When you start out in a from-home business, time management is an area of business management that is overlooked or neglected.

Sure enough, everybody knows someone in small business who races around like a mad dog all day, never enough hours in every day, all they do is hurry and get overwhelmed – is it that this person is you! At the end of the week, when the pace settles, what have you accomplished? Do you reflect on the day and ponder “what happened to the day, I didn’t get so much finished as I planned I should. If this feels familiar, then you may simply have an organisational and time management problem.

Successful people do not seem to rush, they remain composed and unflustered. The difference in them and others is they have great time management.

What is time management? It is just allocating the clock in your day in an organised and efficient scheme. Before we can truly go ahead on how to time manage our day, we must decide for ourselves what we are aiming to master today, this week, this year and perhaps even ten years from now. This is “Goal setting”.

The best key in my view to accomplish goals is to write them down. You should reflect on your goals at points to feel that they are relevant and achievable but not so easy that you don’t have to put in the hard work to accomplish them otherwise what is the purpose of those goals in the first place?

At the start of each working year you should pause and think about what you plan to achieve this year. It could be that you desire to increase your profits by 20%, you could want to move into bigger premises, you could desire to reduce your debt as much as possible. By the start of every new working week you might write down on a note pad or in your diary the signifcant jobs that must to be finalised this week, and reflect them every day to know that you’re making progress and hopefully tick some of your chores off your list.

You should have this list on your desk or in a place where you could be constantly reminded of what must be accomplished each week. The list should be in order of necessity so that the most important jobs at the top of the list get taken care of first up. All the chores not done this week should be put up to next week at a higher priority, this should make sure it gets completed.

The next thing you can be doing is having yourself a daily list of jobs to accomplish. This should assist keep you organised each day. Again, this list should be placed where you can continually look at it and write off the items completed. Ticking off the chores could give you a feeling of a job well done and let you check on how you are working over the day. Always stay to the list unless not possible and continue working from the top priority to lower priority. I know issues do turn up throughout the day that could throw the whole day in the air, but you must either take care of the problem and get back to the list or if the unplanned work isn’t as serious as some of the issues on the list then place it for later on the list and continue with the work you were doing.

Each aspect of work you need to get done could be written down for a numerous reasons. Firstly, so you don’t neglect to do it and secondly, so you keep the day organised and you finish your daily goals. Be wary of beginning chores and not finishing them. This may become tomorrow in a plethora of half finished jobs and can cause “list blowout”.

You will end up with a list at a mile long and you will give up in despair and go back to old habits of getting in a fuss during the day and accomplishing nothing.

Remember each day you plan your goals and mark off everything on your list, you will be a little closer to realizing your weekly and soon your yearly and long term goals.

A few basics on Time Management:

Do it once and do it well, it’s frustrating reverting to the job and having to redo it.

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

Learn to delegate items that actually don’t need your direct involvement.

Don’t take on wild goose chases.

Don’t spend time by phone calls that will not achieve something.

Don’t procrastinate.

Check back to your list of chores to do continually during the day.

“Map out your day” in the shower and plan out your daily list the second you arrive at work. Don’t stop what you begin.

Prioritise every day, always do tasks in their order of urgency to you and your clients.

Get away from time wasters, people who would just decide to chat all day, and if they are your workers, 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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