Time Management
Don’t Let Your Business Manage You
Do you manage your business, or does it manage you? If your answer is that your business manages you, there are things you can do to turn that around!
Time management is crucial for effective business management. Especially if you (like me) work from a home office. It’s so easy to work from the time you get up in the morning until you’re too tired to go any further at night. Set a realistic work/break schedule for yourself, and stick to it.
Set goals that are slightly challenging, but yet attainable. Don’t reach for the the impossible, or you’ve just set yourself up for failure. Try offering yourself an incentive–when you reach your goal, there will be some kind of reward waiting for you at the end.
Make a plan. There are numerous project management tools available online. If you’d rather keep it offline, you can use a spreadsheet, text editor, to-do list on paper–whatever works for you. If it’s laid out nice & neat, then you have a road map for your workday, rather than just going where the wind blows.
Enjoy what you do. If you don’t, then change it! It’s as simple as that. I speak from experience when I say that, even though you may feel like you’re stuck where you’re at, you’re not. We all have choices; we just need to exercise our right to choose.
Ask for help when you need it. Nobody is super human, although we all try to be at times. If you are to a point in your business where you simply can’t handle it by yourself anymore, hire help. I don’t know who first said “You have to spend money to make money.” but it’s true. If you are paying someone to take some of the workload off you, it frees you up to do what you do best in your business, which increases your potential to make more money.
I work as an Online Business Manager. As such, I take the administrative tasks off the hands of my clients. I’d be happy to have a short brainstorming session with you about some of the ways you can streamline your business. Feel free to contact me at charly@obmelite.com.
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Time-Saving Tip
How can you utilize your available resources to your best advantage? This video might give you an idea:
(click here if the video below does not display properly in your browser.)
Using Project Management to Stay on Top of Thngs
I like to share processes or programs that help me to be successful in my business. Here’s a big one–project management applications. It’s not only helpful, it’s necessary to ensure thoroughness of a project.
Even projects that seem very simple can involve multiple steps and/or people.If you have a method of laying out a timeline which includes each of the steps involved, and who will be responsible for completing each step, then you’ve got a blueprint to refer to along the way. It helps to ensure you don’t miss anything that would cause to you have to backtrack, a possibly miss a deadline.
There are numerous tools available to help you with this.
Here are a few examples:
- Use whatever spreadsheet software you already have on your computer
- Use a Gantt chart. If you Google Gantt chart, you will find some free online applications.
- There are many online project management applications that are very good. Some are more expensive than others, and some have different functionality. You’ll want to do a little research to determine which one might best fit your needs and budget. Most offer a free trial–so you can really dive in and see how you like it. And some of them offer a somewhat limited free account. Here are just a few:
- http://basecamphq.com/
- http://www.aceproject.com/
- http://www.project.net/
- http://www.taskmerlin.com/
- http://www.centraldesktop.com/
- http://www.myintervals.com/time-tracking/
I’ve tried most of the programs in this list. For my own business, I’ve settled on the last one, at least for now.
Have fun with them, and good luck choosing the right one for your business!
Are You a Good Manager?
We are all managers! Whether you think you are not, you are a manager. You manage your time, your work/life responsibilities, and who knows what else. Your personal life may involve managing domestic chores, relationships or volunteer activities. In business, perhaps you have clients to manage, or bosses, scheduling, and so on.
How do you rate yourself as a manager of the things you manage? I have been in management in some capacity or other for most of my 30+ year career. One thing I’ve learned is that as times change, and the way of things change, you’ve got to be prepared to change with it. The way I managed things thirty years ago may not work today.
Here are some articles and websites I’ve found that you can utilize to assess your management skills:
I hope you find these helpful.
Oh, and if you have some great management tips, I’d love to have you share those as well!
Scheduling Naturally
Betwixt and Between
It’s that down time of year–the week between Christmas and New Years. For a lot of business owners, it’s an opportunity to take the week off, or at least lay low in your business.
What a perfect opportunity to…well…get caught up on your accounting, or do some computer maintenance, or work on your businiess plan for next year. I’m sure there are any number of things that get put on the back burner throughout the year that could get taken care of through this “down” time.
You certainly deserve a breather. After all, you’ve put your heart and soul into your business all year long. But, wouldn’t it feel good to be getting some things accomplished while you’ve got a little free time? Take your leisure time about it; you should be able to enjoy some of the quiet time and still get something done. The trick is pacing yourself.
Hey–I have an idea: What if we took a little down time every month to get those little nagging things done. Maybe every friday, or the last 2 days of the month…Now there’s an idea! Or, better yet, hire help!
Balance in Business–Balance in Life
The Importance of Flexibility
Goal Setting Time
From Frantic to Calm in Half an Hour
