Easy Time Management Strategies

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Sue Papadoulis

When you make the leap to work from home, you'll find you are given the gift of time. This can be a joyous awakening that creates the space you need to live the life of your dreams and allows you to plan your day according to your own desires and goals. It can also be a major pitfall, because often for the first time, there's no one else running your agenda. There's no boss, no manager, no project deadline given to you by someone else. How you spend your time is entirely up to you -- and if you have no discipline or idea of scheduling, it can lead to all kinds of problems.

Here are a few time management tips to set you on the path for success:

1. Determine your priorities

Make an overall list of priorities for your life. This may include being a wife, mother, housekeeper, business woman etc.Think about the order of priorities and try and reflect this in your daily activities. For example, being a housekeeper is low on my priority list, so when the children came along I had to alter my expectations about living in a tidy home. For those who were raised with a stay at home mum, this can be tricky to do. As a child, my mother kept our house immaculately and still does. Our house is clean because we've budgeted for a house cleaner, which is something my mother would never dream of doing because her priorities are different to mine.

Once you've determined your priorities, think about what you can do every day to move in the direction of your priorities. What action can you take? It's important to take action every day.

2. Give yourself the gift of time

Are you worth 10 minutes a day? Give yourself just 10 minutes a day to exist in silence, meditate, and think positively and you'll be amazing by the transformation this will have on your life. When you don't give yourself enough time, you are setting yourself up for a busy, crazy lifestyle that sees you working against the flow and creates that feeling of emptiness and wanting more. This cycle of wanting more and doing more to get it, is exhausting and fruitless.

When you give yourself the time each day to reach a place of peace and serenity, you are tapping into your inner power and purpose. It allows you to access the infinite power of the Universe, which is able to deliver more abundance than you could ever imagine. All things are possible when you tap into this infinite source of power and wisdom.

Think of how you could spend 10 minutes a day -- doing your nails, having a soak in a hot bath, reading a magazine in the sunshine. It's important to give yourself time away in order to be better at everything you do. You've got to take care of yourself, because no one else is lining up to do it for you!

It's important to schedule this time for yourself. It's easy to get caught in the trap of thinking you'll spend some time on yourself later that night, or later that week, and then everyone else's 'to do' list takes over, leaving you exhausted and incapable of anything beyond sleep (sleep is not time for yourself -- it's a necessity!). So schedule in the 10 minutes to your diary and treat it as you would a meeting with your most important customer.

3. Let Go of the image of perfection

It's impossible to achieve perfection in every single thing you do. As women we are usually much harder on ourselves than others. If you visit a friend with children and you find the living room floor scattered with toys, do you think badly of your friend for not keeping the house in perfect order? Of course not. You understanding that toys on the floor is simply a part of having a family.

Next time friends drop around unexpectedly don't rush to tidy everything away as you're likely only causing yourself additional stress when your friends won't even have noticed.

Trying to life up to the image of perfection is impossible -- and trying to will only leave you exhausted and resentful about not being achieve to achieve it.

4. Get over the Super Woman syndrome

It's simply not possible for a woman to do everything in the household, and run a successful home-based business. In fact, being Super Woman and trying to do it all is counter productive because finally you'll crash under the stress and strain, leaving everything to fall apart.

When you're the only person in the household who knows how to work the washing machine, iron shirts, cook meals, clean the windows, care for sick children and do maths homework, you're actually not being the best mother, wife or entrepreneur you could be. Children need to learn responsibility and they need to learn to work as part of a team. By doing everything for them, you're robbing them of key educational opportunities and the chance to develop self confidence and independence.

Make a plan for household chores and reward children for playing a successful role in the upkeep of the home. The towels may not be folded exactly as you'd like, or the kids may not be dressed in the outfit you'd prefer, but by giving your spouse and children the chance to help, it has freed up time for you to do something else.

Once you've delegated chores, be sure to praise not criticise or it's unlikely they'll want to be involved next time around. Try making a list of chores and allowing everyone in the family to choose which ones they'd like to do. This strategy gives them ownership and ensures they're more likely to succeed because it was their choice.

5. Delegate and outsource in business

It's impossible to run a very successful business and do it all on your own. Realise that in order to be successful you must not handle every single aspect of the business. Trying to do it all is a recipe for failure. Not delegating or outsourcing will hinder your success.

When you find yourself purely working in the business, rather than on the business, there's not a great chance for sustainable success. Tasks like data entry, mail outs, fixing the fax machine, responding to customer emails, accounts and administration can easily be outsourced, giving you time to work on improving your business strategies. Build the cost of outsourcing into the quotes you provide clients, or the price of the goods for sale.

6. Take small steps to change habits

There are times when life - a household, a business, and a family, can feel overwhelming. A mountain of small things seems to stand in your way of getting anywhere, and the slightest irritation can leave you unmotivated, frustrated and angle. It's at these times, when you need to take small steps in the direction of your dreams. Think of the actions necessary to get you moving and then just take the first step. For example, I wanted to create a scrap book of my daughter's first year of life. I kept photos and memorabilia from that first year, bought a scrap book album and then it all sat in a cupboard for months and months. Every time I opened the cupboard I would feel frustrated and angry with myself for not getting the job done. Finally, I decided that in order to get moving I just needed to take the first step, which was burning a CD of images to take to the printer. Once I had the CD done and saw it sitting on my desk most days, the obvious next step was to remember to take it with me next time I went shopping. Over the course of two weeks, I thought only of the next step, rather than the big overwhelming project, and I managed to finish the scrap book. What's more it didn't even feel like the major project I'd made it out to be in my mind.

I heard another example of a friend who wanted to increase their exercise and decided to go for a walk each morning at dawn. The idea of getting up early in the cold weather could have easily led to failure, but he made a pact with himself that he only had to get up and go to the toilet. If he decided to go back to bed it would be ok, but he had to at least get up in the first place. He found that once he was out of bed, it was far easier to take the next step which was to get changed, and the next step which was to walk out of the front door. Breaking seemingly big tasks into small bite-sized steps can be a life changing experience.

7. Quantify goals

Goals that are quantified and broken down into little pieces within their deadlines are easily reachable. By making your goals specific and giving yourself a deadline it allows you to make better use of your time. For example, rather than just wanting more money, be specific. Decide how much money you want and when you want it by -- "I earn $80,000 in the current financial year" and then break it down into how much you must each month, or each week to achieve that goal. You can apply this approach to all goals. For example you could have a goal that you want to start investing in the share market. Your goals could be to:

1.Read five different magazines about share market investing in the next month.

2. Attend one seminar in the second month

3. Make an appointment to see two financial planners in the second month

4. Start a budget plan in the second month

5. Make an appointment to see three stock brokers in the third month

6. Begin investing in shares in the fourth month.

Having a list of actions to take makes achieving your goals appear as if they are in easier reach than if you only look at the big picture.

8. Work from home

Setting up a home-based business frees up so much of your time. There's no:

- Commuting

- Getting ready for work

- Travelling with your job

- Weekend catch up on emails

- Late nights in the office when deadlines loom

- Wasteful extended lunch breaks because you're bored and desperate to get away from the office

The simple act of working from home adds hours to your day which can be used for more meaningful and productive tasks.

9.Identify your bad habits

Do you get side tracked responding to emails, talking on the telephone, or watching television? If you find it faster and more efficient to deal with clients by email than telephone then do that.

Checking emails every few minutes has become an epidemic in offices around the world, so make it a point not to let this happen to you at home. I like to get up early before the children and get an hour's work in before they hit the ground. This is my peak creative and writing time. Opening my email program is the final task I do in that hour. I quickly scan what has come in overnight, answer any that I can in a short amount of time, and come back to the others once the children are on their way to school. I also try to avoid checking emails during the day and set aside a particular time to do this task. Your clients will soon get used to the way you work, particularly if you're delivering an excellent service.

10. Beware of "Filler" Tasks

When you have a long to do list with important jobs, sometimes it's easier to do small, filler tasks like organising your desk, filing papers -- anything to avoid actually getting on with the important jobs. It's easy to get distracted by filler tasks and they even give you a sense of being productive and working hard, when in reality you're not achieving that much.I recall a creative writing university lecturer of mine who was also a successful published author reveal that she spent at least an entire day pulling weeds before she would get to work on the writing process. She would even weed the footpath rather than start writing.

The easiest thing to do is avoid getting started -- that way, there's no risk of failure. You could probably find a week's worth of chores to do in and around the home if you really put your mind to it, but what a waste of time!

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Chief Chick Sue Papadoulis is committed to empowering women who work from home with the means and know-how to live a life of abundance. Sue educates and advises work-from-home women, and those who dream of working from home. A wife, mother and the owner of two successful home-based businesses, Sue is uniquely positioned to help others.