As entrepreneurs we think we have to be financial planners, web designers, managers, purchasing agents, and much more in one person. We may also have many obligations for our families and friends and want to accomplish everything with perfection. Being everywhere and tackling every task that comes along our way will not always be possible and you may even feel you dug yourself into a hole. That is the time to reconsider your time management.
When it is obvious that you cannot to complete everything that comes along your way you should ask yourself what the best way is how you can utilize your time and energy today. I suggest sorting all things you want to accomplish in three different lists. The first list contains items that are absolutely vital to keep your business running. The second contains all things that go along with your long term goal. For example if you wanted to write a book and count on writing a chapter each day, this would be list two. Finally the third list contains all these tasks that are not absolutely necessary or you things you would do because they are either easy or nice to do. Prioritize list two and three. Then for the day complete all items on list one, half of the items on list 2 and finally one or two from list three. When you have completed these you can tackle to finish items on list two and then three. The point is that by finishing the most crucial items first you make sure your business keeps running and it’ll probably give you a huge boost of accomplishment when you completed all these.
You can create one big prioritized list for the week and reconsider every five tasks to include new important things that may have come up. Starting with the most important items will give you great satisfaction when completed and energize you to move on. At some point down the list it should be much easier for you to call it a day and get some rest.
You can also take each task and split it up in many sub-tasks. For example instead of the task “call vendors”, write call vendor A, call vendor B, call vendor C. Or let’s say you wanted to revise the menu in case you are running a restaurant you could write revise the entrees, revise the lunch items, etc. The advantage is that you will still have to complete the entire task, but by completing all the sub-tasks one by one you get the psychological confirmation of actually achieving something.
What also helps is to include tasks concerning your health and well being or with your family and friends in at times you would usually still be busy. Assuming you are usually starting early, add a task to have extended breakfast with the kids or relax in the park. Whatever you enjoy doing but think you shouldn’t be doing it because other things are possibly more important, that make a high priority in your time management list. It is very important to also prioritize for body and soul, and relationships with family and friends. All these are very important, they help avoiding that we feel burned out and completing these “tasks” gives us back important energy to keep going.
Setting boundaries is very important to make sure you don’t burn out. One boundary can be a maximum number of hours you work per day or the number of hours you work without a break. Meaning that just when you reached these maximum numbers of hours you stop working no matter whether are done or not. When you are honest with yourself you know that at a certain degree of exhaustion or sleep deprivation you can as well stop working because it doesn’t change your output significantly. That is actually one of the best habits in terms of time management of successful entrepreneurs. They know when it is enough.
Outsourcing of certain well defined tasks is another active measure of successful time management. Look at all the hats you want to wear and select those you can easily give someone else. And if it is just a friend or family member for a certain time, you will see that you are not always indispensable. And this is a very important lesson to learn. You cannot be everywhere and some people may actually be more talented in doing advertising, accounting, etc. and be worth the money spent.
Want to find out more about time management, then visit this site on how to work efficiently work efficiently.