Davinci Virtual

Effective time management is critical for managing individual projects, and even your day, but you would be surprised how many of my clients struggle with this seemingly mundane task.  Time management is much more than managing your time in the day.  Instead, time management is actually activity management; it helps set priorities and make your day run much more efficiently. 

When my clients come to me with this problem, there are several techniques I show them to help improve their time management skills. 

• Develop a list of all of the tasks that need to be completed today.  Once the list is complete, place an “A” “B” or “C” next to each task.  These letters represent the importance of each task, with “A” being the most important/critical tasks, and “C” being the least critical tasks.
• Prioritize based on key delivery dates, the importance of the work, and who it is being delivered to, not by how much you want to work on a task.  For example, that budget that you need to deliver to your boss by tomorrow, but really don’t enjoy working on should be an “A” task, not a “C” task.
• Next, allocate a specific amount of time for each task, and stick to that time.  Be conscious about the amount of time you are spending on your tasks, keep in mind the rest of your list, and the amount of time you have left in the day.
• Begin to work on the “A” (urgent/critical) tasks first.  Then move down the list to the “B” & “C” tasks. 
• Keep your list flexible, there will always be random or emergency tasks that appear during the day, and you have to be able to shift your priorities to accommodate them. 

Hopefully these techniques can help you manage your time a little more efficiently.  Have patience, these techniques are meant to help you get into a time management groove, but in the end, the effort you put into the application of these methods will dictate the amount of return you will receive.

It is incredibly easy to let your schedule rule your life when you are a small business owner. Knowing that there really is no one else to do the things that need to be done can cause you to spend way too many hours a day working. If you find yourself typing away, madly answering emails at 10pm because it is the first time you have stopped moving, you need to re-evaluate.

There are some easy things you can do to manage your work burden.

• Start with an assessment of all of the things you are working on…do they lead to the development of your business? If you find projects that aren’t productive or are taking time away from your primary goals, remove them from your schedule. By taking on tasks that aren’t a good fit for your schedule or business, you are setting yourself and your clients up for failure.
• Stop checking your email, texts, voice messages, etc, every 10 minutes. Unless your work is web-related, stay off the internet. Create a schedule for checking your communications and stick to it. Don’t allow yourself to get sucked in to surfing the net…you can lose hours that way!
• If possible, reduce in person meetings, or group them together on days of the week. Each meeting takes valuable time, so determine if it is really a topic that needs to be discussed in person or if a phone call or email will do.

Managing your schedule is a critical way to make sure you stay a vibrant, engaged entrepreneur. Don’t let your business become your life. See tomorrow’s post for more ways to manage your schedule.