7 Tips for Small Business Owners on How to Manage Time

One of the most important assets that small business owners have is time. You can lose money and still earn it back. A business can go bankrupt, and still manage to reverse its financial status over time.

But time is not that way. There’s no way to get it back if you lose it, and that’s why you should protect it with all you can. Below are seven time management tips to help you protect that valuable asset today.

1. Track Your Time

Time management tip 1: The first step to manage your time is to do complete a whole day of time logging. You can do this by logging your activities on a spread sheet or paper. You should list everything, from the time you wake up to the time you sleep at night. You only need to do this once on a typical work day. That way you can find out how you spend your time on an average day.

2. Determine the Time Wasters

Once you have completed the time logging activity, you will be able to identify where you waste your time each day. You should look at your time log and categorise the activities. You should also total the time of day you have recorded. Then determine the percentage of the time you have spent on every activity. The goal is to find the activities in which you spend a lot of time in; from here you can see how to manage time. Some of the categories that you should consider include phone calls, errands, email, meetings, and breaks, just to name a few.

3. Utilise the Pomodoro Technique

The pomodoro technique is a popular time management process that involves allocating 25 minutes on a specific task, and then taking a five minute break before taking on another task. Through time logging, you will be able to identify the tasks in which you spend too little or too much time on. Then you can schedule daily and weekly goals for your tasks in each category.

4. Apply the 80/20 Rule

Another useful time management tip; find out where you must spend more time is the 80/20 rule, which states that 80 percent of the results come from 20 percent of one’s efforts. In order to effectively use one’s time, it is important to increase the time spent within the 20 percent category. That way you will be able to get good results.

5. Learn to Delegate Properly

How to manage time: learn the art of delegation. A small business owner must learn how to rely on others to get the job done. But that doesn’t mean giving your employees responsibilities before they have proper training for the task. In order to delegate properly, one must hire the right people, as well as providing training existing workers.

6. Avoid Employees

Once you have trained your workers, you should then avoid them while at work. Employees tend to waste your time with never-ending problems. In some instances, employees try to get your attention whenever they can. It is recommended to have a personal workplace that’s away from the main area where the employees work.

7. Avoid Distractions

You should try your best to avoid being distracted while at work. There are lots of distractions, especially if you work at home. You should also try to achieve your goals now before taking up new opportunities; managing your time is the number one battle you need to win to free you up to find and explore more opportunities.

About the author

Scott Whitehead is a business coach for Pro-actions, focusing on helping small business owners work on efficiency. For a free chat about what Scott can do for you and your business, including managing your time, contact us today!