Learn To Manage Your Time Better
Running your business, especially if you’re in it solo, can seem very stressful at times. You may feel like you’re all over the place and can’t get anything done. One way you can overcome that is by managing your time bette.
One of the first things you need to learn how to manage your time is to prioritize. When you start prioritizing, you’ll notice that some of the tasks you were doing were pointless and redundant.
Prioritizing your workload will not only reduce your stress, but will give you more free time to focus on making your business a success. Here are a few tips on how to prioritize and enhance your time management skills.
1. Make a list
Make a list of all tasks you have to do each day. Be as specific as possible – this way you’ll find out what things take most of your time and what tasks are important. An example of a list can be as simple as check e-mail, follow up on current orders, call up prospective customers, do bookkeeping, and so on.
2. Rate each task
Take each task from the list and rate it on importance AND urgency. You can use a scale from 1-5, one being least important or urgent. You’ll notice that some tasks may be important to do, but they’re not urgent, and you can do other things that demand your immediate attention. For example if one task on your list is to check your business e-mail, you can rate it as a 4 in importance, but 2 as an urgency. This means that it is important to follow up on your e-mails, but it can wait.
3. Eliminate or consolidate tasks
When creating a task list and rating it, you’ll find that you can consolidate some of the tasks, or even eliminate them. Using the above example of checking e-mails, you can set a specific time to check them. Instead of checking every few minutes or half hour to see if there’s anything in the inbox, set a specific time to do it. A good way to consolidate this task would be to check e-mail twice daily; once in the morning and once in the afternoon. You’ll notice that you will save a lot of time, and that it really wasn’t that urgent to check on your e-mail constantly.
4. Rinse and repeat
Once you’ve created a list of all your tasks for the day and you’ve rated them in the order of importance and urgency, use it each and every day. At first you may want to write out your plan of attack each day, but soon enough you’ll get used to the new way of doing work that it will come naturally. It is very important that you’re strict about your priorities and that you follow them at all time, otherwise you’ll go back to your old habits.
If you’re feeling a bit skeptical about this or think that you already have all of your priorities straight, experiment with it for a week. Start making daily task lists, prioritize them and follow the program for a straight week. You’ll be surprised by how much time you’ll save! You’ll finally stop stressing about shuffling paperwork, and will be able to focus on your company more.
If you have some tips on how you personally manage your time better, drop a comment and share with everyone.