For some very small business people, the best way to get a project done is to dive in and just start. Sometimes that may be the best policy.
But typically, before one charges into any major project, the best time management strategy it is to step back and to review the situation. Only after review, can a series of deliberate steps be taken.
If you are a self employed micro business owner, you have a wide range of responsibilities. These are far more varied that that of most business people. Most of them enjoy the luxury of having a relatively narrowly defined set of responsibilities. In contrast, if you are self employed, you have primary responsibility for all aspects of your business as well as your responsibilities to your family and society as a whole. Not only that, you have a personal responsibility to yourself, your body, mind and spirit.
You already know that these multiple roles are placing significant stress on your life. Unless you are very unusual, you are probably dropping a few balls here and there. After all no one can be an expert on everything.
When some people talk about multi-tasking they may have two or three projects going for a period of time. When you talk about multi-tasking, you mean managing a myriad of projects on an ongoing basis. You are simultaneously management and labor, research, production, procurement, marketing and janitor to mention a few.
The odds are you have tried a variety of time management programs in the past. Perhaps you still do. Perhaps you practiced one for a while and then fell off the wagon. I know that I have, and still do. I am a sinner in that regard, and while such mishaps have hurt my progress, I cannot beat myself up about them. You shouldn't either.
For some people a strict and orderly process and approach to life comes natural. They can readily fall into a routine and maintain that routine for decades on end. Some such people seek out situations that permit them to maintain a routine order to their lives. By and large they are not entrepreneurs. Anyone who is in a business serving customers knows that customers, opportunities, and disasters occur when they choose and not according to a routine schedule.
Those of us in contact with the world need to devise systems that are flexible. A day planner with hours marked from 8 AM to 5 PM isn't going to suffice for most of us. So when we devise our own best fit time management system, we need to insure it has flexibility built into it. Or it will quickly fail.
And the one item we need to be most flexible with is ourselves. Before you start a new time management routine, recognize that you will fail. Accept that. Plan for it. You will fail because of external situations. You will fail because of your own personal weaknesses. You will fail because you picked a rigid planner or system and it didn't fully account for your peculiar circumstances.
It took me over 100 attempts before I finally was able to quit cigarettes. But through persistence I was ultimately able to succeed. Hopefully you won't require a 100 attempts to make progress on your time management skills. But even if it takes multiple efforts, and repeated failings, just keep on keeping on. Time management skills are learned incrementally. By doing. Your sole responsibility is to keep trying.
The purpose of this article is the let you know that you have two time management responsibilities. They are to try and to persist. You need not adapt in an instance a whole new way of doing things from some guru's book of how to's. You need to understand that time management books and programs that may be excellent for others may not apply in your situation.
For example, if you are a lone eagle, you just don't need the chapters on delegation unless "I" wants to delegate "me" to help "my" get their work done. It may be immensely for a division manager but irrelevant for you.
Unfortunately, just like everything else in your life as a sole proprietor, it's going to be up to you to design your own system to meet your own needs. Take some time to get ready. Focus on the important and blow off the trivial.
