Time Management for Business and Personal Use

Business Time Management Tip – The Secret to Laser Sharp Focus

Posted on May 5, 2010 by yourownvirtualassistant

Business time management focuses on the systems, and tools that business owners and entrepreneurs especially need to manage their time. In this article the author discusses how to use the different time management strategies to allow the business owner to become much more efficient with their time. Read on for more on this tip that can help keep the entrepreneur on track.

Trying to stay focused is a crucial skill involved with business time management. As busy as our high tech world has become, maintaining focus is becoming even more challenging. However, individuals who are successful, both professionally and personally, eventually learn the most important aspect of staying focused.

Most people, when starting a new task, can concentrate on the job initially. They are usually mentally fresh, and able to focus.

Unfortunately, they allow themselves to be distracted, Especially when they are mentally tired. These distractions are devastating, because once an individual is distracted, it takes a long time to regain focus.

The key to maintaining focus is to plan your work in “chunks” of time. Generally, these blocks of time range from 90 minutes to 3 hours depending on how much concentration is required.

Literally, put these time blocks in your day planner. While working during these times, you will allow no other activities to take place.

No personal phone calls, texting, reading email, surfing the Net etc.

At the same time that you schedule your blocks of work time, you also schedule your breaks. The key is to stick to the schedule until it becomes a habit and a regimen.

GOOD habits are as hard to break as bad habits. Generally it takes between 3-4 weeks to establish a habit.

Also, part of business time management is to plan your time away from work. Put that time on a calender, and TAKE THAT TIME OFF! By doing so, you will discover that when you return to work it will be MUCH easier to focus.

You will be mentally refreshed, and ready to focus!

Are you spending too much time at work? Do you need help in clarifying and focusing on your priorities, so you can work A LOT less and make more money?

My FREE eBook, The Alligator Syndrome, is making waves in the entrepreneurial community for helping stressed out business owners achieve maximum productivity and laser sharp focus! For your FREE download, GO HERE: http://actionbusinesscoach.blinkweb.com

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Time Management Courses – Using iMac and Spaces For Improving Time Management

Posted on May 3, 2010 by yourownvirtualassistant

There are all kinds of tools and software that work in different operating systems. One operating system that is of growing importance is the Mac operating system. This post is about some of the time management tools that are available for the Mac. Read on for more about how to use the iMac and Spaces to increase your time management efficiency.

Improving time management is something that everyone can benefit from. We can never create more time in a day, but if we can more effectively use our time, then we will have more time for the things that we want to do. There are a variety of online time management training tools, personal time management software, and you can even take a time management course, but this simple trick using your iMac and Spaces can get you on the right path by slightly altering the way you think about your work and time. This is a time management report that will drastically improve your life.

First of all, Spaces can be personal time management software if you use it correctly. Spaces allows you to have different desktops open at a time. As simple as that sounds, it can be very powerful. In each “space” only allow yourself to have 1 window open. This would be similar to the first item on your to do list. Cluttered desktops breed distractions, so narrowing down what you CAN look at will go a long way to improving time management.

The key is to not allow yourself to view other desktops until you have completed what you need on your current desktop. If you need multiple programs for some tasks, that is fine, but simply go to the space that holds that information, retrieve it, and then got back immediately.

You will be giving yourself a time management course. This may sound so basic that you are confused as to how it will help. Try it. Do not let yourself do anything but what is on your screen. And, do not allow yourself to open another window on a particular space. It will require discipline, but it will have its rewards.

Set up your spaces each evening for the tasks that you want to complete the next day and follow the path when you get there and it is time to do the work. KNOWING that you cannot do anything else until you have completed your current task will force you to get it done.

Here is how I have my day and spaces are structured currently, and I never had to take any online time management training (take good notice for where the email and Internet surfing coming):

Space 1: Market Samurai – I do keyword research for content I am posting

Space 2: Spreadsheet – Lists all the keywords I have selected and corresponding published content

Space 3: Twitter – social media marketing

Space 4: Personal development: Read inspirational content

Space 5: Word processor: Write article to post

Space 6: Video Software: Create a video to post

Space 7: Traffic Geyser: Distribute content

Space 8: Google AdSense: Pay per click advertising

Space 9: Facebook: Social media marketing

Space 10: Gmail: FINALLY check email

Space 11: Website: update pages

Space 12: Aweber: manage email lists

Space 13: Training: Make sure I stay on the cutting edge

Space 14: To do list: random things that have come up

Space 15: Miscellaneous: usually where I go to browse the web.

Space 16: iTunes – have to celebrate when the work is done.

As you can see it is very structured (and I have never been an organized person) and it drastically decreases the time it takes to get each of my tasks done because my focus is singular.

Jim Kernan was a successful professional in consulting as well as Wall Street with an MBA from Duke University before he started his own home based business opportunity to free himself of the shackles of the corporate world.

He is now a successful Internet entrepreneur who specialized in teaching others the same skills that he learned. He has a strong belief that the more one gives the more they receive in return. This philosophy has been proven and led countless others to success.

Should you be interested in free information and guidance it is available at the links below.

See how you can run a home business, action produces results: CarbonCopyFranchise.com Visit here for a video on improving time management

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Book Review – “The 25 Best Time Management Tools & Techniques”

Posted on April 30, 2010 by yourownvirtualassistant

Time management doesn’t change over time. We all have the same amount of time now as we did 100 years ago. So really, the tools we would use wouldn’t really need to see much change over the years. Maybe the difference would be in the software, or any specific field that is popular today that wasn’t even in existence 100 years ago. So having said all of that, here is a book review of the 25 Best Time Management Tools and Techniques. The book was written in 2005, but will still be valid only 5 years later. Read on for more.

Rated as one of the top 20 time management books by Amazon, “The 25 Best Time Management Tools & Techniques” is a must for anyone that feels overwhelmed in their disorganization. Dodd and Sundheim give easy-to-read and easy-to-follow tools for creating quick results.

The book has sections: Focus, Plan, Organize, Take Action, and Learn. Each section gives simple steps to take. For example, in the Plan section, the authors point out that most people don’t plan because they have no time, already know what to do, don’t like to-do lists, or don’t know how to plan. Dodd and Sundheim say those are just excuses. Knowing that planning is a vital key, the authors lead the reader on creating a personal planning system, setting goals, planning backwards, and prioritizing.

Dodd and Sundheim founded Clarity Consulting in 2000 to combine their talents and passion for helping people be more effective at work. The company has offices in New York City and Orlando, Florida.

“The 25 Best Time Management Tools & Techniques,” published by Peak Performance Press in 2005, offers a simple solution to time management for everyone, either in the corporate world or in personal life. The Dodd and Sundheim’s compassion and understanding of time management come through with detail, organization, and leadership.

Featured as “Book of the Week” on Reader Views January 2, 2005.

Irene Watson is the Managing Editor of Reader Views, an online book review service. She is also the author of her memoir “The Sitting Swing” and retreat/workshop designer and facilitator. http://www.readerviews.com
http://www.irenewatson.com

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Time Management Activity – Improving Your Employees Productivity

Posted on April 28, 2010 by yourownvirtualassistant

Improving the productivity of your employees isn’t always an easy thing to do if you don’t have the right tools or system. One way to do this is to incorporate time management activities into their daily routine. These activities can be monitored to see how much they are adding to the productivity of the employee or not. In the following article, the author shares 2 time management activities that can be used with employees. Read on for more.

One of the best ways to teach your office staff on how function their job properly and balance many quantities of work is using a time management activity. It can also bring the team together such as planning a group activity that will raise the team’s morale.

The reason is twofold, with one part of the activity will serve to teach your workers good tips for managing their work while the other part will tell people on how to work together while getting their work done. This activity can be just about anything that your employees need in order to learn to help each other as a team and learn to use their time more effectively.

Some offices report giving short projects that require planning, timing and intricate work patterns. Groups of employees are given such short projects to complete in a short amount of time. Therefore, time management skills has to come into play as the team must estimate time requirements, divide responsibilities, establish priorities and manage deadlines.

There is an activity that always works

Another tip for your staff is to plan a difficult assignment and rewards them with a prize or some time off from work. The assignment can not be something that can be done within a restricted timeframe – the objective is to help your staff establish their time management techniques through this activity over a period of several days. Allow your employees to establish deadlines and priorities themselves, and teach them only when they really needed it.

This is to be sure that your workers create items in their offices lives that will aid them in their time management skills that will change over time. Give them small jobs to do along with their work projects that will assist them in combining time management tricks and time management activities both in their office and in their daily lives. An employee that uses good time management ideas at home also uses it in the office, too.

There are several tips that you can use. One of the effective ways to find tips for an activity is to look on websites relating to time management or check out a book from your local library. Managing your time is critical and having workers that recognize the importance of time is vital to the success of your business. Another idea for such an activity is to source out short work-related projects that are non-critical but important and allow your team to learn through them.

Enhancing your business productivity is simply very easy in using various time management activity.

Eddy K Elgin is the webmaster of the Quick Guide To Time Management Secrets. Drop by at Simple Ways To Improve Your Employees Productivity for more details.

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Time Management Seminars – Learning the Important Things

Posted on April 25, 2010 by yourownvirtualassistant

Taking time management seminars is a great way to discover some new tools and time management systems that are available for the different niche markets. Not all tools will be optimum for all professions or life styles. This article gives you an idea of the way many time management seminars are run. This can give you an idea if a time management seminar is for you, or if you should use another way to learn about this topic. Read on for more!

What you need to get is any important info from time management seminars. There is a lot of vital training from this seminars that you may get for getting the most out of your time well.

The Key is Time Management

This seminars can assist you maximizing your day and answer that age old question, where did all the time go? If you are within driving distance or a bus ride of a metropolitan city, it is sure that there is now or will be soon a seminar in your area.

Vital Features of Time Management Seminars

Delegation – to be an efficient time manager you must learn to let others do some of the duties you are now doing.

Using Downtime Effectively – the most excellent seminars will include learning to optimize all your time, including your downtime.

Multi tasking is one out of a lot of seminars that unites two activities at once. Reading a book on the bus or commuter train is a simple instance of multi tasking.

Speed reading – Most seminars will also include a section on speed reading.

Prioritization – The one of the most crucial principle of seminars is learning how to maximize tasks.

What If You Can’t Come to the Seminars?

Probably coming to seminars is further than your budget. On the other hand you may just don’t possess the time to attend this seminars.

If you are perplexed for getting materials of time management seminars try to look for them in internet sources.

For more articles and knowledge about time management, get other articles by Steven Don. You are welcome to visit his website on Time Management for more useful information.

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Time Management Software

Posted on April 22, 2010 by yourownvirtualassistant

There are all kinds of tools, books, programs, and software that have been created to help people manage their time better. These tools are targeted for different market segments as well such as nurses, students, business owners, executives, and more. In this article, the author talks about time management software and what it can do. This is only a snippet of the article because the entire article was huge and went all over the place, so I have just included the pieces that talk about time management and then you can go to the site of the original article and read the rest of it.

….Time Management Software

To tell you the truth, there is some software that can help you in your goal of time management. Such software is pretty high-end software and can really help you master the trick of managing time, so that in the graph of success versus time, you keep going up the y-axis which measures success as time proceeds on the x-axis. Time management in today’s fast-paced environment is a resource per se that can help you do ‘business at the speed of thought’. Modern time management software trains you in such a way so that you can manage time beautifully, can work with clockwork precision. By forcing you to make a note of your meetings and appointments and by reminding you of your appointments when you forget about them, modern time management software ensures that you do not miss out any vital opportunities, however hard-pressed you may be for time. In the modern corporate world, every moment is crunch time. Even keeping abreast of each day can be a trial, can give you a trying time.

Time management software is designed using cutting-edge technology so that time management is a seamless affair. New-age time management software enables you to store names and particulars of people and places in it. Time management software also helps you to store valuable meeting agenda, minutes and summaries along with meeting or conference schedules so that you can refer to the software, anytime, anywhere for various professional and personal details. Unlike diaries in which you have to scribble in details, the pages of which are limited and may tear, time management software permits you to key in unlimited information and retrieve information from the software at the click of a mouse. You might thumb through diaries and still not find what you are looking for but if you just ask the software what you want, it will flash the right answer to you in no time. All you have to do with modern time management software is feed data into the software from time to time. Most time management software are platform independent too. Which means you do not have to lug the software around like you have to lug around your notebook or diary. You just have to sit before a laptop, PC or other device, which is connected to the Internet, in order to access the platform of the software. Once you access the software, getting to your personal account is a cakewalk.

Endless Advantages of Modern Time Management Software

Modern time management software has the added advantage of being tamperproof, failsafe. You can only log into your account with your Username and Password. Hence, your confidential information remains totally safeguarded from unauthorized access unless you make the mistake of revealing your Password to people. Additionally, modern time management software helps you to network professionally and socially with others. If you are planning a meeting shortly, you can get in touch instantly with your coworkers, who may be situated miles away, through the platform of the software, so that all of you can fix the meeting date. For tasks that require a consensus and which you cannot do at your sole discretion, professional and instantaneous networking is the only answer, if the tasks have to be executed in good time. Or else, you shall have to wait for days for your colleagues to return from their trips abroad, just so that they can agree or disagree to a particular meeting schedule. It is the same with party dates. If you can fix the date and time of a party, send out party invitations, discuss with your friends the theme of the party by simply keying in data on a keyboard, I can promise that you shall have a whale of a time at the party.

Modern time management software is so smart that it will help you carry out whole processes such as meeting planning and management, event planning and management, and daily life planning and management, through it and thus help you save lots of time. Smart time management software can transform you into a big time entrepreneur from a small time businessperson. Authentic time management software can change hard times to great and memorable times and can really help you have a good time. As such software has been around for quite some time now, you can say that it is time tested.

Time management software is also extremely state-of-the-art. In order to keep up with the times, ace time management software is even cell phone compatible. Which means that if you have the time management software integrated into your mobile or handheld device, you will receive meeting alerts, agenda alerts, and other alerts via your cell phone or handheld device. You will also be able to log into your software account from your cell phone and use the software in a full-fledged manner just like you would use it from a PC or a laptop…..

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Time Management Techniques In Business – Party Like a Rock Star

Posted on April 20, 2010 by yourownvirtualassistant

This article “Business Time Management – How to Party Like a Rock Star and Still Have Time For Your Business” brings up some interesting points…. I am currently listening to the CD series “Your wish is your command” and one of the things it says is that if you believe it will take 20 hours of work a day to be successful, then that is what you will create for yourself. I found this quite intriguing because those that are successful in business and can party like a rock star have a different belief set. Maybe it’s time to really look at our belief systems.

Often times, particularly when you are an entrepreneur, you end up being a slave to your business. Typically, by the time a client comes to me for help, it has become a time consuming Albatross hanging around your neck. However, smart business owners have an “ace in the hole” when it comes to effective time management and having a “life”and a business, at the same time.

When an entrepreneur is starting a business, particularly an online business, they try to perform all the functions of the business themselves. This is normal and natural. When a business is small, and just starting, frequently one individual can handle all the tasks.

The problems arise as the business grows and becomes more involved and complicated. Many business owners still try and handle all the activities themselves. This creates a very tiring, stressful, and potentially damaging situation. Generally, in trying to do everything, the owner is forced to work LONG hours. In addition, many of the tasks that are important to the business, are either left undone, or are done ineffectively.

So, what is the solution to effective business time management?

The solution to handling a growing business is to delegate some of the activities to others. These functions could be delegated to additional employees, or independent contractors. The key is to identify which activities to delegate. Generally, the owner should continue the activities that are crucial to the core success of the business.

Less essential activities, which can often be time consuming, should be delegated to others. However, and this is CRUCIAL, the owner MUST take the required time to train the individual properly.

Too often, the owner will “whisk” the individual into the position without adequate training. An improperly trained worker is often WORSE than no worker at all! On the other hand, properly trained help can free up time for the owner to spend more time on crucial aspects of running the business, as well as allowing time for friends, family, and fun!

My name is Mike Hutchins, widely known as the “action” business coach. I am the author of ” The Alligator Syndrome ” which is an eBook guide that helps business owners overcome information overload and feelings of being overwhelmed, to finally create serious business profits. Get your FREE copy HERE.