Time Management When Working from Home
When you are starting a home business, time management is an element of business management that is overlooked or neglected.
Everybody knows a friend in small business who races around like a chicken with its head cut off all day, seldom enough hours in every day, all they do is rush and get overwhelmed - maybe this person is you! To the end of the week, when the dust settles, what have you gotten out of it? Do you think about the day and ponder “what happened to the day, I didn’t get so much done as I planned I should. If this reads familiar, then you may just have an organisational and time management problem.
Successful people never appear to rush, they always stay composed and unflustered. The difference in them and everybody else is they achieve time management.
What is time management? It is just allocating minutes in your day in an organised and efficient process. Before we can fully get how to time manage our day, we first need to figure for ourselves what we are planning to accomplish today, this week, this year and perhaps ten years from now. This is “Goal setting”.
The easiest way in my opinion to accomplish goals is to write them down. You should reflect on your goals from time to time to know that they are purposeful and realisable but not so easy that you don’t have to try hard to succeed at them otherwise what is the reason of any goals in the first place?
From the beginning of every new working year you could sit down and ponder what you wish to end up with this year. It could be that you plan to enlarge your profits by 20%, you could plan to move into better premises, you can desire to reduce your debt in a significant way. From the first day of every working week you can write down on a note pad or in your diary the signifcant tasks that must to be completed this week, and check back them at the end of every day to make sure that you’re making progress and hopefully mark some of your projects off the list.
You should put the list on your desk or in a location where you will be constantly reminded of what will be accomplished throughout the week. The list can be in order of urgency so that the impending projects at the top of this list get accomplished first. All the chores not ticked off this week should be brought forward next week on a higher importance, this should make sure it gets completed.
The next thing you might not be doing is giving yourself a daily list of tasks to take care of. This may assist keep you on schedule during the day. Again, this list may be put up where you can repeatedly refer to it and write off the jobs accomplished. Finishing off the chores will allow you a pride of a job well done and let you review how you are working over the day. Always stay to this list when possible and try to continue working from the highest priority to lower priority. I know things do come up throughout the day that sometimes throw the whole day off track, but you have to either take on the dilemma and return to the list or if the unplanned task isn’t as important as some of the work on your list then place it at the bottom on your list and continue doing the task you were doing.
Every item you have to do could be written down for a multitude of reasons. Firstly, so you don’t neglect to do it and secondly, so you keep each day planned and you accomplish your daily goals. Beware starting chores and not completing them. This will turn tomorrow in a disaster of half finished tasks and could cause “list blowout”.
You will end up with the list a mile long and you will throw it up in despair and change back to old habits of being in confusion every day and accomplishing nothing.
Remember each day you accomplish your goals and check off everything on your list, you get a little bit closer to completing your weekly and ultimately your yearly and long term goals.
A few essentials on Time Management:
- Do it once and do it well, it’s wasteful going back to the work and needing to redo it.
- Learn to nicely communicate to people when you’re busy with work and that you can get back to them some time later.
- Learn to issue jobs that really don’t demand your direct participation.
- Don’t take on wild goose chases.
- Don’t use up time with phone calls that can’t assist with something.
- Don’t procrastinate.
- Look at your list of items to do often throughout your day.
- “Map out your day” in the shower and schedule out your daily list the second you get to work. Accomplish what you list.
- Prioritise in everything you do, always start things in their order of priority to you and the customers.
Stay away from time wasters, people who will just choose to chat all day, and if they are your employees, 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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