Time Management When Working from Home

May 18th, 2010

When you start out in a home business, time management is an element of business management usually overlooked or ignored.

Everybody knows someone in small business who races around like a mad dog all day, never enough hours in each day, all they do is rush and get overwhelmed - is it that this person is you! Come the day’s end, when the rush settles, what have you accomplished? Do you reflect on the day and wonder “what happened to the hours, I didn’t get as much accomplished as I hoped I could. If this reads familiar, then you may simply have an organisational and time management problem.

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

What is time management? It is simply scheduling hours in your day in an organised and efficient way. Before we can actually go ahead with how to time manage our day, we need to decide for ourselves what we are planning to accomplish today, this week, this year and possibly even ten years from now. This is “Goal setting”.

The simplest key in my perspective to complete goals is to write them down. You could review the goals at times to know that they are appropriate and realisable but not so simple that you don’t have to try to complete them otherwise what is the purpose of the goals in the first place?

At the start of every working year you should sit and reflect on what you wish to take away from this year. It might be that you plan to gross up your profits by 20%, you may want to move into better premises, you may desire to take down your debt significantly. At the start of every new working week you should write down on a note pad or in your diary the large tasks that have to be achieved this week, and check back them at the end of every day to ensure you’re making progress and hopefully check some of those chores off the list.

You should keep your list on your desk or on a point where you should be continually reminded of what will be completed this week. The list could be in order of urgency so that the key projects at the top of this list get accomplished first up. Any of the tasks not completed this week should be put up to next week on a higher importance, this should ensure it gets finalised.

The next thing you could be doing is creating a daily list of projects to take care of. This should help keep you on track each day. Again, this list may be displayed where you can repeatedly look at it and tick off the tasks accomplished. Polishing off the tasks can give you a touch of completion and let you know how you are progressing across the day. Always hold to the list if possible and try to continue working from higher priority to low priority. I know problems do come up throughout the day that sometimes throw the whole day up in the air, but you have to either take on the crisis and then return to the list or if the newly arisen project isn’t as serious as some of the chores on your list then list it after these on the list and continue on doing the project you were doing.

Every piece of work you need to do must be written down for a couple of reasons. Firstly, so you don’t put off to do it and secondly, so you have each day organised and you achieve your daily goals. Be alert to starting items and not finishing them. This could become tomorrow in a mess of half finished projects and could cause “list blowout”.

You will end up with your list being a mile long and you will throw it out in despair and go back to old habits of being in rush each day and realizing nothing.

Remember each day you plan your goals and polish off all the items on your list, you will be a little closer to succeeding in 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 wasteful going back to the item and needing to redo it.
  • Learn to simply say to people when you’re too busy and that you can return to them at a later point.
  • Learn to give other employees chores that actually don’t require your direct participation.
  • Don’t embark on wild goose chases.
  • Don’t use up time with phone calls that will not do something.
  • Don’t procrastinate.
  • Check back to your list of work to do regularly through the day.
  • “Map out your day” in the morning and list out your daily list the minute you begin work. Accomplish what you initiate.
  • Prioritise as a matter of habit, always begin chores in their order of urgency to you and your work.

Get away from time wasters, people that will just go off to chat all day, and if they are employed by 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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