As a small business owner, you need to know that time is your greatest asset. You can lose your business and get it back, lose money and get it back, and lose clients and get them back. But time is irreversible; you can’t get it back. This means you need to manage your time properly.
Most small business owners face time-management issues. If you find yourself in this situation, then you are not alone. Take advantage of these 5 time management tips for small business owners.
Begin with time logging
Before you start anything else, you should begin with time logging. Write down from the moment you wake up in the morning to the time you go to sleep. You need to track every minute of the day by listing each task and the total amount spent. For this to be helpful, you need to track everything. Do not change your behavior when tracking your time, be honest.
Detect your time wasters
After completing a time logging day, you will probably detect where you are wasting a lot of time. Now take your total time of the day and try to categorize your activities. The main goal here is to identify the areas where you are wasting time. Some of the activities to consider are phone calls, emails, breaks, meetings, surfing the web, shopping and other nonproductive tasks.
Delegate tasks appropriately
If you want to be a great small business owner, you need to assign some of your workload to others. However, you should not abandon your tasks. Avoid giving people responsibilities without proper planning and training for the task. Identify the tasks that are most important for you to do, and hire someone to perform less important tasks. Ensure you hire the right people and invest some time training them.
Apply the 80/20 rule
One of the best ways to determine where you spend more time is applying 80/20 rule. The rule says that 80% of your business achievements come from 20% of your efforts. This means if you can manage your time properly, you can increase the 80% results to 100 percent. However, time management is a process, so keep applying every day until you achieve the best results.
Don’t spend your time micromanaging
Once you delegate your workload, you need to let your employees do what they were hired to do. When not trained appropriately, employees can take up a great deal of your time. The only way to avoid this is by hiring the right people and making sure they are well trained so that you can leave them to do what they do best. And then you can do what you do best: focus on your business.
