John Wooden, the former UCLA basketball coach once said the following:
“If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?”
That statement really sums up the whole concept of time management for me because it’s plain and simple. The best part about managing your time is the fact that the better you are at it, the more time you have for yourself.
I don’t know about you, but as much as I love running my cleaning business, I love my free time even more. It’s for this reason that I’m out to help you have more time for yourself. Lets get the process started…
My Time Management Tips
1 – Know what is important. Most all businesses have an 80/20 rule of some kind applied to it. This means that 20% of what you do will have an 80% impact on your business. This a lot better than spending your time on the 80% that only helps you out 20% in my opinion.
If you need an example to make this work for you, think about how much increasing “sales” will do to your business versus making sure your “contacts are loaded” into your Blackberry. Yes being organized is nice, but it won’t pay the rent. Get the sales first, then get organized!
2 – Make a “to-do list”. Ok…now you have an idea of what’s important to your success. The next step is prioritizing the list of what needs to be done, and putting it in a logical order. This is no more complicated than placing an A, B, or C next to the task. As a rule, if an item goes on the daily list, it should be done by end of day. No excuses.
3 – Avoid doing only what you feel like doing. This is not a time management technique. In fact, it’s the opposite, as it wastes your time minute by minute. If you want more time to yourself, you need to concentrate on the important stuff. Clearing your desk, reading meaningless emails or surfing the net catching up on the latest headlines over at CNN will get you nowhere fast.
4 – Keep it or toss it. Decide in less than 10 seconds whether or not to keep or delete that email. Same goes for any snail mail and voicemail too. Don’t let giant piles of junk build up around you as that will just contribute to you feeling overwhelmed later on. Just make a decision, act on that decision and move on to the next task.
5 – Be realistic. You are not going to be able to accomplish 50 items per day when you run your own cleaning business, so get used to it. Even the best time managers only tackle a few important tasks per day with a couple smaller ones thrown in for good measure.
6 – Make time for yourself. Don’t book your day from morning till night without some personal time factored in. All work and no play not only will make you boring, it will contribute to burnout. Taking time for “you” will actually make you more productive because you get to recharge the batteries during this time.
Making use of your time effectively is one of the best tips I could ever give to you. Use these tips to the fullest of your ability and start getting more done in less time than you ever thought possible.
If you liked this post, you can subscribe to our RSS feed and get loads more by clicking here.
If you need detailed instructions on how to start your own cleaning business, then check out my value packed course by clicking here.