I don’t think I’ve ever met a business owner who wasn’t busy. Managing your time is one of the hardest things you’ll need to do as an entrepreneur. There’s always too much to do, so you’ll need to manage your time well in order to get everything done. Here are my top time management tips:

1. Find out what you’re doing with your time.

One of the first things to do is to actually find out what you are doing with your time. Try monitoring your time for a week and see what’s going on. Use colour coding if it makes things easier i.e. yellow for administrative tasks; blue for marketing; green for client work and so on. At the end of the week, you’ll be able to see what you’re spending too much time on and adjust your time accordingly.

2. Get organised

The more organised you get yourself, the more you’ll be able to handle all the tasks you need to do. Tidy your desk; set up filing systems; and have procedures to deal with the work that comes in. I know it’s hard, but try to deal with each thing only once so that you get it out of the way.

3. Practise the “Do it now” philosophy

As soon as a new task comes in, try to “do it now”. You’ll be amazed at how many tasks you can get rid of. Things very rarely take as long as you think they will once you get cracking.

4. Do things in short bursts

If you’re really not looking forward to doing a task, make yourself do it for 5 minutes only. If you know you’re only going to be doing it for 5 minutes, it doesn’t look as daunting. And once you’ve got started on the task, you’ll probably find you’ll continue on it once the 5 minutes is up.

5. Ask yourself “what’s stopping you?”

Lack of time is often used as an excuse for not doing something. If you find yourself putting something off because you “don’t have the time”, ask yourself what’s going on. Questioning what’s stopping you completing tasks can often really help you decide whether or not to do them.

6. Don’t be afraid to drop a task

Look, if you haven’t completed a task; you’ve asked yourself “what’s stopping you”; and you’ve reached the conclusion that you really don’t want to do it, don’t be afraid to drop the task altogether. We often agree to things that don’t actually benefit us and if a task falls into this category, make the decision that you have the choice to drop the task.

7. You have a choice

As entrepreneurs, we start each day with a blank piece of paper and choose how to fill our time. You don’t have to agree to everything unless you want to do it or it helps you to achieve your goals.

8. Set goals

Setting goals will help keep you motivated and focused. Decide on three personal goals that you’d love to complete over the next year and three business ones. The goals must be things that you really want to do. Your time should then be spent on tasks and activities that help you complete these goals.

9. Accept that it’s impossible to get everything done

There’s only so much time in a day. Even if you’re the most efficient person ever, if you have too many tasks you won’t get them all completed. Accept this and don’t feel too guilty if you miss out on a few.

10. Have fun

Finally, remember as an entrepreneur to have some fun. Running a business isn’t all about working – take some time off too. If you develop a hobby or an interest that takes your mind off the business, you’ll be much more productive as a result.

There’s no one solution to managing your time. The trick is to find things that work for you, Try different things, have fun and do the things that help you to achieve your goals for what you want from your business.

Exceptional Thinking (http://www.exceptionalthinking.co.uk) provides advice and help for small business owners on their marketing and for people setting up a business.

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Time Management Tips – Avoiding Overwhelm
By Sharon Teitelbaum

I left a meeting with one of my mentors recently with a page of fabulous next steps for my coaching, workshop, and book business. There were probably 10 actionable items noted on the page, each one of which was the tip of a project iceberg. I left the meeting in full overwhelm. It’s not as if I’m underutilized these days!

I took the page back to my office and put it on my desk where I could see it while I did other work. Now and then I would look over at the page and feel awful. Before the afternoon was out I realized a few things about me and that page.

First, I realized that I wished I was “the kind of person who” could knock off some of those items in no time flat. Someone who could devote a couple of hours one evening and crank out high level results for, say, half of the items on the list. And then do the other half the next morning. But I am not that person, and I felt diminished by my less than favorable comparison.

Then I realized that:

• I had completely imagined this brilliantly efficient person who could work oh-so-much-faster and better than I can.
• As soon as I had invented her, I went into a compare-and-despair routine, which did not support me to take any action.
• Since I had invented this character who was a better me than I was, I could also make her disappear. So I made her disappear.

At that point, my resistance fell away, and I could finally take on the list for what it simply WAS: some potential projects for 2006. I stopped being overwhelmed.

Now I could actually do something useful. My first order of business was to identify which projects I wanted to take on, period. And then to prioritize: which tip of which iceberg would be first in line. And my second order of business was to schedule some project time into my calendar for Iceberg #1. At this point I became energized.

Very often, what’s at the heart of feeling overwhelmed is resisting your limits. A panicked lawyer client with pneumonia, sick children, and a huge trial coming up expected herself to pull all-nighters as she had when she was in college. Once she accepted that she was no longer as “invincible” as she had been in her younger, simpler circumstances, she was able to get over her panic, plan how to use her limited resources strategically, and get going.

What personal or structural limitation are you resisting? If you can accept the real limits of your circumstances, chances are good you can move beyond feeling overwhelmed and get back to work, which is where the breakthroughs happen.

A steady diet of feeling overwhelmed is not good for you.

Copyright 2006 Sharon Teitelbaum. All rights reserved.

Master Certified Coach Sharon Teitelbaum is an authority on work life balance and an expert life coach to busy professionals, high achievers, people at midlife, and working parents. Her book, Getting Unstuck Without Coming Unglued: Restoring Work-Life Balance, is a strategic, tactical guide for maintaining a sane and balanced life, distilled from her experience coaching hundreds of people. A sought-after keynote speaker and workshop leader, Sharon has addressed such diverse audiences as Harvard Medical School Faculty, financial advisors at Merrill Lynch, and Mothers’ of Twins Clubs. She has been featured in national publications including The New York Times, Working Mother Magazine, and Forbes.com. Sharon works with individual coaching clients throughout the US and internationally by phone, or in person in the Boston area, and always offers an initial consultation at no charge. Married for thirty-plus years, she is the mother of two fabulous grown-up daughters.

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