With late nights, early mornings and plenty of things to do, most of the small business owners would love to work extra in a day. In fact, 1 out of four small business owners think an additional hour in the working day will be of worth above 500 USD. But, as we cannot control the clock, you must take the inspiration from the small business owners who enjoy personal time and manage their work very well. The following are some time management tips for small business owners:
- Setting a schedule smartly
There are plenty of days which might have flown by, despite feeling stressed out and rushed all day, you cannot find what you have accomplished. This feeling comes from not prioritizing your work aspects. You must make sure things on your daily work schedule are worth your time. You must know what is important for your job, and every small business owner has to know the reason for their job. When your business has just started and still budding, then your first priority has to be your sales calls, which will translates into your business. Routine tasks and paperwork must be regulated well in the time frame accessible to you. Start initially with a few employees you can afford. This will provide you time to be more strategic and use less tactics.
- Time logging
Before you try do something, you have to finish at least 1 day of time logging. Just take a paper and begin right from the time you get up in the morning and till you go to bed at night. Track every minute in a day, list your tasks and the entire time you spend. You have to track all that to be useful. Do not change your behaviour. Just ensure that you are measuring the things you do in a typical work day.
- Focus on your strengths
Whether you are one man army in your business or you have a few employees you can afford, it is essential that you focus just on the things which you can handle and delegate the rest of the tasks to others. This will help you handle your small business easily when you have employees to help, but if you are managing your business single hand, then you do not have to worry as you can still delegate your work by outsourcing. If you think you cannot afford it then you just run your numbers, place a dollar figure on your time’s worth and then run through your time sheets and check how much time you are spending on your tasks. You will most probably realize that you must be wasting time struggling to do some tasks which will cost you more than what you pay for something to do these tasks. When you outsource your work when you cannot manage them then you will learn after some time that you are saving a lot of money more than you are spending on the outsourcing. So, it is a good return on your investment. This will also help you do well with your business partners and the time you save can be used for building your business into a larger one.
- Pomodoro technique
The pomodora strategy is a great way to time management, which consists of time setting for twenty five minutes by staying focused one particular task, then giving yourself a five minute break prior to starting another task. You can also use this technique differently by measuring the time you have worked on certain aspects of your business in 20 minute intervals. This will help you check where you are using a lot of time or where you are not spending it at all. When you get an idea about these two things you can set your daily and weekly goals for pomodoros you spend in every category. Set a goal of reaching a certain amount of promodoros working on your marketing systems.
- Prioritizing
Many of the small business owners have a problem not with the time management, but actually their priority management. It is not quiet sufficient that you have a to-do list, you must use this list for establishing the most important things want to achieve. If you have an important task which is urgent too then this task has to be on the top spot of your list. If you are handling your time well, and focusing on what is important, you will soon realize that you have less number of urgent things you have to attend to. The urgent things which spring up will be easy to handle as you can handle all other things. Anything which is important for your success must have time catered to it. Keep a appointment book work and schedule the appointments with yourself and create the time blocks for your high priority things, actions and conversations. You must schedule when you are going to start a task and when it will end. You must well disciplined with your appointments.
- Remove the distractions
Sometime distractions can affect your business a lot. Check your environment to see if there is anything which keeps you from managing your time effectively. Your office has to be well ventilated, supplies handy and in abundance and keep the work space well organized. You have to find whatever you need, at the right time and at the right place. These might sound small things, but they save you a lot of time and sometimes will save your day. Also keep your distractions especially social media such as Facebook and Twitter which is not related in any way to your business and is not helping your business.
Time is indeed money, especially for a small business owner who are small on the resources and money. Therefore, effective time management is very essential for small business owners. By following the above listed 6 time management tips small business owners can accomplish their tasks and even help them find some time for themselves for personal things by the end of the week.
