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5 Secrets to managing your time effectively to help you create a successful business.

For more on time management please see also see the AAT article about my workshop

http://tinyurl.com/2w6td5r 

There are still only 24 hours in 1 day so how you manage them could be the key to creating a successful business. Prior to coaching I worked in local government. I only worked 3 days a week and during this time I had to develop policies, organise central training programmes for 200-250 staff and oversee the production of performance management information for the entire housing department – around 6 sets of about 20 performance indicator figures each month. All this with only one member of staff directly reporting to me! This meant that I was juggling between 15 and 20 separate projects at any one time…but it also meant I got a fantastic foundation for my time management skills which I honed even further when I became a coach.

When I started my coaching business in 2007, not only was I a single parent, I also ran the business from home. Life, at times, could be chaotic. So I quickly discovered and developed the following time management tools. I now use them all the time with fantastic results and coach small businesses to do the same.

These are my Top Five Time Management secrets:

Secret 1 Prioritise (put first things first)

•Be clear about your business goals and the values supporting them, this will determine your priorities and where you spend your time. Remember there are only a certain amount of hours in the day and spend them wisely on what’s important to you to get the things you need to do, done.

•Ensure you write a to-do list at the end of each day and prioritise effectively; if you have a lot of 1s, renumber each after that as 1a, 1b and so on.

Secret 2 Plan

•No matter how busy you think you are, ensure you spend some time each week deciding how and when you will do things. You’ll be surprised how planning things in this way can help you find even more time to do things.

•Use gantt charts to plan tasks and projects, so that some things can happen concurrently and others consecutively – and ensure you know which are which!

Secret 3 Manage yourself

•Deal with procrastination by eating more frogs (especially the ugliest ones first) to ensure you get all those things you really don’t fancy, done.

•Or my favourite, imagine something you really love doing and once you reach the peak of that state, start to do the thing you’ve been putting off for ages immediately. This causes a neurological link to be made between the old and new behaviour.

Secret 4 Manage your environment

•Ensure that you turn off those annoying sounds each time an e-mail comes in,

•Turn off the phone when you have designated/blocked out specific time to work on that article or sales e-mail.

•Make sure you know where everything is – you’d be surprised how much time you spend looking for that lost file on the computer, or the paper one that’s not where it’s supposed to be. A little time organising your filing system really pays dividends when your client unexpectedly rings and wants to talk about that thing (what thing??!) you discussed last month!!!?

Secret 5 Manage others (tactfully!)

•Who’s priorities are you working to? Ensure you have protected time for the things you need it for.

•Eliminate things that waste your time and above all, learn to say ‘no’ without feeling guilty.

•Delegate as much as possible to willing helpers or swap free services for other services. When I started I gave two free sessions to a website developer who then ’tweaked’ my website and put my websites on a before and after page on hers. Not only did I get a vastly improved website, but I also got a link directing people to my site from hers, improving my google rating. I also didn’t have to spend my time further developing the site. Never underestimate what you can swap for free services!!

Coral Jones, is director of Coaching for Results, which coaches small businesses and runs workshops on business confidence and time management in Portishead, just of the M5, near Bristol. You can contact Coaching for Results on t:01275 843923, m:07891 194 892 or through their new website www.coaching4rslts.co.uk