Your Time Is Money, Spend It Well

As a small business owner, you usually have more to do than time permits. Depending on the size of your business, you may function as personnel director, purchasing agent, sales manager, accountant, advertising director and chief operations officer. Your time is the most valuable commodity in the business, because you are the visionary that sets the direction for the company’s operation and growth.

You always need to be sure that you are using each hour as productively as possible. Hours of valuable time can be frittered away on insignificant chores. The time you spend on things you enjoy may be the less important or productive tasks. Find it within yourself to avoid simple, repetitive tasks that may be comforting, but don’t utilize your full expertise. As the owner, your vision, energy and expertise need to be focused on the product or service, market, sales and profitable results. Those above mentioned goals alone are big time takers. Keep your energy focused on making the money, which fuels the business and your income.

To use your time more efficiently begin to organize your thoughts, plans, files and activities. Start by keeping a daily log of how you spend your time during a one week period. Note the amount of time you spend on small tasks or interruptions, which take you away from important work. These distractions may be crises of the moment or an unproductive phone call. After a week, you should see a pattern of effective activities, ineffective activities, time of day for the most accomplishments, time of day for the least accomplishments, and the overall time commitment to high priority vs. low priority items.

Once you have identified your time usage, evaluate each type of activity and the time spent on each. You should be able to define which activities are important to operations and which activities are time stealers. Begin to decide what tasks can be eliminated or minimized. Second, decide how these tasks can be better managed. Does more effective time management mean omitting a task, streamlining a process or bringing on short-term help to handle specific duties.

After you realign non-productive or less productive tasks, plan to use your new found time. Block the time for analyzing major operational decisions, future planning, or sales calls, etc. The time you have freed up will become busy again. Make sure you identify the tasks you want to accomplish in that time period. Your time is money. When you are planning, marketing, selling or delivering your product or service you are making money. When you are administering the business, you are simply keeping the engine running. Your business should be driving down the road, full speed ahead. Your energy is the driving force in the business; focus that energy so your time means more money.

If you would like to discuss effective time management for the busy entrepreneur, contact the SCORE Association (Service Corps of Retired Executives). SCORE is a nonprofit association dedicated to the growth and success of small business. More than 12,000 volunteer, business counselors donate their time to help entrepreneurs succeed in business. All counseling and mentoring sessions are free and confidential. For a referral to the SCORE chapter nearest you, call 1 (800) 634-0245.

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