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When you start up a home based business, time management is an aspect of business management that is frequently overlooked or neglected.

Sure enough, everybody knows someone in small business who races around like a madman all day, seldom enough hours in each day, all they do is push and get worked up - maybe this person is you! By the end of the day, when the rush settles, what have you completed? Do you replay the day and wonder “what happened to the time, I didn’t get so much done as I hoped to do. If this seems familiar, then you may simply have an organisational and time management problem.

Successful people don’t appear to rush, they always seem composed and unflustered. The difference between them and the others is they achieve time management.

What is time management? It is just allocating time in your day in an organised and efficient scheme. Before we can truly get how to time manage our day, we first must question ourselves what we are hoping to complete today, this week, this year and possibly ten years from now. This is “Goal setting”.

The best method in my view to complete goals is to write them down. You should think about all your goals at points to ensure that they are meaningful and achievable but not so simple to do that you don’t need to put in the hard work to achieve them otherwise what is the meaning of the goals in the first place?

At the beginning of each working year you could sit and ponder what you desire to accomplish this year. It may be that you desire to raise your profits by 20%, you perhaps decide to move into better premises, you perhaps want to take down your debt in a significant way. From the start of each new working week you could write down on a note pad or in your diary the important jobs that have to be finished this week, and look back on them at every day to know that you’re making progress and hopefully polish some of the projects off the list.

You can hold your list on your desk or in a spot where you should be repeatedly reminded of what needs to be finished throughout the week. Your list could be in order of priority so that the most important tasks at the top of this list get finished early. Any work not ticked off this week should be carried forward next week at a higher priority, this will demand it gets ticked off.

The next thing you may not be doing is having yourself a daily list of chores to get done. This should assist keep you focused during the day. Again, this list should be placed where you can constantly see it and check off the jobs accomplished. Ticking off the jobs should allow you a touch of accomplishment and let you check on how you are progressing throughout the day. Always stick to your list when possible and try to continue working from the highest priority to lower priority. I know difficulties can come up through the day that may throw the whole day in the air, but you have to either take care of the situation and get back on to the list or if the new job isn’t as urgent as some of the chores on your list then place it lower on the list and continue on doing the job you were doing.

Every job you need to complete can be written down for a multiplicity of reasons. Firstly, so you don’t neglect to do it and secondly, so you keep each day outlined and you achieve your daily goals. Be sensitive to initiating chores and not completing them. This would turn tomorrow in a plethora of half finished tasks and can cause “list blowout”.

You will end up with the list a mile long and you will throw it out in despair and go back to those habits of getting in rush each day and completing nothing.

Remember each day you accomplish your goals and mark off every project on your list, you get a little closer to achieving your weekly and soon your yearly and long term goals.

A few pointers on Time Management:

• Do it once and do it well, it’s wasteful reverting to the chore and having to redo it.
• Learn to politely inform people when you’re busy working and that you will return to them at a later time.
• Learn to pass out jobs that actually don’t need your direct work.
• Don’t take on wild goose chases.
• Don’t waste time on phone calls that are not going to accomplish something.
• Don’t procrastinate.
• Look back on your list of jobs to do continually through the day.
• “Map out your day” in the morning and schedule out your daily list the minute you get to work. Complete what you initiate.
• Prioritise habitually, always do tasks in their order of urgency to you and the clients.

Get away from time wasters, people that simply start 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.