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Effective Time Management and Your Small Business

By: Jeff Schuman
Submitted: 2007-01-17 12:35:44
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Effective time management becomes one of the most important things you must do on a daily basis if you own a small business. For some people it doesn't seem to matter how long their day is. They just never seem to have enough time. The clock is ticking and it's ticking too fast for comfort. It feels like they have a million things to do, a couple thousand of which were actually due last week and every new task is urgent and can't wait...

Sounds familiar? Well if it does you might be one of those people who just don't have a very good relationship with time. It is often a sign that you're not in control of your own day timer. You may have some things on your to do list that you set out to accomplish, but anything and everything that you come across interferes with your plans. Someone or something else seems to be claiming your time to the extent that you never seem to get anything done. You might be asking yourself: "How can I possibly get everything done?" Good question. The answer is very simple: "You can't and you shouldn't want to".

Wanting to get everything done is probably the main reason why so many people are short on time. They're trying to do too many things and fail to realize that there are only so many tasks that one person can accomplish in a day. Instead of focusing on getting everything done, focus on those things that really need to get done. Separating what's important from what's not important will help you prioritize your tasks. And once you've done this, just remember that priorities are in order. That means that when you're working on something with a high priority it is okay to turn down someone asking you to do something that has a lower priority.

Time is an area where we can be absolutely sure that everyone is treated equally. No matter where you're from or what your background is everybody has the same amount of hours in a day. The difference is in how we choose to spend those hours.

Every night before your head hits the pillow, take a piece of paper and write down the 5 most important tasks you must accomplish the next day. Write them down in the order of importance. Then the next day start on the first task and don't move on to the next task until the first has been finished. Then move on to the next item on the list. If you get sidetracked just come back to your list as soon as possible and move on.

Some pointers that may help you in this direction:

Become more efficient in your communication. This means: on the phone, in emails or letters, and of course in face-to-face conversations. A lot of time spent in communication is very inefficient. This is especially wasteful because you're not just wasting your own time but also somebody else's.

Touch everything only once. This can be a really great time-saver. Every piece of information should preferably pass through your hands only once. This goes for mail, email, but also things like certain websites, articles, newspapers and other sources of information.

In order to do this successfully you will need to learn how to make decisions quickly. Some decisions just aren't worth too much of your valuable time. The ability to make decisions is one key to becoming successful anyway. So why wouldn't you want to speed that process up a little.

Effective time management will make your day more enjoyable because it allows you to be more in control of your time. Once you master this there is nothing you can not do to make your small business operate more smoothly.

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