How Do You Spend Time in Your Business?

Ever feel like there just isn't enough time in the day? As a small business owner you probably feel like this all the time. If there was only another hour in the day maybe it could all get done. Unfortunately, you can't have another hour and you can't make up for time lost. Once it's gone it's gone. However you can learn to make the best use of your time by figuring out what you as a business owner should be spending your time on. It could be as simple as distinguishing between what is urgent and what is important. Urgency is usually driven by deadlines or problems. Problems are often squeaky wheels that usually get priority over what is really important to the business.

The first thing you should do is decide what is important but not urgent in the business. Is it selling more products, generating a larger and more profitable customer base, or improving the quality of your service? What are your long and short term goals? For most entrepreneurs the answer would be growing the business and generating more profits. How you spend your time should be aimed at achieving those goals.

If you find that your business drifting from goals and priorities, perhaps it's time for you to work out how much time you spend each day adding value to your business. Compare this to how much time you spend doing things that don't really contribute to the business' goals.

Track your time: If you're tech-savvy, there are many different internet and mobile apps designed to invoice clients for work completed. These programs can easily be set up to track time by client and project. Or keep it simple and carry a notepad with you for a few days and make a note every time a different task is started and completed. Once you have spent a few days tracking time take a look at your results. You may be surprised by how much time you spend on administrative tasks or unproductive activities. Categorize your different activities by determining if they are urgent or important. Urgent being that "squeaky wheel" and important being tasks that drive your business towards achieving its goals.

Analyze your time: Now that you know where time is being spent, analyze how your time spent matches up with the business goals. Where are you spending the majority of time? Is that time spent adding value to the business? Is your time being spent on "important" tasks or "urgent" tasks.

Implement change: You know what is important to your business and how to drive your business towards your goals, and now you know how much time you are spending doing just that. Is it enough? If not, try using these tips to help manage time to meet business goals.

* Say you currently spend 20% of your day doing tasks that are important to reaching business goals; try increasing that time by 50%. So instead of two hours a day planning a marketing strategy or researching a new product that will increase revenue, spend four hours.

* Get someone else to handle the trivial tasks that suck up valuable time, if the task isn't helping reach business goals, hire part time help. Your time will be well spent driving the business towards its goals and its future success.