Australian Travel

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

Sure enough, everybody knows some person in small business who races about like a bull all day, seldom enough hours in every day, all they do is push and get worked up - is it that this person is you! By the day’s end, when the rush settles, what have you done? Do you think about the day and realise “what happened to the day, I didn’t get so much completed as I planned I could. If this sounds familiar, then you may just have an organisational and time management problem.

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

What is time management? It is just planning hours in your day in an organised and efficient method. Before we can really understand how to time manage our day, we first must question ourselves what we are attempting to do today, this week, this year and as far as ten years from now. This is “Goal setting”.

The top way in my perspective to achieve goals is to write them down. You can go back to your goals at points to ensure that they are appropriate and realisable but not so easy to do that you don’t need to put in the effort to achieve them otherwise what is the point of your goals in the first place?

At the beginning of each new working year you could sit down and think about what you desire to take away from this year. It can be that you desire to raise your profits by 20%, you may want to move into bigger premises, you perhaps plan to take away from your debt as much as possible. At the start of every working week you can write down on a note pad or in your diary the signifcant projects that have to be achieved this week, and check back them each day to know that you’re making progress and hopefully tick some of those chores off the list.

You should have this list on your desk or on a place where you will be continually reminded of what has to be finalised each week. This list can be in order of importance so that the major jobs at the top of your list get done early. All chores not achieved this week will be taken through to next week on a higher ranking, this should make sure it gets finalised.

The next thing you may not be doing is having yourself a daily list of jobs to achieve. This will help keep you focused during the day. Again, this list might be displayed where you can constantly look at it and mark off the tasks accomplished. Writing off the projects is a way to allow you a pride of success and let you check on how you are working throughout the day. Always hold to your list unless not possible and try to keep working from the highest priority to the lower priority. I know changes will come up through the day that could throw the whole day off track, but you have to either take care of the situation and get back to your list or if the unplanned chore isn’t as urgent as some of the issues on your list then put it later on the list and continue on with the work you were doing.

Every aspect of work you plan to achieve could be written down for a numerous reasons. Firstly, so you don’t forget to do it and secondly, so you have the day outlined and you finish your daily goals. Be alert to starting items and not finishing them. This may come back tomorrow in a plethora of half baked chores and could cause “list blowout”.

You will end up with the list at a mile long and you will throw it out in despair and go back to bad habits of working in confusion during the day and realizing nothing.

Remember every day you achieve your goals and polish off all the chores on your list, you get a day closer to accomplishing your weekly and eventually your yearly and long term goals.

A few pointers on Time Management:

• Do it once and do it well, it’s wasteful coming back to the task and having to redo it.
• Learn to civilly communicate to people when you’re busy and that you will return to them at a later point.
• Learn to issue chores that really don’t need your involvement.
• Don’t make off on wild goose chases.
• Don’t spend time on phone calls that won’t assist with something.
• Don’t procrastinate.
• Refer to your list of work to do frequently during your day.
• “Map out your day” in the car and schedule out your daily list when you get to work. Complete what you initiate.
• Prioritise as a matter of habit, always keep things in their order of priority to you and your clients.

Be evasive with time wasters, people who will just decide to chat all day, and if they work for you, set them straight, or get rid of them.

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