Time Management, is it real?
August 12, 2007 by Kylie Short
Time management and multitasking are buzz words that have been around in the business world for years. My question to my fellow business mums is, are they real? Everyday we deal with children, spouses, friends and our family and their needs. But how does this impact on the management of our businesses and in particular our time?
Working from home still has the image of women ‘playing at business’ and unless we manage our time effectively, this is exactly what we are. So how do we manage our time effectively to ensure our families are happy, that our customers are happy, but most important that we are happy too?
I’m going to be radical and tell everyone to throw out their ability to multitask. And no, I’m not talking about how we cook tea with a baby on one hip, phone on one ear talking to a ‘needy friend’ having issues while refereeing older children and staving off blood noses. That’s just called being a mum. I’m talking about how we try to do too many business tasks at the same time. Personally, I just can’t do it anymore. Being a Virtual Assistant I pride myself on only charging my client’s for time spent on task. In fact I promote that’s what I do. But what happens when I receive an urgent email request or a friend pops up on instant messaging for a chat? I lose focus and I feel that I’m doing that particular client a disservice. I’m not living up to my personal standards that my business is hinged upon.
To manage our time effectively and efficiently it’s important to create a schedule of sorts and stick to it. Record your family commitments such as sport and other after school commitments, preschool attendance and date night. You also need to record times for doing housework, groceries and other blah tasks that need to be done to keep the household running smoothly. This will then help you to identify time slots that you have available for working in and on your business.
Your schedule doesn’t have to be strict and unattainable. It needs to be the opposite and allow for flexibility and for change. Personally, I know that after I drop my son’s to school and preschool, I allow an hour for tidying up, cleaning the breakfast dishes, to have my shower and to put my baby girl to sleep. As for the actual tidying up it might be sweeping the floors today, it might be cleaning the handprints off the fridge tomorrow. The key is to have some idea of when you are going to do certain tasks and then concentrate solely on that task to ensure it gets done.
When it’s time to work on your business, shut out all distractions including children. If need be, arrange play dates with other WAHM or SAHM so your children still get the play time they need and you get the business time you need. Work on one task at a time until it is done.
And finally, keep track of your tasks in a master to do list. Every night, transfer only what needs to be done the next day into your planner be it paper or electronic. Reasoning behind this is so it becomes easier to focus on what needs to be done immediately instead of becoming overwhelmed with EVERYTHING that needs doing.
Comments
4 Responses to “Time Management, is it real?”
I don’t know about multi-tasking, but I find that “it depends”. If I’m working on something has some serious brain power behind it, then I ignore anything that buzzes, rings, beeps (or whines) at me. But if I’m playing catch up with my email for the day, I can stop and answer an IM or whatever. BUT it also helps that Tom is here all day too, one of us is usually in a position to stop and take care of whatever fire needs some water… I’m also a major Getting Things Done (book/system by David Allen) convert so I’m all about the lists and “brain dumping” LOL.
I am definitely all about the lists. I have a master list which I transfer into tasks in my Outlook for the next day/week. Without it I am lost.
I think what I will have to start doing is ’scheduling’ my IM time too and turning it off other than those times. It’s the only way I know how to deal with it at the moment.
Nice work having hubby Tom as backup fireman.
I used to be the multi-tasking queen myself, but I have come to realize that focusing on one task at a time is so much more productive. There have actually been some studies now that show how much extra time it takes your brain to refocus on the task at hand if you get interrupted.
I have started scheduling in my calendar blocks of time to work on each client. For instance if I have committed to 10 hours a week of work for client A, I schedule 10 hours in to my calendar. Those times aren’t set in stone but I know if I didn’t do the 2 hours on Monday that I had planned to do for client A then I move those 2 hours over to Tuesdays calendar and do 4 hours on Tuesday.
When I am working on client work I do not answer the phone, check emails or respond to IMs (unless it happens to be that client).
I also keep a to do list and transfer it daily. Every morning I spend a few minutes prioritizing my list. Then I focus on one task at a time… it’s amazing how much more work I accomplish when I stick to this system.
Hey Kylie!!!
Love the post about time management. I was not fond of making lists or writing things down but I have had to make some adjustments with a growing business. When you get a sec…visit my blog. I found some cool to do list software. See ya on Skype!!