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Time Management Skills Slacking? Here’s the Pick-Me-Up You Need

October 16, 2014 / by Raquel Royers

time managementAre your time management skills slacking lately? For you, this is a big deal and you realize that if you don’t have good time management skills, your business is also slacking and your time isn’t being spent in the most effective way possible. That’s not OK with you and we understand. After all, time is money. Keep reading for some tips on how to bring your time management skills up to speed in order to run a more successful small business full of passion and provision

As a leader your life is pretty crazy. Meetings throughout your day, phone calls always coming in and employees needing decisions and input from you. While you absolutely love what you do, sometimes it gets a little overwhelming going at a 100 mph all the time.

This is where you really need to focus in on your time management skills, for the sake of yourself, your company, and your employees. In order to have a Passion and Provision business that is successful you need to learn to manage your time effectively.

Here’s an example of a problem scenario that could occur in the office:

It’s a Wednesday morning and you’ve walked into the office later than you had hoped because you’re tired from working late. Dang it, you forgot you had a meeting with one of your employees. Now you only have 15 minutes to catch up with them. Next, you have a meeting with all of the staff. It goes well but you walk out wondering why you feel like you’re missing something. Next week you meet up to make the next steps and the entire meeting was based on remembering what happened at the last one and the goals that were set. You don’t have enough time left in the meeting to move on to the next steps necessary. Another meeting it is, you guess.

Does this sound familiar? A lot of those issues have to do with time management. Here are some things to do to fix that:

Create Deadlines

Creating deadlines is going to be beneficial—not only for yourself but for your staff as well. After meetings, make sure you identify what the action items are so that the decisions made within that time are clear. You don’t want to be meeting up again to go over what was said and where you should be going. Do it all within that one meeting to save time. It takes a few minutes to ask what the action items are, have someone write them down, and delegate the tasks. 

Set Appointment Times & Stay on Task

Sometimes it’s easiest to just say you’ll meet with an employee or client whenever you have the free time or a second to do so. However, the time can easily get away from you and then it’s difficult to prioritize tasks. Schedule meetings even if they are just meetings with one of your employees to discuss something. This will give you a sense of time and expectations for how long you can spend on a certain task.

Give Yourself ‘You Time’

As the leader of your small business, it’s difficult to put time away for yourself. But in order to keep your sanity as well as remain a good leader you need to set time aside for yourself to reflect and calm your mind. If you don’t take time to be rested and gather your own thoughts, work will be overwhelming and not as enjoyable. Remember, how you act and the way you project your business directly rubs off on your employees and customers. 

Happy leaders=happy employees=happy customers=happy business

Simple right? If you want your business to be on its A-game then YOU need to be as well.

To have a successful small business means you have a Passion and Provision company, and good time management needs to be a part of it. While it can often get away from us in our busy lives it's necessary to evaluate every so often. If you need help learning how to do this with your business, give us a call. We would love to help!

Related Posts:

3 Tips to NOT Let Time Management be the Death of Your Small Business

3 Steps to a Successful Small Business You Can Start Today!

Topics: small business, Business Development, Passion & Provision

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