Don’t Let Your Business Run You: Time Management Tips

Why did you decide to launch your own business? Did you spy an opportunity in the market and go for it? Perhaps you left your job for maternity leave and preferred the option of working from home. Maybe you liked the thought of being your own boss and the ability to write your own schedule so that you can spend your time doing the things you care about.

But running a business while juggling family commitments can be challenging, to say the least. You have probably discovered that you do not have as much time to spend outside work as you thought. As a business owner, you need to be on call to be sure of a steady income. You are probably no stranger to carrying your smartphone in one hand and your child’s hand in the other.

So how can you free up more time to spend with your family and really enjoy life, rather than expending most of your energy on worrying about business, bills and finance. Make business enjoyable again with our time management top tips, from diary management to call centre outsourcing.  Or why not try a short, one-day training course from a company like Activia?

Diary management.

The tried and tested classic, diary management can help you stay on top and in control of daily tasks as well as new business opportunities, phone calls and meetings. It allows you to map out your time more effectively. Seeing your day written out in front of you will help you see how you spend your time compared to how you would like to spend your time.

To help you manage your tasks more effectively, why not try Wunderlist, which is available for free on Apple, Microsoft and Android devices. It enables you to list and track items on your to-do list and achieve your goals for the day. Assign deadlines to yourself and tick the box when the task is done. The app allows you to streamline your daily activities and to track your progress.

While it’s great for soloists, Wunderlist also enables you to collaborate with colleagues or clients on projects. Share ideas, tools and update your status on tasks. 

Learn to delegate.

If you run a business with a few employees, a great way to steal more time for yourself is to empower your employees by delegating tasks to them. One of the things business owners find most difficult to do is to trust that their business won’t fall apart when they take a day off.

With 19% of business owners claiming to work over sixty hours a week, and 56% saying that they would like to work less than thirty hours a week, it is clear that many people are indeed living to work rather than working to live.

For many people this can defeat the reason they chose to start their own business in the first place. Become your own boss again and delegate to those who you hired for their competence and understanding.

Start small of course. Empower your employees and build their responsibilities over time. Free yourself up to deal with the actual running of your business, and the rest of your life.

Outsourcing

Outsourcing some of your daily activities can be a great way to streamline the way you run your business. If you don’t have employees to delegate tasks to or you simply can’t handle the work load, consider outsourcing as your solution.

Outsource what you aren’t good at, or the thing that consumes most of your time. For instance, when you outsource your call answeringto a third party, you suddenly relinquish responsibility for one of the most time consuming but frequently unimportant tasks. Outsource your calls and enjoy the freedom to browse your messages and respond to the ones most urgent to you.

If you spend your life with your phone glued to your ear, outsourcing your phone calls could be a way of freeing you from its vice-like grip on your time with your family. When you enlist the help of an outsourcing provider, you entrust an aspect of your business to experienced professionals who can make your life easier, saving you time and money.

This article was written by Sue Ratcliffe at alldayPA, a UK-based 24 hour telephone answering service provider, answering calls for businesses of all sizes. This guest post complies with my Disclosure Policy and PR Guidelines. 

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