[book id=’97’ /]
Time, money and entrepreneur
Now, the actual work has begun and your office is flooding with lots of work and papers. But somehow bills have managed to go unpaid, clients are going unanswered; you are cancelling over meetings, not because of the cash flow or lack of time (given 24 hours/human), but because of really bad time management. First of all, everything that is happening, you are aware and conscious about the fact that the reason is mismanagement of the things; especially time. Just like any old grandpa saying “time is money” and it’s time we get hold of a mantra to get rid of all the ‘mis’ and all that would be left in equation would be management.
Step one: realizing. Look for the earliest signs of mismanagement. You have to have an eye for the things that have borne the mismanagement. All you have to do is just take some time out of you fiasco and write down the things that can be related to this predicament.
Step two: measures. To do or not to do.
Jailbird #1: poor punctuality. Accepting too many tasks or your inability to assign the correct amount of time to your activities lead to poor punctuality, try to laden as much as you can bear.
Jailbird #2: rushing. There are times when everybody has to rush a little; however, constantly rushing is unacceptable. A time manager allows sufficient time between appointments to cope with unforeseen events.
Jailbird #3: impatience. Extreme pressure to make a deadline is a test. You may accuse other auxiliaries of delaying. The truth is you failed yourself with respect to management and the best you can do is make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Jailbird #4: poorly defined goal. Prioritizing things will add to easing things. They tell you need of the time and thus, you can manage or assign your time as per task requirement.
Jailbird #5: procrastination. You know what is needed to be done and make sure you do it. Delaying will only pile up work leading piling up stress which is directly proportional to failure.
Jailbird #6: poor performance. Poor performance is more of a byproduct than a catalyst to mismanagement of time. You can get away with poor time management for a while but it vengefully catches up on you. Your productivity levels decline and your backlog increases. Just try and cope up with the catastrophe.
Jailbird #7: lack of energy. When you lack time management skills, you are constantly chasing your tail. You constantly fall behind in tasks and you have to work extra hard to catch up. There comes a time when, your energy levels begin to drop and you lose motivation. All you need to do is come up with a strategy. Even battles are won on the grounds of strategies; it won’t only help you buck up your situation but would give a well organized performance insight.
Jailbird #8: perfectionism. You are not the only victim of this culprit. Investing time to make things go smooth and perfectly, your human need starts craving for perfection; the urge of perfection is hard to satiate and it comes down to tasks performed perfectly but you are too blinded to see that. Nothing is good enough. All you can do about it is get a hold on yourself by having break now and then. Calm yourself down.
Jailbird #9: indecisiveness. When you are faced with more than one option, you are unable to choose an option and run with it. You spend excessive time going over the options without coming to a conclusion.
Jailbird#10: saying yes to everything. It is great to be able to help others but if you are always helping others, you are rarely working on the tasks which are important to you. Constantly saying ‘Yes’ will leave you with an excessive workload. One of the quickest ways to improve your time management is to be assertive and learn to say ‘No’.
Jailbird #11: Doing everything yourself. It doesn’t matter whether you are self-employed or an employee; there are always tasks which can be delegated, automated or outsourced. Take time out of your schedule to eliminate it and see how magic begins by clearing your desk a little bit.
Time management is not rocket science it is just something you do to prevent the adverse. Don’t fall into the trap, of mistaking “being busy for being a skilled time manager”. Getting more done does not automatically mean that you are managing your time effectively. If the extra tasks are unimportant, you are just filling your schedule. Focusing on getting the important tasks done is the key to effective time management. If you find that you are regularly displaying any of the symptoms of poor time management; you need to change your focus from efficiency to effectiveness.
