Time Management Skills for Business Owners
By Thomas R Holthus
As an entrepreneur, you know all too well that in order to be productive you need to manage your time effectively, allowing a balance between work and your personal life. Every area of your life requires time and attention, so chances are you often wonder how to reconcile the time you spend cultivating your business with the time you spend living your life. While your personal life is essential to your well-being, in order for your business to succeed you need to ensure that it is allotted the time and energy it deserves.
Follow these 5 Time Management Tips to become a more productive business owner.
1) Leverage technology to your advantage
Running a business in the digital era can be difficult yet advantageous. It depends on how you use the technology at your disposal. With social networking being both a popular business tool and a social asset, it is often impossible to use it as a productive medium without wasting precious time. You have to practice self-discipline. Use your smartphone and other gadgets wisely, without getting caught up in the time-wasting realm of Twitter and Facebook.
2) Multitasking is overrated
With the portability of modern conveniences such as laptops and smartphones, you are no doubt tempted to fit in as much work into a given day as possible. If you are the parent who sits on the bleachers armed with a laptop and a briefcase, one eye on your daughter’s soccer game and the other on your work, do everyone a favor and leave the laptop at home. Remember that revenue producing activities will not take place on the little-league soccer field. Both your family and your business deserve your undivided attention, so create time slots for both and do your best not to let them overlap.
3) Make time for emergencies
Life never complies strictly with plans, so it is important to plan for surprises. Set aside a chunk of time in your day with nothing to do, just in case something immediate comes up. If everything ends up going smoothly, who knows, maybe you can use that free time to actually relax for a while. Wouldn’t that be nice?
4) “Do Not Disturb” signs were created for a reason
As a business owner, you strive to make yourself available to your employees and customers at any time. You’ve been taught that this practice constitutes good business. Yet, how can anything get done on your end when you constantly overextend yourself to everyone else’s needs? When there is work to be done indefinitely, don’t hesitate to put up that “Do Not Disturb” sign and catch up on productivity. This can also work for home-based business owners, but don’t overuse this strategy. Working at home often opens the door to a lot of interruptions and requests.
5) Appointments are made to be kept
How often do you set up an appointment and allow the meeting to extend past the time slot it was allotted? No appointments are so epic that you should make this a habit. When you set a time and date for an appointment, make sure to stick to that time slot as strictly as possible. Your time is not cheap, so don’t waste it on unproductive meetings, conversations and activities.
All in all, time is limited and your ability to manage your activities, day by day, hour by hour will affect your level of success. If you want to be more successful, you need to manage your time effectively.
Thomas Holthus is a Business Mentor who teaches people strategies to start and run a successful business. He has a background as a Senior Program/Project Manager and System Engineer with extensive experience proposing, winning and managing high technology programs. Read Tom’s Wealth Opportunities blog for more great strategies at: http://trholthus.com/blog/.
Send an email to me, tom@trholthus.com, with your phone number and I will call you to see what information I can send you to help you with Time Management. Your information will never be shared.
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