It’s a classic question for business owners in every industry: how am I going to find the time to do all of this?
Balancing everything from managing employees, to keeping on top of finances, to finding new business while maintaining existing clients, is enough to make anyone wonder how 24 hours in a day is even close to enough.
As businesses grow, things will only get busier, which creates the need to establish a solid plan for managing time as effectively as possible.
Of course, such a plan will vary for every business owner, depending on their individual needs, goals and management style, but general tips and tricks are always a good place to start regardless of these factors. The Intuit Small Business Blog has recently published an article entitled 7 Tips for Effective Time Management that takes a look at some basic things business owners can do in order to ensure they’re using their time to maximum effect.
Here’s a look at one:
2. Prioritize wisely. Stephen Covey, co-author of First Things First, offers an organizational tool for your to-do list based on how important and urgent tasks are.
Looking at what goes into making up your day, where do your activities fit into these categories?
- Important and urgent — Tasks that must be done. Do them right away.
- Important but not urgent — Tasks that appear important, but upon closer examination aren’t. Decide when to do them.
- Urgent but not important — Tasks that make the most “noise,” but when accomplished, have little or no lasting value. Delegate these if possible.
- Not urgent and not important — Low-priority stuff that offer the illusion of “being busy.” Do them later.
Prioritizing is a major aspect of managing our time. We’re always going to have more work than time, but if we make an effort to determine what work needs immediate attention, what can wait a little bit and what can be considered almost an afterthought, it’ll be a lot easier to approach each task and check them off the to-do list.
The article contains 6 additional tips to help business owners become more effective in terms of making the most of their working hours. If you’ve been stressing a bit more than usual about how you’re going to find the time to take care of everything that crosses your desk, we’d recommend giving it a read.
What do you think? Did you find this article useful? Do you have any tips for time management that you find help? Your thoughts are always welcome, so let us know!
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Staying an extra hour at work at the end of the day may not be the most effective way to manage our time and spending more time on something doesn’t necessarily achieve more.
If we never have enough time to finish our tasks, better time management will helps to control of our day. For better time management, it may be more important to continue with what you were doing rather than be distracted by any other work.