9 Business Time Management Skills You Need To Succeed

By Dan Preston

Do you have plenty to do, but don’t have enough time to do it all in? These days it appears there is a mad scramble to accomplish more in a shorter amount of time.

As a business owner, there will be times that you feel overwhelmed with tasks you want to accomplish, but seem to never have enough time to complete everything.

Here you will find 9 time management suggestions which will in turn help you accomplish tasks more efficiently and give you a chance to open up more opportunities to do the things you'd rather be doing.

1) Create A To Do List – Having a well plotted “To Do List” will keep you focused on the tasks that need attention and will help you from straying away from the things you want or need to accomplish.

2) Prioritize Your To Do List – If you have a “To Do” list that contains several tasks, it is wise to separate the items that must be done now from the ones that hold lesser importance. Tasks with a deadline should be first on your priority list.

3) Spend Time Planning – Using your time to plan and think ahead is time spent wisely. Having a clear direction where you want your business to be in a few years down the road will allow you to spend your precious time and money more effectively and efficiently. It has been said, that if you do not plan, then you are planning to fail.

4) Create Goals For Yourself – Without goals your life would have no direction. When setting goals be sure to create ones that are specific, achievable, realistic and at the same time cause you to reach beyond your comfort zone so that you gain the ability to reach those goals that are more difficult to obtain than others.

5) Overcome Procrastination – Many people put off things that they don’t want to do until the very last minute. One way to overcome procrastination is to work on tasks just a little bit at a time or for only a set time period rather than for long time periods all at once. This way you are still getting your important tasks done, but just at a slower rate.

6) Eliminate Important Tasks First – Check off on your “To Do” list as to which tasks out rank others as far as importance is concerned. By doing this you will not get side tracked or find yourself in a deadline rush to get the items with greater rewards finished on time. Once the important tasks are completed then you should move onto the less important items on your list.

7) Nobody’s Perfect – Doing a job well to the best of your abilities is a practice of honorable measures. By spending the time to try and be perfect at everything you do is not time well spent because the time you do spend could be used at accomplishing other important tasks. Although, some things do need to be close to perfect, but not all.

8) Be Flexible – Plan your time so that if there are distractions or emergencies to attend to, you won’t find yourself in a situation where you must delay the completion of important tasks, but can attend to the distraction and still keep on schedule.

9) Treat Yourself – To make life happier and healthier for oneself, it is important that you take time away from your work to just have some fun. If all you do is work, work, work, then accomplishing the goals you have set for yourself will have little meaning and you risk mental burnout. Taking time out to have fun is also necessary to relieve yourself from the many stresses that life has to offer.

Dan Preston has been in the ebook business for over 3 years and has enjoyed every moment of it. His website InfoHeaven Digital Books offers a variety of ebooks big enough to answer almost anyone's how-to questions. http://online-book-store.net

Tips to Manage Incoming E-mail

By Pam Woods

Friends, colleagues, and clients are all telling me that one of their biggest challenges is trying to manage e-mail overload. They say everyone wants something from them and consequently, they’re buried in e-mail. Is this a struggle for you? If so, here are a few tips that will save you some time in reading and receiving e-mail.

1. Limit personal e-mail at work.

Yes, this may seem a drastic step but it’s one that will help you stay focused on priorities so you can complete your work and then spend time doing the things that mean the most to you.

2. Use a spam program.

Your employer or ISP may already cover this but if you are running your own system you’ll want a spam blocker to help minimize unwanted e-mail as much as possible. (Tip: PC World rates Cloudmark's SpamNet as one of the best.)

3. Use folders to store e-mail.

Your inbox isn’t a storage facility, it’s for incoming mail. Create folders within your e-mail program that “mirror” the folders you use to store hardcopy in your office/workspace.

4. Change the subject of e-mails to summarize its content.

Make it easy to find any e-mail you decide to keep by changing the subject. For example: if you receive an e-mail with the subject “Update” and it turns out to be a request for you to send someone an update, change the subject to “Send John Doe product update on 8/29/05.” This functionality is available in most e-mail programs.

5. Limit the frequency with which you review and process incoming e-mail to 2 or 3x’s per day.

Pick times other than when you are most focused, creative, or energized.

6. As a general rule, separate the task of “processing” your incoming e-mail from “working” on your e-mail.

Exception: If you can reply or forward an e-mail in a minute or two, do it, then delete it. Otherwise, save the doing/replying/composing for a later work period.

7. Organize your e-mail by “Received” order.

In other words, make sure you’ve set up your inbox so the newest e-mails are on top.

8. Empty your e-mail inbox in five steps. Here’s how:

• Scan all e-mail and delete the spam. It’s impossible to filter out all spam but you can learn to recognize it so you don’t waste time opening it or getting a virus. Common characteristics include: a random series of numbers in the “From” address, the “Subject” is followed by six spaces then a number, or the subject ends with three exclamation marks.
• Review remaining e-mails from oldest to newest and in order of importance. Read “high importance” and “to do” e-mails, then scan “FYI’s” and “newsletter” e-mails.
• If an e-mail contains information you want to reference later: a) drag it to the appropriate e-mail folder, or b) print it, delete it and file the hardcopy with like material.
• If an e-mail requires that you take an action: a) record the action in your calendar, then b) delete it or file it for future reference.
• If after reviewing an e-mail you determine it has no future value, delete it.

The volume of e-mail you receive isn’t likely to slow down. In fact, Bill Gates, Business Week and a host of other industry experts say e-mail overload is a drag on productivity. Try these techniques and don’t let electronic missives get you down.

Pam N. Woods is co-author of a bestselling book, Create the Business Breakthrough You Want: Secrets and Strategies from the World's Greatest Mentors; endorsed by Ken Blanchard and Dr. Stephen Covey. She is a Coach U graduate and President of Smart WorkLife Solutions, a coaching and consulting company devoted to co-creating customized solutions to fit clients business and personal organizing needs. Prior to founding her own firm she had a successful 20+ year career as an insurance executive and Vice President of Human Resources. For more free how-to articles and advice, or to contact Woods, visit http://www.worklifecoach.com Copyright 2005 - Pam Woods

Making the Best Use of Your Time

By Gary Simpson

Time - it is the one thing that we are all running out of. It cannot be replaced. When it is spent, it is spent.

What, then, are you doing to ensure that you are maximizing the use of time?"

Understand that time will pass regardless of whether you spend it wisely or simply waste it.

You can make time your friend or it can be your worst enemy. Most people leave important tasks till the last possible moment then they are forced by self-imposed circumstance to rush everything. This is a lack of planning and responsibility , often borne from that other scourge called procrastination - the inability to begin.

Leaving things until the "eleventh hour" is where that horrible word "URGENT" comes from. Whenever you hear that word you can almost certainly be sure that somebody in the chain is trying to deflect the blame onto somebody else for their own slackness. You don't do that do you?

How many times have you heard people complain that they "haven't had time!"? What they really mean, and what they should be saying, is "I left it too late and ran out of time." Ever hear anybody say that? Uh-uh - that sounds too self-deprecating doesn't it? So they blame time itself.

Time does not care how you spend it. You can use it to create marvelous things in your life or you can waste it. All of us have only 168 hours per week. About a third of that is spent re-charging, that is, sleeping. That leaves 112 hours to use - more than enough to achieve anything you want.

I have a saying about sleep. "You can sleep all you want when you are dead." In the meantime, if you have something really important to do then get up an hour earlier in the morning. Conversely, if you are a "night person" you can stay awake for several hours in the evening to get things done.

The wise use of time is the mark of a successful person.

Plan your actions. Use time wisely - you are never going to get it back. The clock is always ticking. Tick. Tick. Tick...

About the author: Gary Simpson is the author of eight books covering a diverse range of subjects such as self esteem, affirmations, self defense, finance and much more. His articles appear all over the web. Gary's email address is budo@iinet.net.au. Click here to go to his
Motivation & Self Esteem for Success website.