Essential Time Management Tips for Entrepreneurs

Time management is not something that all individuals are born with, nor is it something that’s often taught in schools—but nevertheless, time management is something that can obtain. Not only can they, but they should, especially if they happen to be business owners. There is no one who more urgently needs time management capabilities than the entrepreneur. Running a start-up or a small business is always challenging, but it becomes exponentially less taxing when you know how to make the best possible use of your precious hours and minutes.

It takes some discipline and some practice, especially at the beginning, as you seek to cultivate the proper habits and rituals. With that said, business owners who begin working on their time management skills now can find themselves exerting mastery over their time, sooner rather than later.

KEY STEPS TO EFFICIENT TIME MANAGMENT

1. ‘CALENDERIZE’

The first step, and one that will seem obvious to some but revelatory to others, is to take the time needed to put everything on a calendar. The need to ‘calendarize’ your time is great. The time you spend on every task, including driving, shopping, having meetings of phone conferences—all of this needs to go on the calendar.

Business owners should not only include the time it will take for each daily task, but also the time of day when they intend to have everything finished. Schedule the time when your day will end, and try to abide by that. You need some down time to recharge your batteries, and, for many business owners, the only way to get that down time is to schedule it.

Making a calendar will take up additional time at the start of each day. The goal, though, is for it to ultimately open up still more time, as you better prioritize and coordinate your daily activities.

2. TACKLE YOUR BIGGEST CHALLENGES EARLY

Another secret to effective time management is tackling the most arduous and daunting tasks early in the day. You need to address your biggest challenges when you are at your peak—your most alert, your most energetic, and your most productive. For the vast majority of us, that’s in the morning.

The best-case scenario of tackling your biggest challenges early in the day is that you put them behind you, and you can breathe a sigh of relief. The worst-case scenario is that you have to deal with follow-up issues, which may throw your daily routine off just a little, yet it’s still better to handle these issues on the same day rather than roll them over until morning.

3. FILE AS YOU GO

Another tip is to avoid the need to schedule “filing time” by simply filing things as they materialize. One of the quickest ways to create more work for yourself is to start a to-file pile, because then you just have to stop and schedule a block of time for filing, at some later date. By contrast, filing as you go eliminates this need and allows you to plow forward with greater efficiency.

This is true not just for physical document but also for e-mails, contacts, and other important pieces of data.

4. DELEGATE

Of course, time management and delegation go hand in hand. When you have people working with you who you can trust and depend on, that makes everything easier, and it allows you to farm out assignments and free up more time for yourself. Many business owners will say that they just can’t trust the people who work with them—but if that’s the case, you have a personnel problem, not merely a time management one, and you need to address it urgently.

In all business contexts, there are assignments that can easily be delegated. It may be something as simple as running an errand, but that’s still time saved, and one less thing you have to deal with.

5. MAP OUT TOMORROW’S TO-DOs

While taking some down time in the evenings is important, it can sometimes be helpful to take just a few moments in the evening to prepare for the next day. Mapping out your appointments and starting the next day’s to-do list can help you to get a running start when the next work day begins.

6. MAKE USE OF WAIT TIME

Still another piece of time management advice: Make use of ‘waiting’ times. Whether you’re in a waiting room before an appointment or you’re on a plane, every minute counts—and there are some easy steps you can take to redeem that time. Whether it’s responding to e-mails or confirming LinkedIn connections via smartphone, you can absolutely use this time to your advantage.

7.  MANAGE MEETING TIME

Insist on seeing an agenda before attending any meeting. The agenda will let you know if it’s really something you need to spend your time on, and it also suggests that the meeting will be run in a somewhat orderly fashion. Get an agenda, or else politely decline the meeting.

One final thing to remember: Avoid multi-tasking, If there’s something that needs doing, give it your complete focus—and avoid having to re-do it, or spend more time on it than it really necessitates.

One final thing to remember: Avoid multi-tasking. If there’s something that needs doing, give it your complete focus—and avoid having to re-do it, or spend more time on it than it really necessitates.