Techniques to become a Good Time Manager

1. Batching Tasks

Each time you start a new task it takes time to “warm up”, you have to gather all the materials you need and it takes a while before you find a flow. Once you are done you need to put everything away, which wastes several minutes as well. By spending longer time on each task you decrease the amount of time you spend “Warming up” 
and “Cooling down” every day.

2. Planning Your Weeks

By organizing your weeks to streamline processes and batch tasks you will save a lot of time. It also grants you the calm to know that you will be doing all your tasks during the week. I have noticed in myself, and others, that it is easy to feel as though I should be doing more each day, but once I started using a weekly schedule I didn’t need to feel this way, since I knew the tasks would be handled at the right time.

3. Prioritizing you day

Most of us fail to start with the most important (and often most time consuming) task. Instead we hide and do simple tasks such as checking our email.The problem with that approach is that it leaves the most difficult tasks to the end of the day. If you instead organize your day to have the most difficult tasks first and then have them getting easier and easier. It will motivate you to work faster since your day will be over once you have finished the final simple task.

How to Manage Your Own Business

Managing your time is easy when you only have a few assigned tasks. However, when you have your own business, you must manage everything, from the smallest details to the largest ones.

Write a business plan (see Resources). If you expect to obtain any kind of financing, you will need a formal business plan. If you are not seeking financing,you still need something written down.It doesn't matter if it's only a few pages or if it's very lengthy,you must have something on paper so that you will know where your business is going.

Ensure that you are following all legal codes and regulations. This includes business licensing, collecting sales taxes (if necessary) and maintaining all the proper employee paperwork. You also need to ensure that you are paying all taxes you owe by the deadlines. Consult with an attorney for further details, or see if you can find a small business advisor.

Keep track of all of your sales and expenses. No matter what type of business you are managing, you are selling something either time or a physical product. You must have a system for keeping tracking of this. Also,you need to keep track of all business-related expenses and receipts. Using Quick-books can be of great assistance, but some prefer to use a customized Excel sheet. Others avoid the computer and use a hand ledger. Do what works for you. Keep your business and personal expenses separate. You must have a separate business account.

Make a list of all tasks that need to be completed. Plan how you and/or your staff are going to complete them and meet the deadline. Do not be afraid to delegate.Give feedback to your employees or contractors on a regular basis. This could be weekly, monthly, quarterly or yearly. If you work by yourself, request feedback from your clients by sending them an email survey or putting a survey in the mail with a return envelope that is stamped.

Re-evaluate your business plan on a regular basis. See if you are progressing or remaining stagnant. Determine if market conditions indicate that you need to change focus.

Manage Your Time In Multitasking World

Time management is one of those skills no one teaches you in school but you have to learn. It doesn’t matter how smart you are if you can’t organize information well enough to take it in. And it doesn’t matter how skilled you are if procrastination keeps you from getting your work done.

1. Do the most important thing first

When you sits down to work in the morning, before ypu checks any email, spend an hour on the most important thing on your to-do list. This is a great idea because even if you can’t get the whole thing done in an hour, you’ll be much more likely to go back to it once you’ve gotten it started.This dash works best if you organize the night before so when you sit down to work you already know what your most important task of the day is.

2. Don’t leave email sitting in your in box

“The ability to quickly process and synthesize information and turn it into actions is one of the most emergent skills of the professional world today,”. Organize email in file folders. If the message needs more thought, move it to your to-do list. If it’s for reference, print it out. If it’s a meeting, move it to your calendar.Take action on an email as soon as you read it.

3. Keep web site addresses organized

Use book marking services like del.icio.us to keep track of web sites. Instead of having random notes about places you want to check out, places you want to keep as a reference, etc., you can save them all in one place, and you can search and share your list easily.

4. Think about keystrokes

If you’re on a computer all day, keystrokes matter because efficiency matters. “On any given day, an information worker will do a dozen Google searchers. “How many keystrokes does it take? Can you reduce it to three? You might save 10 seconds, but over time, that builds up.”

5. Organize your to-do list every day

If you don’t know what you should be doing, how can you manage your time to do it? Some people like writing this list out by hand because it shows commitment to each item if you are willing to rewrite it each day until it gets done. Other people like software that can slice and dice their to-do list into manageable, relevant chunks. 

6. Dare to be slow

Remember that a good time manager actually responds to some things more slowly than a bad time manager would. For example, someone who is doing the highest priority task is probably not answering incoming email while they’re doing it.  “There are more important tasks than processing email. Intuitively, we all know this. What we need to do now is recognize that processing one’s work (evaluating what’s come in and how to handle it) and planning one’s work are also mission-critical tasks.”