Don’t Blame Others for Lost Time

How many times have you dreamed of having more than 24 hours in a day?

Probably quite a few. But in reality, would you do things any differently? If you’ve got bad time management practices now, you’re likely to fill any extra hours in the same way.

Good time management involves planning, delegation and elimination of bad time-wasting practices, and it’s essential for small business owners.

Everyone is allocated the same amount of time each day. How you spend it will have a significant impact on how you perform in business.

You need to work out what hours you will allocate to work, sleep and leisure. Then work out how you will allocate the competing areas of responsibilities within your business, for example: sales, attention to clients and staff, planning, leadership, training and development and skills maintenance.

Working on your business, on the planning of your business, is really critical. This is where you need to be spending most of your time – looking for new opportunities, relationship building, long-term planning and so on. To achieve it you should try for a quiet, uninterrupted time each day. Consider having messages taken for you to return at specified times.

Other things to consider include:
 Goal setting and marking off when each task is completed
 Encourage your staff to set time goals and productivity targets
 Periodically prepare a log sheet of the amount of time you spend on various tasks
 Analyse your daily log at the end of each day. Did you achieve what you set out to do? Why didn’t you achieve what you set out to do?
 Control the telephone. Do not allow it to control you
 Determine the activities that waste your time and plan to overcome the problem
 Stick to agendas and time limits at meetings. Take minutes and distribute
 Create specific times when you will meet with visitors and network with colleagues
 Never blame other people for your time management problems!

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