The Aspiring Entrepreneur: 9 Tips to Manage Your Time

As discussed in part 1 of this two part series effective time management is an important part of being a successful entrepreneur. This is particularly important if you are providing a service for individuals or businesses. You will only continue to get business if you are reliable and complete tasks in the timeframe given. Individuals and businesses have busy lifestyles and schedules and do not like to be inconvenienced. People and businesses will feel inconvenienced if tasks fall behind schedule. They are unlikely to give you repeat business if their first experience with you is
a disappointing or inconvenient one. As an aspiring entrepreneur with a new business it is essential that you build a reliable reputation. One key part of this is providing a service within the agreed time to the expected standard. It is important to remember at poor time management may result in tasks being rushed and as a result completed to a below par standard. Below are my remaining tips for managing you time effectively:

Plan your day ahead:
Ensure each task has a time in which it will be completed. Planning your day in advance means you won't spend each day wasting time planning what to do next. You will need to assign time slots to tasks this will also mean you need to estimate how long you think each task should take to complete. Having a daily and weekly schedule will ensure you structure your time and help you to meet targets. Ensure when you are planning when to do tasks that you set a realsitic timeframe. Being unrealistic about when a task will be completed may mean you are unable to meet deadlines. In addition it is important you only take on the amount of work you can complete. Although no one likes to turn away business this is sometimes more sensible than taking on too much and not completing any of it. An alternative option is to employ freelance workers so that when extra work becomes available you can still take it on. Without having to recruit permenant employees.

Give yourself deadlines:
If a task is left without a deadline then you will probably take longer to complete it. Deadlines give you something to aim for and allow you to structure your time. Additionally as long as the deadlines are realistic they can put a bit of pressure on you and motivate you. Further deadlines are good way of measuring how well you manage your time. If you find yourself not meeting deadlines you have set you need to objectively ask yourself why you have not met the deadline. Was it an unrealistic deadline or did you find yourself procrastinating instead of focusing on the task. One way in which you can set deadlines is through effective goal setting. You can learn more about effective goal setting by clicking here.

Be disciplined and don't get distracted:
Being distracted by typing text messages or going on irrelevant websites instead of doing the planned task can waste a lot of time. Ensure that everything you do during your working day is a functional task and is what you planned on doing. An effective way of ensuring you do not become distracted is to establish what environment you work most effectively in. For example if you are working from home is there a room you can use as an office so you are not distracted by the TV.

Use time management tools:
Time management tools aren't as complex as they might sound. Something as simple as using a diary to write your tasks in as reminders is a time management tool. With advancements in technology time management tools are available in a variety of formats. Devices such as iPads and iPhones offer platforms in order to help you manage time effectively. To learn more about time management techniques check out "time management techniques and systems" an article published by businessballs.com

Reflect:
One important method of knowing whether you are using your time effectively is by reflecting upon your day. Did you complete all of the tasks you wanted to complete? If you did what systems helped you? If you didn't complete all your tasks then ask yourself why? Maybe unexpected tasks occurred during the day or tasks took longer than what you'd planned for. Once you have established why you didn't complete tasks you can put strategies in place to ensure you manage your time more effectively.

If you still feel you need more information about time management I would recommend reading the below two articles:

This first article is called 10 Time Management Tips That Work and is available on Entrepreneur.com and written by Joe Mathews, Don Bebolt and Deb Percival