All too often those who run their own businesses get up in the morning with high intentions of getting completely through their “to do” list only to get to late afternoon/early evening only to discover they have accomplished far less than they intended. Distractions when working at home are a serious challenge and one that can quickly destroy your ability to earn a living. It is easy to visit your Facebook page and get caught up in the comments of your friends, you can visit a news site and before you know it you will find that you have spent an hour reading news that you might not otherwise have been interested in, simply because you are there. You get up to make a cup of coffee and by the time you get back to your computer, you discover you have been gone for more than an hour. There are hundreds of time thieves that can slowly whittle away at your day and make you far less productive than you intended to be. There are some things that you can do to help reclaim the time you are losing. Here are a few suggestions:
Time Management Software – Ironically enough one way for you to figure out how you are wasting time can be done from your computer. Time Management Software from WR Time Tracker allows you to “log in” and note the hours you are doing something specific. It may take you a couple of weeks, but if you get accustomed to logging into this program daily and noting what you are working on. Simply set up the various projects that you do daily such as “self-blogging”, “client blogging”, etc. and log in when you start and log out when you finish. Another benefit of this program is that if you have clients you are billing hourly you can also track the time. It is a simple to use, free tool that can help you manage your time better.
Set up To-Do Lists Weekly – Rather than setting up a to-do list on a daily basis, consider setting up a list for the entire week. Set up hard deadlines to complete specific tasks. There is a free service called “Ta-Da Lists” that you can set up a single task list or sets of tasks lists. You can email the list to yourself as well. Another nice feature of this is that you can share the list with colleagues or even clients. As you complete items off your list, simply mark them off and move on to the next task or move to another list.
Set up Regular Breaks - One of the challenges that can create more wasted time is not setting up your own free time. You really do need to schedule regular breaks. This means for getting coffee, having lunch, watching the new, checking your social networks or any other tasks you enjoy. These breaks can help you get back to work and be more productive without wasting time if you schedule them. Allowing yourself a break every couple of hours could actually make you more productive when you do get back to work as you will not be “surfing” or doing other activities when you should be working. Scheduling your breaks also gives you a “goal” of working until that break. Shorter goals are typically easier to achieve.
Summary
When you are self employed, even though you do not have anyone monitoring your time or telling you how many hours you have to work (only yourself), wasting time means you are making less money. Do not let your small business fail because you are unable to focus and get the work done that you need to get done. Instead, use these free time management tools to help you stay on track.
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Doreen Martel, Doreen Martel. Doreen Martel said: New Blog Post: Time Management for freelancers http://freelancingandmore.com/2010/06/24/free-time-management-tools-2/ [...]
As a long-time freelancer, one of the keys I’ve found to staying on top of my schedule is planning it out ahead of time, so that I have a some expectations to stick to. I’ve created a web-based tool for planning / time tracking / invoicing called HourPatch (http://www.hourpatch.com) that is aimed at just that: planning out your projects, to help keep yourself on task,and also make your billing easier. I hope you’ll check it out.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Doreen Martel, Doreen Martel. Doreen Martel said: New Blog Post: Time Management for freelancers http://freelancingandmore.com/2010/06/24/free-time-management-tools-2/ [...]