Small business owners have so much to do every day – the business of your business (or what you’re actually paid to do), marketing, administration (emails, voicemails, etc.), bookkeeping. The list goes on and on…

And that’s only one part of your life!

In order to have a balanced life, you need to manage your time correctly otherwise you’ll be stressed out, burnt out and frazzled!

Here are the top 3 things I do to make sure my small business runs smoothly:

1. Eat your frogs every day

Every day decide on a maximum of 6 things to do. Before you even put them on your list, ask yourself if they bring you closer to your business goals or not.

Then do the most important task first. It often seems like that one is also the most difficult task. Once that is out of the way, your day gets better and the rest is a breeze.

This way, even if you don’t finish your 6 items, the most important tasks will always be done. I use this method for responding to emails too.

2. Remember Parkinson’s Law

Parkinson’s Law states that work expands to fill the time available for its completion.

Many times we don’t know how long something will take so we allow hours and hours for simple tasks. If you genuinely don’t know, then start keeping a time log for tasks you do routinely, like writing a weekly Ezine, daily blogging or posting to forums.

Once you have an idea of how long regular tasks take, set a timer when you do them in the future and aim to complete in that set time or less, every time.

3. Have monthly, weekly and daily checklists

For anything you do more than once (or plan to delegate to a virtual assistant), make a list as you go along.

My monthly checklists have accounting and computer back-up, my weekly checklists have article submission and blog planning, and my daily checklists have checking web stats.

This is so that you don’t waste time having to rethink your steps of action every day, week or month, or worse still, you forget to do something important. I have a whole system for automating your business (Business Control Journal) as part of my Organise your Business system that is definitely part of my arsenal for business success.

I suggest that you also have some self-care items on your lists. I read every day for pleasure and aside from a 20-minute planning session for the week ahead, I take the weekends off.

If you start implementing these 3 tips on a consistent basis, I guarantee that you’ll free up at least two hours a day.

I’d rather spend an extra two hours with my family; wouldn’t you?

Want to use this article in your ezine or on your blog? You may, as long as you include this complete blurb.

Marcia Francois is a time management and business organising coach who helps small business owners break out of overwhelm, make the most of their time and get important projects done. Visit http://organiseyourbusiness.com for your free 7-part audio series, 7 tips for time-strapped business owners.

I’m paranoid about forgetting anything. I once forgot something very dear to my heart and immediately put in a system to make sure it never happened again.

I suppose you want to know what happened?

I do some volunteer work at the church so I’d made an appointment to see someone on a public holiday and train another person at the same time. So I’m at home, pottering around the house and I get a phone call. “Ps Marcia, are you on your way?”

I immediately realised what happened, apologised while pulling on jacket and gloves, and raced out of the house. I might even have broken a few speed limits getting to the church.

However, I hated the embarrassment. I arrived to find the two of them having some coffee and chit-chat, and we all had a lovely time the rest of the evening.

I then vowed to never let that happen to me ever again.

So here’s what I now do and how you can also remember ALL your appointments:

1. Write everything down in your daily planner.

Everything! Even if I set up the meeting in Outlook, I still make a note of it on paper. (I’m a paper gal and make no apologies for it). You never know when you’ll have a power outage and you can’t access your electronic diary. Or when there’s a public holiday and you don’t look at your email

2. Make it a habit

If a meeting is recurring, I follow the exact same steps until it’s ingrained in me that it’s a habit. Like joining a new class at gym. Or scheduling a new coaching client. Or putting a new system into place, like a weekly back-up instead of monthly.

3. Set multiple reminders

If I need to leave at a specific time to get somewhere, I set reminders in Outlook and sync to my phone. Because sometimes you do get carried away, especially when you’re working hard and you’re “in the zone”. The phone’s my back-up if I’m not working in Outlook.

4. Work your system

A system will only work if you work the system.

That means checking your paper planner every day. Or reading and actioning your reminders on Outlook instead of just clicking “snooze” or even “dismiss” by accident.

I check my daily planner as part of my evening routine so that I can mentally prepare for the day ahead and of course, choose appropriate clothes

Your action challenge
Decide on your back-up system – whether phone, Outlook or paper – and try it out for the next two weeks.

Want to use this article in your ezine or on your blog? You may, as long as you include this complete blurb.

Marcia Francois is a time management and business organising coach who helps small business owners break out of overwhelm, make the most of their time and get important projects done. Visit http://organiseyourbusiness.com for your free 7-part audio series, 7 tips for time-strapped business owners.

Since we’ve been revisiting time principles, I thought it would be a good idea to talk about urgent and important.

Urgent refers to a time deadline.

Important means it is high value.

Every day things come across our path that are of low or high importance, and low and high urgency.

Grab a piece of paper and draw a big square. Now draw a line down and another across. You should now have 4 smaller squares.

Along the top, write High Value and Low Value. And along the left-hand side, write Deadline and No Deadline.

Basically, you want to always focus your time in the blocks on the left.

The top block is high value and high urgency, which means it must get done now and it is very important. I like to think of client work in this block. Clients are why most of us are in business and there are usually deadlines attached to your client work.

If you’ve ever bought a product of mine, you’ll know that you’re redirected to a page telling you I have a 24-hour turnaround time. Private 1:1 clients know that I’ve committed to always respond to emails within 24 – 48 hours.

The block below that is high value but low urgency and it is here that you need to focus if you’re ever going to move towards your goals. Why?

Nobody is standing over my head saying “you need to work on an email teleseminar” but I know that if I want to reach my goal of running x number of live teleseminars this year, I need to make time to do that.

And it’s exactly the same for you.

Whether your goal is to improve your fitness levels, get your home organised or have 3 hours of free time every week, you’re going to have to put some work into that quadrant.

That’s if you want to reach your goals.

I don’t even like to bother with the other two quadrants but I know that’s going to drive some of you crazy so let me just give you some email examples -

Low value tasks with a deadline are things like “send this email to 10 people within the next hour”. They have absolutely no value and the deadline is usually imposed by other people. Most interruptions also fall into this block.

Low value tasks with no deadline are emails with jokes, funny pictures and the like. My suggestion is to get these out of your inbox permanently as they disrupt your focus and waste your time!

This week’s challenge is to focus on the top two quadrants and only do tasks that fit into those blocks.

* Bonus – really step it up by making sure that you definitely get at least one task in the “goals” quadrant done every day.

Want to use this article in your ezine or on your blog? You may, as long as you include this complete blurb.

Marcia Francois is a time management and business organising coach who helps small business owners break out of overwhelm, make the most of their time and get important projects done. Visit http://organiseyourbusiness.com for your free 7-part audio series, 7 tips for time-strapped business owners.

As we approach the end of the year, it seems to get more and more hectic. I thought I’d share some strategies with you that I start off using with my time management coaching clients.

In fact, recently one of them told me, “I can’t believe it; I actually have a life again” This was after we started incorporating some of the principles I’m sharing with you below.

1. Block out any appointments

Don’t only block out the actual time of the appointment; add getting ready time and travel time before and after the appointment.

I used to find myself constantly rushing to a regular morning meeting until I realised I wasn’t factoring in the 5 minutes I had to walk from my car all the way to the meeting venue. Since I added this time, I’m always the first one there, waiting

2. Do high priority items first

I call this the “Eat the frog” principle. These high priority items are also commonly called big rocks. Big rocks are items of high value and importance.

For a business owner, it could mean working on an inc.ome-producing activity and for a stay-at-home mom, it could mean planning your menus for the week.

3. Add in your routines

Do you have an evening routine and a morning routine? We talk in detail about these routines on the Simplify your Life e-course. Routines help your day run smoothly because they’re done on auto-pilot.

Some people do a load of laundry every day. This is part of their routine. If they don’t do this for a couple of days, life can get out of control very quickly.

4. Don’t forget buffer time

Buffer time helps when an appointment runs over or the traffic is bad. Or when something just takes longer to do than you anticipated!

Depending on the situation, you might want to leave 15 – 30 minutes after each appointment or activity so that you’re not frazzled when things inevitably don’t work out exactly as you planned.

5. Add in some fun

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy

Fun means different things for each of us. Whether it’s time to exercise, do some crafts or read, add some fun into your day. Fun also means rewarding yourself appropriately when you are disciplined with those BIG ROCKS I mentioned in number (2).

Print today’s article, start with point 1 and keep adding another point every week until you can breathe again

Want to use this article in your ezine or on your blog? You may, as long as you include this complete blurb.

Marcia Francois is a time management and business organising coach who helps small business owners break out of overwhelm, make the most of their time and get important projects done. Visit http://organiseyourbusiness.com for your free 7-part audio series, 7 tips for time-strapped business owners.

It’s such a small word but so difficult to use sometimes. We seem to use this word so easily with our spouse and children but have a hard time saying it to other people. So the trick is to figure out how and when to say no.

I’m not saying that you should be selfish and never help anybody out. However, most people are running around stressed because they’re saying yes to everybody but themselves.

You should only be saying yes when you genuinely want to do something, you feel excitement at the thought of doing it or it ties in with your life goals or definition of success.

1. You don’t have to have another appointment first in order to say no

If you’ve planned to have an evening in (bubble bath, reading, TV, whatever…) and you get invited out, this does not automatically mean you have to accept. An appointment with yourself is just as important as one with other people. Value your time!

2. Realise that when you say yes to one thing, you ALWAYS say no to something else

When this happens, you usually say no to the more important parts of your life – God, family, yourself. For example, you’re asked to help out on a committee at your child’s school. You could end up so busy with committee work that you deprive your child of quality time. Another example is saying yes to everybody at work collecting money for birthdays, leaving presents, etc, and no to your own financial future.

3. Don’t instinctively say yes. Buy time to think about it first.

Always check your diary first before committing to plans. Or just take a deep breath. Otherwise you end up saying yes to everything and at the end of a hectic period, you’re virtually burnt out.

4. It becomes easier to say yes the more you practise

At first when you have to say no to something or someone, it feels terrible. But it is incredibly empowering when you realise that you made the correct decision in saying no. It is an acquired skill and the more you use your “no” muscle, the stronger it’ll get. I promise.

5. When you say yes and you feel resentment, it means that you should have said no

Learn to listen to your heart. The Bible says that we mustn’t give grudgingly or under compulsion, and yet, so many of us do. We say yes, and harbour deep feelings of resentment and bitterness. Nothing good comes from a resentful attitude.

6. Saying no comes easier when you are confident in your own capabilities

When you say no firmly and without a grovelling apology, it affirms your self-worth and it’s a way to stand up for yourself. Men seem to do really well at this but women seem to want to explain everything and apologise while they’re saying no.

7. You don’t have to be rude or ugly about it – there are many ways to say no

No can be “I can’t help you this time”, “I can only do it next month”, “that’s not my strong suit” or simply “no, thanks”.

Make a quality decision this month to look at your schedule and see where you’re saying yes to activities or commitments that don’t support your goals. Then, work at saying no to them so you can say yes to more important things.

Want to use this article in your ezine or on your blog? You may, as long as you include this complete blurb.

Marcia Francois is a time management and business organising coach who helps small business owners break out of overwhelm, make the most of their time and get important projects done. Visit http://organiseyourbusiness.com for your free 7-part audio series, 7 tips for time-strapped business owners.

When I do speaking engagements, I always stress the importance of writing things down.

When you write things down, it frees your mind for more big picture thinking and you don’t have to worry about the details.

That said, these are the 3 lists you absolutely must use to manage your time effectively:

1. Master list

This is a place for a “brain dump”, a place for ideas you might want to pursue in the future or possible projects you need to tackle.

You can work off one master list for months, like I do with my business or blogging ideas.

I have a master list of things to do in the house which I’ve been working on since we moved in two years ago. Honestly, I think there will always be items on this list 

2. To-do list

This list can be monthly, weekly or daily.

The difference between this list and the master list is that this one has a time deadline to it.

I have a monthly to-do list – I keep this one with broad goals like go to the gym 10 – 12 times – a weekly to-do list with about 5 – 7 business tasks to get done and then my daily to-do list which spreads out those 5 – 7 tasks so that I have only 1 or 2 to do daily.

I want to caution you to only put a maximum of 6 items on your daily to-do list so you don’t become overwhelmed!

3. Checklist

This is a place with a list of items which you check/ tick off.

This list is ideal for anything you need to do regularly, like a list of weekly cleaning tasks, office supplies, routine business tasks, etc.

Once you start using the right list for the correct task, you’ll be flying!

You can download master to-do, shopping and travel lists under Free tips and downloads from http://takechargesolutions.org.

Want to use this article in your ezine or on your blog? You may, as long as you include this complete blurb.

Marcia Francois is a time management and business organising coach who helps small business owners break out of overwhelm, make the most of their time and get important projects done. Visit http://organiseyourbusiness.com for your free 7-part audio series, 7 tips for time-strapped business owners.

Eat your frog? By now you’re wondering if I’ve gone stark raving mad! No, I’m not mad.

I first learned of this principle from Brian Tracy.

Your frog is the most important task of the day. It is the one thing which, if done quickly and effectively, will ensure your greatest success.

You see, when most people get to work, they already have some idea of what they have to do for the day. Let me give you a specific example.

Okay, imagine that these are the 5 tasks that await you on a particular day:

1. Read and respond to emails.
2. Phone somebody to resolve a query.
3. Set up a meeting.
4. Compile monthly report.
5. Draft a process email and send out.

Most people would probably do the tasks in this order – 1, 3, 2, 5 and 4.

Why?

Because that’s the easiest way to get through the list. After all, by 10:00 nearly all the items can already be ticked off the list.

But then a “typical day” happens – client phone calls, queries left, right and centre, you’re called into a couple of meetings and before you know it, 4:30 has rolled around and you still haven’t done that monthly report.

Sound familiar?

That’s because you haven’t eaten your frog. Your most important task is still undone.

So let’s change it all around.

What if you walked into the office and did nothing else until your report was done? You’ve eaten your frog. And it’s only 9:00.

You then catch up on emails, and draft the process email to send out. The “typical day” still happens but because the most important tasks are done, you can squeeze setting up the meeting and phoning the other person into the tiny five-minute slots you do find during the course of the day.

You see, it’s what I’ve been teaching my time management clients for years when I tell them to ask themselves, “what’s the most important use of my time right now?”

If you get used to eating the frog first, the rest of your day can only get better. Your most horrible task is over and done with and you can almost…but not quite…relax!

And if you have TWO frogs, then you eat the ugliest one first!

My challenge to you is this – just try it for a week and see how your productivity soars. You know I’m the go-to gal if you want to increase your productivity so I made a worksheet to help you get into the habit. Download it at http://takechargesolutions.org/

I can’t wait to hear how it works out for you.

By the way, I thought I ought to practise what I preach. So this month, I did exactly that. I wrote my newsletter article a week earlier than I usually do so that it’s done and out of the way.

And you know what? I feel great!

© 2007 Marcia Francois

Want to use this article in your ezine or on your blog? You may, as long as you include this complete blurb.

Marcia Francois is a time management and business organising coach who helps small business owners break out of overwhelm, make the most of their time and get important projects done. Visit http://organiseyourbusiness.com for your free 7-part audio series, 7 tips for time-strapped business owners.

Being rich is having money; being wealthy is having time. -Stephen Swid, executive (b. 1941)

I’ll show you exactly how to:

• Do the one thing that will instantly get you more time
• Focus your time and get the right things done
• Design your business around what you’re good at
• Stop feeling overwhelmed
• Say no to what’s not good for your business
• Focus on your high-payoff activities
• Know when it’s actually good to procrastinate
• Stop time-wasters from getting the best of you

Plus you’ll also get regular weekly tips and information to make your business more organised and highly productive so you can bring in more money.

1. Please enter your first name and primary email address below, and click submit.
2. Check your inbox for a special link to confirm your subscription.
3. As soon as you’re confirmed, you’ll get a second email from me with the download link to your first tip. You’ll receive one tip every two days.

*Your email address will NEVER be sold – that’s my promise!

Have you heard about Vilfredo Pareto? Maybe, maybe not.

He was an Italian economist who came up with an absolutely brilliant concept called the Pareto Principle, or the 80-20 rule, as most of you will probably be familiar with.

Anyway, Pareto’s Principle states that 80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts.

The lovely thing is that this works with many, many examples:

• We wear 20% of our clothes 80% of the time (try it out – you’ll see I’m right)
• We only ever look for 20% of papers ever filed (which is why I say don’t even file half the stuff you currently file)
• We make 80% of our money from 20% of our clients.

So, Timothy Ferriss. In case you’ve never heard of him, he’s the author of The Four-Hour Workweek, a book I strongly recommend you get.

He is also a big believer in the 80-20 rule and in fact, he recommends firing 80% of your clients, or at the very least, not actively pursuing them.

Back to time management…

If, on any given day, you have 10 tasks on your list, 2 of those will be big, important tasks that will produce huge results (I say 10 for mathematical ease because I’d prefer that you have no more than 5 or 6) and the rest is probably just “busy work”.

The key is to identify just which of those tasks will be the ones that lead to the huge results.

They are usually the tasks which lead to money directly or indirectly. Or, money now or money later.

The ultimate aim is to simply stop doing the other 80% or to start delegating those tasks if they have to get done.

Let me give you another example. If you currently wash your own car and it takes you an hour, stop doing it. In South Africa, you can get a car wash for around R40 ($5) and if you’re reading this ezine, I know you earn more than that per hour, which means you should not be doing it.

If delegating is not an option, then do the important ones first and then only continue to do the other tasks.

This week your challenge is to identify your 20% every single day and to do those tasks first.

** Bonus – if you really want to step it up, do this challenge with your to-do list, and with your time commitments.

Want to use this article in your ezine or on your blog? You may, as long as you include this complete blurb.

Marcia Francois is a time management and business organising coach who helps small business owners break out of overwhelm, make the most of their time and get important projects done. Visit http://organiseyourbusiness.com for your free 7-part audio series, 7 tips for time-strapped business owners.

We’ve all heard the saying, “time is money” and to a certain degree, that is true. However, today I want to challenge you by saying that time is more important than money.

Why?

Because you can always do something to make more money but you can never get time back. never.

See where I’m going with this?

But what about your time?

Once you fritter away your time on unimportant things, you can never get that time back.

An email made its way around about a year ago about a man who gave his son two jars, one empty and one with marbles. There were enough marbles for the weeks he had left to live (assuming a man’s average mortality). He told his son to move one marble to the empty jar every Saturday so that he’d realise that he could never, ever get that time back.

Yes, the story is a bit hokey but it does have a point

I’m a practical sort of person so I like to do an exercise with my clients that I’d like you to do with me too.

Divide your monthly salary by 21.67 (the number of days you work each month). If you’re self-employed, divide your average earnings by the number of days you usually work.

That’s your DAILY rate.

Now take that number and divide it by 7.5 or the number of hours you work every day.

That’s your HOURLY rate.

Now, when you spend an hour surfing the internet, replying to chain letters, reading blogs when you should be working, visualise yourself throwing that money in the bin.

If you’re like me, it’ll shock you and make you realise the value of your time.

This week I’m challenging you to calculate your hourly rate and next time you’re tempted to procrastinate or just mess around, stop and ask yourself if it’s really worth it.

My guess is no

Want to use this article in your ezine or on your blog? You may, as long as you include this complete blurb.

Marcia Francois is a time management and business organising coach who helps small business owners break out of overwhelm, make the most of their time and get important projects done. Visit http://organiseyourbusiness.com for your free 7-part audio series, 7 tips for time-strapped business owners.