When you are starting a home based business, time management is an aspect of business management that can be overlooked or left out of the equation.

Everybody knows someone in small business who races about like a madman all day, never enough hours in the day, all they do is push and get overtaken – is it that this person is you! By the day’s end, when the dust settles, what have you accomplished? Do you reflect on the day and think “what happened to the day, I didn’t get as much finished as I planned I could. If this reads familiar, then you may simply have an organisational and time management problem.

Successful people never appear to rush, they always remain composed and unflustered. The difference with them and the others is they have mastered time management.

What is time management? It is simply planning the clock in your day in an organised and efficient way. Before we can really take on how to time manage our day, we need to ask ourselves what we are aiming to accomplish today, this week, this year and possibly ten years from now. This is “Goal setting”.

The easiest key in my preference to take on goals is to write them down. You should review these goals at points to know that they are meaningful and realisable but not so simple to do that you don’t need to put in the hard work to complete them otherwise what is the reason of any goals in the first place?

From the beginning of each new working year you can take time and ponder what you plan to end up with this year. It can be that you want to increase your profits by 20%, you may want to move into different premises, you may plan to get rid of your debt in a susbstantial way. At the beginning of every working week you can write down on a note pad or in your diary the large jobs that have to be completed this week, and check up them on each day to be sure you’re making progress and hopefully mark some of the jobs off your list.

You should place this list on your desk or in a point where you could be constantly reminded of what has to be undertaken each week. Your list might be in order of urgency so that the most important jobs at the top of the list get taken care of early. Any work not accomplished this week will be taken up to next week at a higher urgency, this should ensure it gets checked off.

The next thing you should be doing is having a daily list of chores to achieve. This might help keep you on schedule in the day. Again, this list should be put where you are able to continually see it and write off the tasks finished. Polishing off the chores helps allow you a sense of achievement and let you know how you are going over the day. Always stick to this list if possible and try to keep working from top priority to less priority. I know loopholes will appear during the day that could throw the whole day in the air, but you need to either take on the situation and get back on to the list or if the newly arisen situation isn’t as important as some of the chores on the list then target it for later on your list and continue on doing the task you were doing.

Every aspect of work you have to complete should be written down for a number of reasons. Firstly, so you don’t forget to do it and secondly, so you have the day outlined and you achieve your daily goals. Be careful of initiating jobs and not completing them. This can show up tomorrow in a disaster of half baked jobs and could cause “list blowout”.

You will end up with your list a mile long and you will throw it up in despair and revert back to bad habits of getting yourself in rush all day and accomplishing nothing.

Remember for every day you set your goals and polish off all the tasks on your list, you will be a day closer to realizing 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 pointless going back to the project and having to redo it.

Learn to simply communicate to people when you’re busy with work and that you can speak to them at a later time.

Learn to give other people items that truly don’t demand your direct involvement.

Don’t make off on wild goose chases.

Don’t waste time with phone calls that aren’t going to achieve something.

Don’t procrastinate.

Review your list of jobs to do regularly at times through your day.

“Map out your day” in the shower and write out your daily list as soon as you begin work. Accomplish what you list.

Prioritise all your work, always do issues in their order of necessity to you and your customers.

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

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