Time Management Tips

How to get out from under the daily grind and find time to grow your business

The Rolling Stones sang “time is on my side, yes it is.” If you own and run a small business, this probably isn’t your theme song.

Indeed, in a new study sponsored by small business counseling group SCORE and credit card issuer Visa USA Inc., 35% of sole proprietors say the biggest challenge in maintaining and growing their businesses is the inability to focus on generating new business; 27 percent say their largest obstacle is stretching themselves across too many roles and projects.

Peter Turla, a time management expert who is president of The National Management Institute, says managing a small business “is like being the parent of a large family that you have to feed. Each aspect of your job can be like another child that needs nurturing. You can’t neglect any one of the ‘children’ and expect to have a healthy family.”

How can you nurture all your “children?”

• Delegate or outsource tasks. Time management expert Dave Durand says a small business owner never should undertake “minimum-wage work,” such as basic bookkeeping or accounting. Hand off the routine stuff – even answering the phone or sorting mail – to someone else so you can keep your “eye on the horizon,” Durand says. Also, he says, outsource costlier work that’s not in your realm of expertise, such as marketing or design. The expert will do it in less time than it would take you and, if she’s a real pro, find ways to help your business that you wouldn’t think of, experts say.

Delegating doesn’t come easily to owners of micro-businesses, who tend to be micro-managers, too, says Gene Fairbrother, lead business consultant for the National Association of the Self-Employed (NASE). But there is a price: You wind up spending 15 or 20 hours a week on bookkeeping or administrative work that could be performed by a $10-an-hour employee. Meanwhile, you’re not tackling projects worth $100 an hour, such as actually selling your goods or services, he says. Investigate the cost of outsourcing the three job functions you like least, Fairbrother advises.

Of the 1,000 sole proprietors who responded to the SCORE-Visa survey, 52% say that they’d like to add an employee to help generate new business. They say they’d most likely delegate marketing, sales and operations responsibilities to that worker. Why haven’t they hired such a helpful person? 69% blame a lack of money.

• Set aside time to think and do. Turla recommends scheduling uninterrupted time by yourself to sort through the myriad aspects of your business. “If you don’t block out the time, you’ll tend to get sidetracked with other issues,” he says.

On a monthly basis, allocate time to reflect on the overall goals and direction of your business, Turla says.

Once a week, review upcoming deadlines and estimate how much time must be devoted to preparing for them, Turla says. Also, be sure you’ve carved out “face time” each week for key people, such as clients, vendors and business partners, who can confer with you on major issues.

Every day, schedule plenty of time to address high-payoff “backburner” concerns as well as impending deadlines, Turla says.

To make sure you are pushing for growth, Fairbrother recommends setting aside two to three hours on two days a week for marketing your business. Mark that time on your calendar and don’t let anything interrupt you. Treat these periods like they’re your most important clients, he says.

Monica Ricci says you should structure your entire week into chunks of time for new-business generation, administrative work, networking and so on. Whether you block out 30 minutes, three hours or a full day, segmenting your time into manageable pieces “will help you stay on task and super-productive,” Ricci says.

• Organize your thoughts. Record all of your professional and personal to-do’s on paper or in a software program such as Microsoft Outlook or Palm Desktop, says Christina Randle, a productivity coach and trainer. Keep a pad, notebook or computerized list handy to track ideas, tasks and time-sensitive actions, Ricci says. On average, we receive at least 200 new pieces of information each day and can’t manage all of it in our heads without becoming overwhelmed, Randle says.

“When things are floating everywhere, we can feel like balls in a pinball machine – banging around from thing to thing – and not feel very accomplished at the end of the day,” Randle says.

Durand recommends dispensing with “floating” to-do lists that include everything you hope to accomplish between now and doomsday and assigning tasks only to the actual days you’re committed to completing them. That way, you set a self-imposed deadline for each to-do item.

“Floating to-do lists simply float,” Durand says. “The tasks written on them never actually get done, and all the while the guilt haunts you.”

Whether it’s a short-term or long-term project, assign dates and windows of time for when you’ll deal with it, Durand says. But for that strategy to truly be effective, you must set a “warning” (in a paper or electronic system) for 24 or 48 hours ahead to remind you of that looming project, he says.

• Plan, plan, plan. Experts say you should maintain your company’s “big picture” vision – such as revenue goals and names of clients you’d like to land – on paper or in a software program. NASE’s Fairbrother suggests investing $1,000 to hire a competent business consultant who can examine your business plan and help you determine priorities so you can move your business to “the next stage.”

“Sole proprietors have to stop digging themselves into a hole and begin to work smarter,” says Peggy Duncan, a productivity speaker, trainer, consultant and author. “So many of them do not spend sufficient time planning their business and will fail due to mismanagement. Think the way crooks do, and plan.”

• Stop multitasking and start focusing. Pay attention to the task in front of you before taking on another one, Randle says. By adopting this approach, you’ll accomplish more in less time with fewer errors, she says, and conserve energy for business development.

“Many of us think that the only way we can get everything done is to do multiple things at the same time,” Randle says. “However, recent studies have shown that multitasking is not only counterproductive, but that it can actually lower your IQ.”