Articles Tagged with small business

Time Management: Stay Healthy, My Friends

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Do you want improved focus and concentration?  Do you want to avoid burnout?  healthyDo you want to get the most out of every waking moment of your day?

The answer is simple:  Maintain a healthy lifestyle.  Don’t skip meals because you are too busy.  Get moving, walk the dog, go to the gym, play a sport, meet a friend for a coffee.  Maintain your physical and emotional health as well as the health of your business.

You can’t consistently stay up half the night working and then spend the next day feeling like an extra in a zombie movie.    “So many people spend their health gaining wealth, and then have to spend their wealth to regain their health.”  A.J. Reb Materi.  Don’t fall into this trap.  Stay healthy.

Staying healthy means mentally and emotionally as well as physically.  Reward yourself for a job well done.  A dinner out, a vacation day, a pair of new shoes, all these things will help to rejuvenate your spirit.  Definitely leave time for fun.  We all know the end result of “all work and no play.”

At all costs, avoid Burnout.  Burnout can be a physical or mental problem, but it is caused by overwork or stress.  Your body and mind simply can keep up with what you’re demanding.  “I won’t burnout – I’m invincible,” said every workaholic the moment before they burned out.  Your body will tell you when it has had enough.  When you’re falling asleep at your desk, do you think your boss more likely to think “wow, you’re working long hours” or “wow, you must have partied last night.”  When you make a typo in an important presentation, is anyone really going to consider the fact that you stayed up until 4:00 am to complete it?

Finally, I would like to suggest that we all avoid the martyr complex.  You can be a good spouse, a good worker, a good parent without always putting yourself last.  Consider your choices and treat yourself better.  Fast food vs. A home cooked meal, Driving to the store vs. Walking with the dog, Working late vs. An hour at the gym.  The easier or faster option is rarely the best choice.  It’s faster to drive through the burger joint than start the oven.  It’s easier to speed around in your car than it is to stop and smell the flowers.  It seems to be more productive to focus on work than to focus on well-being.  But consider your choices.  As the saying goes, nobody ever goes to their deathbed saying, “I wish I had spent more time at the office.”

We need to be kind to ourselves.  In the end, what would all this be without you around?

Time Management: Schedule for Success

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How many times have you sat in your office, scanning a news website or (gasp) schedulechecking your Facebook because you have a meeting in 15 minutes and there is no point in starting something new?  A big part of time management is learning to organize your time more effectively.

One helpful tip is to schedule your meetings for first thing in the morning, or for directly after lunch, so that you don’t have gaps in your schedule.  If you start work at 8:30 but have a meeting scheduled for 9:00, you may find that first half hour of the day is less productive than you would like.  Another tip is to schedule your meetings back-to-back if possible. You will find extra blocks of time throughout your day by following this simple rule.  If you do find yourself with pockets of “dead time” throughout the day, learn to use them to your advantage.  You’re walking the dog, but also working through the speech you have to give tomorrow morning.  You’re stuck in traffic so you’re planning your goals for the day.  You’re waiting for a meeting that is starting late, but making notes in your “To Do List.”  Using these moments to regain focus means more “me” time later on.

Scheduling for success also means you must set deadlines for everything.  Think back to the “ABC” method outlined in my blog:  “Time Management:  To Do Lists.”  Deadlines are easy for “A” and “B” tasks.  These tasks are urgent or important, you know you need to get them done, and it’s usually easy to assign a deadline.  What about those annoying, never ending “C” tasks?  Neither urgent nor important, they can go on forever and become a thorn in your side.   What happens when one day you suffer a moment of temporary insanity and volunteer to reorganize the file room?  For the next few weeks you walk into the file room, look at the boxes, plan, draw diagrams, theorize, sigh heavily and go back to your office.  You just don’t know where to start.  You can’t find the motivation.  There’s no urgency, there’s no deadline.

Inertia is NOT our friend.  You can’t get anything done if you don’t Get Started.  Tackle tasks by chipping away methodically.  Determine you’re going to spend 15 minutes per day on this task until it’s done.  Don’t be so overwhelmed by the volume of tasks that you do nothing at all.

You need to start the ball rolling and keep it rolling by managing distractions.  Close the door.  Turn off the ringer.  Hang the “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door.  Tell everyone that you are unavailable until a certain time.  I know people like to say their “door is always open,” but sometimes you really need to slam that sucker shut and get to work.

Part 6:  Time Management:  Stay Healthy, My Friends

Time Management: Quality Vs. Quantity

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We’ve all been asked this job interview question:  “What’s more important,

Quality or Quantity?
Quality or Quantity?

quality or quantity?”  It seems like a no brainer, quality is definitely more important, right?

In reality, doing everything perfectly while taking twice as long as everyone else is a guaranteed, one-way ticket to unemployment.  Quality is number one, but efficiency is also very important.  The key is to increase your efficiency while maintaining that high standard of quality in everything you do.

The time of day can definitely affect the quality of our work.  Some of us are “Morning People” while others are “Night Owls.”  Determine your optimum time of day and tackle the hardest tasks when you’re at your prime.  If you function best between 2:00 pm and 4:00 pm, then that’s when you should be working on the most challenging items on your To Do List.  Don’t waste your prime time hours on menial tasks – work while you’re “in the zone” and listen to your body’s natural rhythms.

Beware of Multitasking.  It is deceptive!  Many people (especially us females) pride themselves in their ability to multi-task.  We think that by combining your conference call with cleaning out your desk drawer and filing last week’s payroll you are actually getting ahead.   In reality, multitasking can pull your focus away from what is important.  Tasks bleed into one another and quality suffers when you are trying to do three things at once.  .Picture yourself working on a Sudoko puzzle while chatting with your mom on the phone.  “What’s for dinner tonight?” your mom asks.  “Four…” you respond absently.  Now mom is angry, your family is hungry, and you’ve written “Tacos” in the box where the four was supposed to go.

Another way to increase the quality and quantity of your work is to Take a Break.  There is a reason we take breaks, and it’s not just to chat with your co-worker or flirt with the UPS guy.  Ideally you should be taking a 3-5 minute break every 45 minutes.  Remember, a break doesn’t mean staying at your desk surfing the internet.  It means getting up and moving around.  Walk to the coffee room.  Go outside and get some fresh air.  Stretch your muscles.  Have a snack.  Rest your eyes (no, that doesn’t mean a nap in the back of the warehouse!)  You will return to work energized and able to produce higher quality output.

Finally, take the time you need to do a quality job.  To borrow from that infamous tortoise:  “Slow and steady wins the race.”  No one can argue that it takes longer to fix a mistake than it does to do the job right the first time.  Rushing through a job is a recipe for disaster and can eat up valuable chunks of your time.

Part 5:  Time Management:  Schedule for Success

Time Management: Learning to Delegate and Say No

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Taking on too much is the downfall of highly motivated people.  The voice in our

Learn to say NO
Learn to say NO

heads just won’t shut up:  “No one can do it as well as you can.”

It’s the battle of the clichés:  Round One:  “If you want something done right, do it yourself” VS. “You can’t do it all.”

While it is tempting to try to do everything yourself, eventually you will find that you are getting much less done than you intended.  The problem is simple:  your efforts and concentration are being spread too thin.  Ambition and motivation are important, and it’s definitely true that you need to work hard to get ahead, but when your inner voice protests that you simply “can’t do everything” you need to listen to it.  Consider your goals and your schedule before agreeing to take on extra work.  Ask yourself:  “Is this something that I really need to be taking on?”  Don’t rush around in a tornado of activity accomplishing nothing important.  There is no value in simply “being busy.”

Our personal lives are as important as our careers, and to be successful in both, we need to find the balance between being a perfectionist and working yourself to the point of burnout.

Here is a simple rule of thumb:  If you know that someone else can do the task almost as well as you can do it, delegate.  If you can do it 100% and someone else can do it 85%, delegate.  Their 85% at a semi-important task, coupled with your 100% as a very important task makes 185% of progress, right?  Can’t argue with math.

Take a look at that To-Do List you just made, and re-assess it as a “Get it Done” list instead.  Just because it’s on your list doesn’t mean you have to do every little bit of it yourself.  What can you cross off the list and give someone else to do?  What is the best use of your time?  You can spend an hour trying fix the stapler, or you can send someone to buy a new stapler.  You can try to do your own bookkeeping to save some money, or you can spend the afternoon working on generating sales worth ten times what you would spend on a bookkeeper to do it for you.  What is your time worth?

Scan your “To Do List” for items that really don’t need to get done.  Also look for items that could be done effectively by someone other than you.  Be kind to yourself.  You’ve already got enough on your plate.  When your boss asks you if you have time to take on an article for the monthly newsletter, say no.  When an old school friend asks you to walk her dog for a month because she is going on a backpacking trip across Europe, say no.  When your client wants you to take on more work but can’t afford to pay you more, say no.  If the task isn’t going to advance you toward your goal, whatever that may be, you need to say no.  Saying “No” is better than saying “Yes” and then not following through.

Part 4:  Time Management:  Quality Vs. Quantity

Time Management: The To Do List

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To understand the importance of To Do Lists we need to look at ways that poor

An Absolute MUST
An Absolute MUST

time management affects our day to day lives.  When we’re lamenting that we don’t have enough time, what do we really mean?  Let’s take a look at the complaints we have and then see how a properly organized list will help alleviate these problems.

“There is no way I will ever be able to get all this work done!”  This is a huge problem for entrepreneurs as well as for people with a lot of career responsibilities.  When our goals feel unachievable we tend to check out.  How many times have you sat at your desk, a huge deadline looming, staring at the wall with your mind completely blank, or distracted yourself with Facebook, doodles, desk-naps, trips to the lunchroom, or the all-important task of fixing that stapler that’s been broken for three months?  These are things you will succeed at, and are much more appealing than tackling a job in which you feel destined to fail.  When the mountain seems too high, take a step back and get some perspective.  Make a list.  Break your huge workload down into smaller parts and then get the satisfaction of crossing those parts off the list as you make your way toward your goal.

“I forgot something important & now I’m in trouble.”  In my business, forgetting an important deadline can lead to fines for my clients.  This is the best way to either (a) lose clients or (b) lose money paying my clients’ fines in an effort to avoid (a)!   Don’t let the fear of missing deadlines keep you up at night.  Keep a To Do List so that all your tasks are listed in one place.  Use your desktop calendar, or Excel, or scheduling software.  Then, as the deadlines come and go, you can “complete” them or cross them off the calendar and move on.

“I don’t know where to start.”  No two tasks are created equal.  There are some things that you absolutely have to do right away, and other things that really aren’t that important.  You need to structure your time intelligently and prioritize.  It’s disheartening to spend the day toiling away at “semi-important” jobs and then realize an hour before quitting time that you forgot about the one thing that absolutely has to get done before you can go home.  You can avoid this very common problem by making a To Do List using the “ABC METHOD.”  Take the first five minutes of every day to make a To Do List and class it as follows:

  • Items classed as “A” are urgent and need to be completed the same day.
  • Items classed as “B” are important, but not urgent, and need to be completed by the end of the week.
  • Items classed as “C” are neither urgent nor important, and needed to be completed within the month.

Using this method, you will be able to systematically organize each day.  This will give you the confidence of knowing that you have completed the most important items on his list and that no important deadlines are being missed.

 

Part Three:  Time Management:  Learning to Delegate and “Just Say No”

Time Management: An Entrepreneur’s Perspective

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Overwhelmed?  Scattered?  Frustrated?  Feeling unable to keep up?   Feeling pulled in all directions?  These are all signs that you may not be using your time

Friend or Enemy?
Friend or Enemy?

efficiently.

Life is hard.  Sometimes it seems the more you try, the harder it gets.

There are so many demands placed on us by our jobs, our co-workers, our spouses and our children, that sometimes we can feel like a circus juggler constantly at risk of dropping a ball.  In trying to be everything to everyone, we are setting ourselves up for failure.  Add to that the well known fact that stress can take years off your life, and the problem becomes very clear.  There is never enough time, and we need to do something about it.

As a controller for a manufacturing business, I faced this problem daily.  You could describe me as a “pleaser.”  I admit that I can occasionally be unaware of my own limitations and reluctant to say no.  The harder I worked, and the more I excelled at my career, the more responsibility I was given.  I started as the office manager, and within in five years I was the controller, inventory manager, and in charge of customer service.  I just kept taking on more and more, and although I was able to keep up, it took its toll.  Stress, frustration and self-doubt followed, as I struggled to keep up with the demands and eventually had to admit that I had taken on too much.  I was trying to be “everything to everybody” and was wearing myself down.

As I look back on that experience, I am determined not to make the same mistakes.  In my current capacity as a business owner, I am faced with the same challenges, but with even more responsibility.  I have employees with families and children who are dependent on my business for a paycheque.  The buck really does stop with me.  When I first started my business, I thought, “Great, now I will finally be my own boss.”  Ha!  It wasn’t until a year later that I realized that this was an illusion.  I have fifty clients, so I have fifty bosses, and I’m responsible for keeping every one of them happy.  As my business continues to grow, it demands more and more of my time.  Staffs need to be hired, trained, supervised, encouraged, paid. Clients need to be identified, communicated with, provided with excellent customer service.  Marketing needs to be reviewed and addressed.  Administrative tasks seem never-ending, from e-mails to paying bills to trying to stay on top of changes in my industry.  There is so much pressure, and so few hours in the day.  The snowball effect often finds me begging for a Star Trek transporter to zap me to a deserted island.  “Beam me up, Scotty…?”

At this point I should clarify something:    I love owning my own business.  I truly love what I do can’t imagine doing anything else.  I don’t want to come off as whiny or complaining.  What I really need, what I have been working on every day, is a better system to manage my time.  I’ve given up on my true fantasy – finding a mad scientist willing to clone me so I could have an extra “me” to do all the unpleasant stuff, so it’s up to me to find that perfect combination of to-do lists, delegation and yoga, and I’m going to find it.

Wikipedia defines time management as:  “The act or process of planning and exercising conscious control over the amount of time spent on specific activities, especially to increase effectiveness, efficiency or productivity.”  What a mouthful!  Here’s my definition:  “Finding a way to complete all the necessary tasks while maintaining health and sanity.”  That’s what we all want, right?   In my quest for knowledge, I have entered the internet rabbit hole, searching for blogs, medical reports, and any other information that would help me.  I have now emerged, disheveled, over-caffeinated, and ready to tackle this beast called time.

Part 2:  Time Management:  The To Do List