in the shower and schedule out your daily list the minute you arrive at work. Complete what you start.
• Prioritise all your work, always take care of tasks in their order of importance to you and your customers.

Get away from time wasters, people that only decide to chat all day, and if they are employed by you, set them straight, or get rid of them.

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