You are always pushing up against your time deadlines?
The time warp is a common trap for entrepreuners. Now that we interact socially online and blog for business the availability of our time takes on a whole new meaning.
Mismanagement drains the well of time and leads to severe time exhaustion.
Time exhaustion isn't an anomaly, but an illness akin to the common cold. Let's nip these sniffles in the bud right now before you end up with your business on it's backside crying for relief.
Take a listen and I'll tell you how,
Time Management Tools For Your Time Exhaustion Blues
Google Calendar- A tool to schedule all your appointments and block chunks of time for personal and business activities (it's only important that you block the time and complete the daily activity. It's not important to do the activities at a specified time).
Salary Calculator- A tool to help you determine your desired salary.
A cure for time exhaustion blues....the solution that business planning forgot.
** UPDATE- This to do list tool is very cool, just read about it on my Facebook Wall this morning. It synchs with Google Calendars- http://www.toodledo.com/
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This is an issue for our time (no pun intended). It seems that this is the part of the internet world that no one saw coming...the erasure of time, so it's always "on".
Thanks --- excellent reminder for me --- I am one of those who had to learn to value family time. I am one of those workaholics about which you talked. I will have to take time to look at the Time Tracking ---I do already use the Google Calendar --- it is awesome - I don't know I lived without it. Liz
Having the time to work, spend time with family, and time for yourself is getting harder and harder. Just make sure that the time spent with loved ones, that they do know they are loved ones.
The very worst use of your time is to do well what need not be done at all. The Pareto Principle says that 20% of your activities will account for 80% of the value of your activities. This means that, if you have a list of ten items to accomplish, two of those items will be worth more than the other eight items altogether.
To achieve great things, you must always be concentrating on the small number of activities that contribute the greatest value to your life and your work.
Actually I have been struggling with my time management and that of my assitants. I guess it is more of a optimizing the time that we have. Having less down time during the day. Staying on schedule since the worst problem I have is the lack of a sense of urgency with some of my service providers. Of course that is why I am changing some of them.
Nice post, I like your use of Utterli, very cool. Great reminders about the value of our time and also the importance of delegating. We have worked together to identify those business tasks that we do best and enjoy and we try to spend most of our day on those tasks. If we despise certain tasks or if something is not our strength, we try to delegate them.
Thanks for the reminder and the tools for tracking. We tend to let time get the better of us. I will definitely work on having more time for me while still taking care of my clients.
Rebecca,
I like that post, especially the part about letting your clients know when family time is ( on the audio part). Using a calander to organize your time is very effective, I never beleived it till I tried it. It powerfully turned my 80/20 rule around. Now I am still perfecting the 80/20 rule but with the calander and time management aspect my business and life is sooo much more effective. We may be able to buy; business, fancy cars, and luxury items but you can NOT buy time, so your best bet in life is to organize you time to the best of your ability to get the most out of life. THIS IS TO EVERYONE OUT THERE-- every day in every way you are getting closer and closer to the end of your time on this planet, so what did you do today with your time???
What you do today will affect you in 90 days, you are where you are at today due to what you have dont in the past.
Don't you get this question a lot? People ask me, how does it working when you work from home. You are exactly right that you have to have time management. I have taken several Fred Pryor classes in the past and still attend them every once in a while. Its important to refresh.
Great ideas. People don't value our time. And, they believe if you work from home, you are sitting in pajamas. Unbelievable. I have more work now than when I worked out of a corner office in a "big box" real estate office. Don Sabinske
Richard- Probably both, they usually go together hand in hand.
Li- Time is always on, that's true...so we need to know when to walk away and when to let it in when we are online.
Liz- The time tracking tools are great to keep you centered. I love Google Calendars and I know what you mean.
Vickie- There are so man tools out there, so I think it's just important to find the ones that have a good application. To use them all...well...there's no need or time for that:-)
Most people will try to waste your time and its your job to not let them do it, sometimes that means not taking on buyers who dont havce a specific time frame or are not realistic with their budget and with sellers who dont price correctly.
Rebecca- I love the task tool in google to use with my calendar. I am a big one on time chunking and setting the timer for tasks we don't like to do but have to do, like taxes:(
I was using the outlook calendar which I love because I used different colors for different life sections, which really gave me a great visual of where I am spending my time. But Google calendar is easier to toggle between mail, calendar, tasks and labels. I hope they keep improving on their applications. I don't like to use a different calendar for each life section, which is right now the way google has it set up if you want to use colors. As far as I have been able to see anyways.
I am still working on my utterlies. I can not get the sound to play back after I record. The sound is on, mic is good, but I am doing something wrong when I go to post it. I am excited about the tool though, love the uses for it.
Kevin and Monica- outsourcing...when I let go, is wonderful for my business and life.
Brenda and David- If there's one thing you SHOULD DO it is to make more "YOU TIME" :-)
Steve- It is a precious commodity that seems to go by so very fast.
John- YES. I have been telecommuting for 8 years now and I still get asked that question. 8 years ago no one could believe I could get a job working from home and I DID:-) Now I work for myself and still from home and I love it. I do want to get some office space by the lake, but I forsee most of my time working from home still.
Sabinske and Associates- We have to remind ourselves first that our time is valuable, then set priorities so that others can not disrespect our time.
Push push push...run run run. Enjoyed this weekend catching up around home and feel rested and ready to get back at 'em. Good points to use your time wisely.
We Realtors have a lot more control over our time than those working a traditional job in a company. Unfortunately, greater flexiblity often leads to greater IRRESPONSIBILITY - especially when blocking your time.
You need to block family time and time off FIRST, rather than as an afterthought. How many truly do this?
Hence, the stress, and high level of exhaustion, among many in our profession.
Rebecca,
Yes some great tips indeed and delagation is certainly a BIG PART of time management!
I think we all have certain times when we need to improve our time management!
Great post!
Thanks
Tom Davis
DE REALTOR (R)
Thanks for the links. I need to bookmark and check them out. Time is the only thing we have an equal amount of each day. We all get 24 hrs. and some of us use it better than others!
I always ask myself..."Where has the time gone" ... seems like there isn't enough time in the day. But, hopefully, the links you provided will help me. Thanks so much.
Time management....uggghhhh that ugly phrase! I'm working on it each day Rebecca. Great use of Utterli. Been thinking about using it. I think you have me convinced. :)
Rebecca,
I love that toodledo website! Tons of "stuff" to make good use of my limited time!
Thanks for sharing!
Kathy Opatka, Re/Max, OCEAN CITY, MARYLAND
Tom- Thank you, I am always working on my time managment.
Chris- That's excellent. You know some of the best courses are the ones that withstand time. I took one on customer service eight years ago and I still use the core components to this day.
Kate- Time Management is a fundamental building block for success for all entrepreuners. As we get deeper into social networking and blogging it is increasingly crucial to be mindful of our time.
Roxanna- You're welcome I hope you find them useful to your business and life.
Krisit- lol, that's true, well said.
Rebecca- I hope so...also realizing that we don't have to get everything done Today.
Hi Rebecca, as you know from our many conversations about time management and keeping our eyes focused on business and all the necessary tasks that need our attention, I am a BIG proponent of many of these tools. Since I have to track my projects for my clients I use TimeStamp and what can I say - I love everything Google. Thanks for the recommendation on toodledo - will check it out too. You're the best! ~Anne Marie
Thanks for the links. I have no problems saying to my clients that "Family Time' is important to me...I usually do not get the sentance out of my mouth when they say...'You are so right'....most people agree...lets all take a stance - family first....thanks for the blog!
http://www.janpickering.com/
This is one of those things that I constantly struggle with!!! And lately I feel that I have not been very focused, just because I have a hand in so many different buckets!!!
Rebecca - Thank you for the links. I have survived the the past two years using a two week calendar. I first block out family time, next I'll block out some marketing time, focus time, and blocks of time for inspections. This has allowed me to grow my business and still keep time for the important things in my life - my family.
Here's to your best year ever, may everything you touch turn SOLD,
John Villella, Your Personal Building Consultant All Pro Home Inspection (716) 772-2548
John- I like the blocking out time and you should only use tools that make u productive, not tools that take up more of your time. So if that means a 2 week calendar, than by all means, it makes sense to use that.
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thanks for the links - I will take a look. i either need more time or less sleep!