Time Management

One of the worst problems most small business people have is not enough time.  This is especially true if they have a family that depends on part of that time.  Trying to juggle the two often means that that business task slip through the cracks, resulting in lost income or gaining a poor reputation.

There are certainly a lot of time management systems out there and I’ve tried many of them to try and be more productive.  But if you are like me, they are often more complicated than they are worth for most small business people. Yet, unless you have some kind of system, it is so easy for projects to get pushed off until “tomorrow” and you find yourself forever behind.  Procrastination is bad for business.

I was recently reading some articles about time management that made a whole lot of sense. It wasn't about some fancy new system with spreadsheets or logs or any other of the myriad systems out there. While these systems, if applied correctly, can be highly effective - they also consume a lot of time to maintain.

The first tidbit I read about is the 2-minute rule. It goes something like this: 'If something takes less than 2 minutes to do, don't put it on a list, just do it.' It got me thinking about how many things pop into my head about things I need to do, but just say to myself 'I have to remember to take care of that' or write it down on some list I have. It also made me realize how many of those things get pushed down the road until they become last minute to-do items or others where the opportunity was lost forever.