Time management can be one of the hardest things for home business owners to connect with.  Have you spent your day going from one task to the other with no real plan for your success?  Though it feels like you are getting a lot accomplished, at the end of the day when you look back on the days activities, do you realize that, though your day was full of tasks, you got no real results?  I am going to make some suggestions in this article that everyone needs to know.

First of all keep in mind that…WE DON’T MANAGE TIME, WE MANAGE OURSELVES.

YOU ARE THE HIGHEST RESOURCE IN YOUR BUSINESS.

The first thing we need to do is quit multitasking!  Quit taking on to much at once. Throw out that task list.  Task lists don’t work.  Have clear focus of what you want to accomplish and organize your day on a calendar.  Schedule your day in blocks of time with a minimum of 2 hours of time for each task.  If a task takes less than 2 hours you should evaluate weather or not it is a productive task. Ask yourself this question “What is this activity designed to do?” or “What is the outcome of this activity?” If it is not designed to produce results, then don’t spend a lot of time doing it.

This leads me to the second point.  Interruption can be the worst problem you have working from home.  Do you have friends that think just because you are at home; you have time to talk on the phone for an hour.  Do your children think that because you are home, you are there to cater to them or play with them?  Explain to them that even though you are at home, you are working a job just as you would if you were outside the home.  Shut off the phone!! It’s as simple as that!  And stay away from your e-mail.  You should be checking your e-mail only 2 times a day, once in the morning when you first get started and in the afternoon, when you are finished.  Remember that for each interruption of time, you lose between 20 and 40 minutes of productivity.  It takes your mind 10 to 20 minutes to change focus each time.

Next, you need to make sure that you RELAX.  Between each 2 hour block of focused work, take 15 to 30 minutes of complete relaxation.  NO WORKING AT ALL on your business.  Don’t take business phone calls, don’t check e-mail, and don’t look at training material.  Get up from your desk and take a brake.  Get a snack, play with the kids, listen to some music…Whatever it is that helps you relax.  You will come back to your business with fresh information and a clear mind.

Next, make sure you create routines for every task block.  When you clean your house for example, you probably have a routine for the quickest way to run the vacume though your house.  Your business should be run in much the same manor.  You will get your mind in focus for the task you are about to do and actually train your mind to do the task almost on auto-pilot thus increasing productivity for your time.

Most importantly you need to REST.  You must completely unplug and remove yourself from your business for 2 days each week.  If you don’t, you may lose touch with who you are and your passion for your business.  I am sure that in your success plan, you didn’t say that success to you was losing touch with yourself, your family, your friends, your hobbies or the world around you.  Therefore, you need to renew and recover each week.  If you do this, you will be much more efficient in your business than if you spent your time slaving away day in and day out. 

With every business, there are good days and bad days.  Some days you will be at the top of your game and everything will seem to fall into place.  But some days will be harder and it will seem that even though you have worked as hard today as you did yesterday, you still haven’t produced the results you wanted.  Its OK, you will have days like these.  The biggest thing to remember is don’t ever give up on your dreams!!! 

It is what you DO or NOT DO that determines the outcome.  It is your USE of time not the fact that you don’t have enough time.