Seven Steps to Maximizing Your Time

Many years ago hanging on the office wall was a caricature of a young man. His hair was disheveled and his face portrayed the look of frustration and aggravation. The words next to him summed up that look… “God put me on earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now I am so far behind, I’ll never die!!”

Have you felt that way yourself? You have so much to do, no time to do it and the list keeps getting longer. Have you said to yourself “if I can just manage time better, I can get a lot more down.”

The word manage means to have under effective control. Can you have time under effective control? You begin every day with 24 hours. You can’t add to it, you can’t borrow more time, you can’t rearrange time, you can’t bank extra hours. In reality, there is no such thing as time management because the can’t control time.

What can you manage? The activities within a 24 hour period can be managed. I was very ill several years ago and there were days I couldn’t get out of bed. With the help of 5 mentors, all successful business owners and super-achievers, I learned how to accomplish things 15 minutes increments.

There are three areas in your life that most activities occur, personal, family, and business. You can effectively maximize activities by understanding yourself. Know your peak performance time and your personality temperament. What are the activities you do in the three areas of the life? How long does it take you to do each of them? Create a time budget for those activities.

Here is a sample time budget of a typical solo entrepreneur business day.

6:00 - 6:30 Get daughter off to school
6:30 - 8:30 Back to bed and sleep
8:30 - 9:30 Breakfast, clean up and dressed
9:30 - 1:00 Business activities
1:00 - 2:00 Lunch
2:00 - 3:30 Business activities
3:30 - 4:00 Pick daughter up from school
4:00 - 4:30 Talk to Husband who just came home from work
4:30 - 5:30 Business activities
5:30 - 6:00 Straighten office and review next day activities
6:00 - 7:00 Microwave dinner and eat
7:00 - 10:00 Personal and family time
10:00 - 1:00 Business activities
1:00 - 6:00 Sleep

Develop a time budget based on your activities and what works for you. Be flexible.

I’m a night person that takes late afternoon naps. Also I found the need to keep personal activities out of the business time. I dedicated a day to laundry, shopping ect.

Use these 7 steps to assist you in maximizing your time.

1. Keep a time journal of all your activities for the next week or two. This includes play time. The goal is not look like “A Super Person”. You want this to be a reflection of your life. If you play Nintendo for two hours, put it down. Do you require 8 hours of sleep? Does working in the garden relax you?

2. Analysis your journal. How many things do you do? How long does it take you to get them done? What activities can you delegate? Create a time budget like above for those
   activities.

3. Get organized. Keep clutter under control.

4. Schedule quiet time to do you planning and time budget weekly. Allow flexibility. The time budget is guideline not a strict regiment.

5. Overcome procrastination.

6. Learned to say NO.

7. Find an accountability buddy.

Activity management won’t happen overnight. It will take time to form this new habit. But once you grasp it, you be surprised at what you can accomplish in less time with less stress.

[1] Read the Story behind the sunglass

"The Time Diva"

Ann Rusnak, "The Time Diva" developed a system to show busy self employed solo business owners how to gain more time and increase sales working less hours. Receive the FREE eBook "Thinking Outside the Clock" when you sign up for Time Myth Busting Minutes ezine at: [2] SimpleTimeManagement.com