I consider time management to be very vital in this day and age where everything is moving fast. We just don’t have enough time and doubt we will ever have enough time. Managing your time right is of great essences, more especially as a new business owner or entrepreneur.
It might not come natural to some, for most of us it didn’t, however it is a skill which means you can acquire such as a skill. It is vital to have the right skills and tools – starting a virtual assistant business made me take time management seriously and had to get these skills and tools really early on.
Here are some of the tools and things I use to manage my time:
1. Plan Ahead
This is very crucial you need to plan ahead that means setting clear and SMART goals – Your to do list has to be clear and not clustered with unnecessary things. Something I do is write down my list every night for the coming day, classify five (depending on the length of my list) as very important and urgent then use a certain colour to highlight that, classify two which are of secondary importance or important but not urgent, use a different colour highlighter to highlight that and fix my focus on that. Be sure not to totally neglect the other points on the list.
The is this great app that I also use which does this very well and also has a feature to help you prioritize your tasks. I use this app most of the time, but I like writing a lot and sometimes prefer manually planning, but Trello is a great task managing app.
2. SAY NO
Most entrepreneurs don’t realize this at the first few or so months and years sometimes, you are the boss! If you say no to a request that you deem will take you away from attending a meeting with a potential client or to attend a much more important matter – say NO, don’t hesitate to do so. That could be also saying no to certain deals or projects (tasks that are too good to be true). Avoid time wasters.
3. Delegate More
If you are fortunate enough to have dedicated employees with good work ethics, delegate some responsibilities to them alternatively, outsource to a virtual assistant, tasks that are important but might be time wasters to you, tasks like managing your emails and proof reading documents or keeping your clients engaged (customer care), this also lets your employees know that you trust them. As a business owner you cannot do everything by yourself you will soon burnout if you attempt to do so.
Always be on the look out of tasks to delegate to your employees and/or virtual assistant.
4. Avoid Distractions
It is easy to get distracted by the 'beep' notifications from your Facebook Page or emails, with the kind of work I do my business is on the internet or desktop, it is inevitable that I might feel the edge to constantly check my emails, Facebook Page or groups. I had to find a tool to avoid this and spend time on actual work rather than constantly checking emails and social media. FocusMe is a great FREE app that helps with this, it lets you block yourself out of certain apps and websites, certainly you will need to have some sort of discipline to set this up in the first place (I consider self-discipline to be an important attitude to have in being a successful leader or entrepreneur) FocusMe also has a feature to set a reminder to take time out! You need to take time out to refocus and reboot your energy.
5. Track Your Time
How productive are you currently per hour? Or even per week? Time tracking is important, certainly for businesses that bill per hour like most virtual assistant businesses.
Time tracking helps you monitor and evaluate exactly how much time you spend on a certain task. I use Toggle which is also FREE (I am always looking to reduce overhead and need some freebies along the way sometimes) This app tracks the hours you take to complete a single task. On Toggle you can quickly and easily clock in and out various tasks and projects throughout the day, it can easily also calculate your hours to bill.
Please note, all apps mentioned or similar apps are available in paid versions and very efficient.
PS. Don’t forget to take time out to eat and sleep! It is important for mental and physical health, spend your ‘timeout’ time with people you love or doing something you love.
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