Archive for the ‘Time Management’ Category

When you don’t have a boss breathing down your neck to meet specific deadlines, it’s easy to give in to the urge to procrastinate and put off doing actual work. But each time you check your email or make a non-work-related phone call, you are costing your business time and money that could otherwise be contributing to your bottom line.

The good news is, you can take small steps to stop procrastinating and start doing so that you can make more effective use of your time.

Here are five steps you can use to beat procrastination. You can apply them to almost any task. To illustrate, we’ve used the example of article writing.

Step 1: Organize and prioritize your work.

Separate your work into three files. In the first, include the things you will do today. In the second, put in the things you would like to get done, but aren’t essential. In the third, include things that need to be done at some point. Doing this will help you decide what work to tackle first.

Step 2: Start with specific, measurable, achievable goals.

Goals with specific time-frames for completing activities will give you deadlines and lay out how and when to meet them. For example, you might decide that from Monday to Friday of next week, you will spend 20 minutes each day writing the first draft of an article that you need to have done the week after.

Step 3: Break the task down into smaller ones.

Smaller tasks are more manageable and will make you feel less overwhelmed than large ones will. Don’t spend too much time organizing your big tasks into a number of steps in a list. Just focus on the tiny task that needs to be done next so that you can have a number of small victories. For example, you can break your article down into parts and assign days to finish each secton. You might decide to write the introduction to your article on Monday, the first paragraph on Tuesday, the third paragraph on Wednesday, and so on. Make sure that the small task you undertake is actually useful, and does not just lead to more delaying.

Step 4: Commit five minutes to getting started on a task, and then start!

If you start out not feeling up to taking on a task, working on it for five minutes could be the spark that leads you to go at it for five more minutes, and five more minutes on top of that. At the end of your first five minutes, decide whether you are capable of committing more time to the task, and you could end up getting a full article done!

Step 5: Negotiate with yourself.

Set up rewards for completing your tasks. When you are tempted to give in to a non-work-related distraction, like playing video games instead of working on an important project, make your video game playing contingent upon doing part or all of the priority activity first. In this way, you can turn your video game playing time into an enjoyable reward, rather than feeling guilty about it.

Procrastination can be beaten, and these five steps will help you do it. So stop putting them off, and start today!

By Cathy Lau

If you’re self-employed and working from home, you probably understand better than most folks that time is money. As your own boss, the more efficiently you are able to manage the time you put into doing your work, the bigger the paycheque you will be able to cash in as earnings. Improving your time management skills doesn’t have to be complicated.

Here are five tips for making the most out of your workdays (and make more money in the process).

1. Set “office hours.” Make a set schedule of the days and hours you want to work and stick with it. For example, you might choose to work from Monday to Thursday, from 8:30am to 2:30pm, with a half an hour lunch break. Once you decide on a schedule, make sure you follow it. This will allow you to anticipate and plan out how to maximize your productivity during the time you have allotted for your job-related tasks. It will also keep you working regular hours on the days you might otherwise prefer to sleep in or finish up early for the day.