I received a good question in an email this week and thought many of you may benefit from an answer. The question was, “How can you grow, build your business when you work, need to spend time with the kids, etc.â€
I’m going to tell you what I think, I hope you’ll be able to use that and come up with your own plan.
Time Management 101
First of all I do have some experience. When I first started my business I worked 3 or 4 12 hour shifts a week at a hospital, and went to school (3 evenings a week), and ran my business.
Goals – you need to keep the end in mind. Times will get hard and you’ll feel like giving up or throwing in the towel. If you have concrete goals, it will help you tremendously.
Beware of distractions –
Distractions are numerous. Each person is different, find yours and then get rid of it. Some examples of distractions: social media, television, are two of the worst. An easy way to solve both those problems is to block your social media from your computer and don’t sit anywhere close to a television.
Make your time count –
I did this in weekly segments.
- List things you have to do – show up for a tutor session, interview a potential employee.
- List things you need to do – what you need to do, but not necessarily this week.
- Things you would like to do – what you would do if you had more time.
In each of those segments – make sure you have at least one item each day for work, business, and family.
For me an example would be –
Have to do – go to work, client work, read to Haley
Need – Job take class to finish degree, get new client, family game night
Want – Job (quit), create a new product, teach my daughter how to read
One thing I learned to do during this time was how to delegate. I did not like it at all, but I learned to do it and taught my wife how to do some work for me (and she still does).
More good tips can be found here – http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/time-management/wl00048
Inspiration – Â Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.
William Penn
Tool of the Week – many time management tools are on this page – http://www.mindtools.com/pages/main/newMN_HTE.htm#
Follow us / more information.
You can find much more information on our blog. Just use the search box and type something in, you may be surprised at what you find.
http://www.cleverapple.com/blog/
Hope you have a wonderful day.