Time Management Mistakes Most People Fall Into
Being an entrepreneur means keeping many plates spinning at the same time, which means small business owners must have great time management skills. Being able to adequately manage your time is an important skill for just about any career. Even restaurant servers have to time their process, from taking orders to delivering the check, everything is on a specially timed cycle. However, most entrepreneurs are not master time managers, and are paying for it, and they don’t know what they are doing wrong.
By asking yourself carefully targeted questions, entrepreneurs can eliminates time waste in the way you interact with employees, or the way you take on projects.
New tricks for old dogs
When people become established in their careers and develop an expertise, there is an increased risk that a person develops a myopic view of situations. The fact of the matter is that one solution, as clever as it may be, will not be the answer for all issues. Unique problems that arise, and specialized projects, require an original approach instead of trying to craft a one-size-fits all solution.
Although this may sound like common sense to entrepreneurs, many still have difficulty customizing their strategies. In the end it just takes trial and error to really pinpoint the best approach. This means that it will require for you to admit to yourself and your team when something isn’t working and needs to be redirected. To help you best prioritize, ask yourself:
- Which projects need the most and the least attention?
- Which projects and tasks need me to be more involved (and what can be delegated)?
- How to best delegate the tasks (or get more involved, whatever the case may be)?
Ignorance is (nothing like) bliss
Your best resource to achieve your goals and please your clients is your staff, or even your third-party contractors and vendors. You need them to succeed just like they need your leadership to succeed, but many entrepreneurs overlook this relationship, which ends up costing more time and resources in the long run. Make sure that you give your staff and vendors some of your time and input that they need. Create a list of each important work relationship, like your assistants, colleagues, top managers, etc. Then ask yourself:
- What do they need from me in order to succeed?
- Should I be more involved, or less involved?
If you can’t answer these questions, reach out to that person and discuss the questions.
