One: Managing Your Time

Given that you are responsible for a wide range of responsibilities and activities, learning to effectively manage yourself and your time is an ongoing challenge and one that is critical to your long-term satisfaction running your own business.

The rewards for effective time management are considerable. These include increased productivity, an increased sense of accomplishment, and reduced stress and pressure.

Learning to treat time as a valuable resource may mean more delegation of responsibilities. For example, spending your time on administrative and bookkeeping activities may not be the best use of your talent if they drain you of the time or energy required for key management tasks critical to the success of your business.

Delegating responsibility also helps prepare others to take over key management tasks, when necessary. You should have a plan in place for how the business will be managed if you are unable to be there due to sickness or injury.

Small business people, like most other people, often have an unreal idea of how they spend their work hours. Before you can use your time more effectively, you must understand how you use time now. Keep a log sheet (for a week or so) to help you establish how much time you spend on different activities. Then decide if you're spending your time the way you want to. If you aren't, decide on a way to allocate your time to match your business priorities.