Managing your time and resources well is vital for your personal well-being as well as the success of your business venture. A wise entrepreneur needs not to burn himself/herself out in pursuit of business profitability. Learn how to manage your time effectively as a business owner in Nigeria with these few tips below. What you need is smart use of your time for increased efficiency and productivity, not necessarily extra physical and/or mental work.
Smart Time Management Tips
Good time management involves those wise strategies you deploy in order to effectively share your time between different tasks. The more you improve your time management skills, the more efficient you become in handling your business. And you get increasingly better outcomes in your personal life and entrepreneurial goals.
Learning how to manage your time effectively as a business owner is also a key strategy for improving your work-life balance. You will succeed in avoiding getting worn-out and disorganized; thus you become more useful to yourself and loved ones. Your private life and mental health will thank you for it. By all means put the following strategies to work, and not regret doing so.
Clearly Define Your Tasks and Goals
Your GOALS are the long-term achievements you have set out to accomplish. But to achieve those goals, you need to embark on TASKS channeled towards meeting those goals. Tasks are necessary actions you need to perform again and again to sustain your business. They could be activities that need to be carried out daily, weekly, monthly, or as required.
Thus you need to clearly define your goals (and write them down); then do the same to your tasks. For instance, you want to be the leading supplier of farm-fresh produce in West Africa; that is your goal. Relevant tasks might include arranging for logistics; sustaining energy supply; preserving farm produce; meeting with clients; and more.
Plan Your Activities: Prepare a Daily Schedule & Do a Daily Time Audit
You must learn to plan your daily activities in advance, the previous evening. Create a schedule or time-table ahead every evening as a habit, before you sleep. As an entrepreneur, endeavor to set aside some 30 minutes to an hour in the evening. Use that to outline what the next day’s tasks will be, hour by hour. Break them down into achievable tasks, and write them down as a to-do list.
And when the day is done, check your to-do list. Tick off those tasks you have accomplished, and mark what you have left undone. This will in fact help you to plan for the next day. This practice is a simple memory aid. It will help you to be better organized, ensuring you do the right things at the right time. It will also help you not to leave important things undone (before it’s too late).
Ease Your Stress: Learn to Delegate Tasks
At the onset of your business, you may need to handle many tasks by yourself to control cost. But trust us when we say, you NEED ABLE ASSISTANTS AND TRAINED STAFF TO SUPPORT YOU over the course of time. That is, if you do not wish to get burnt out pretty quickly. Hiring and/or training able and trustworthy staff to handle routine tasks will help you to better concentrate on more important assignments.
Put Away all Distractions (As Much as Possible)
As a business owner, you will face quite a load of distractions from customers, employees, the internet, phone calls and more. They are attention grabbers; the list is endless. You cannot always control these distractions and how they come. But you can limit their access to you. You must learn to stay focused on the present task, and handle one task at a time. While doing so, do the necessary to actually shut out any distraction. Put off that phone and go offline; close the door to keep out noise.
Simplify Your Tasks: Here’s How
If you really want to get your routine tasks well done, find ways to simplify doing them. Reduce the burden, and enjoy doing it as well. It should not get so complex or mind-draining. This is an important strategy in learning how to manage your time effectively as a business owner in Nigeria. Don’t handle tasks the same way the economic conditions out there are handling you (forgive the pun!!). Try out the following tips:
- Group related tasks together: Check your daily to-do list and identify tasks that either work naturally together, or are similar. You can group such tasks together, and do them in sequence (more or less like a batch). Set them out as a special category. It will help you to work faster.
- Start With the Simplest Tasks: There are times when you want to get a project done, and your mind or hands just don’t want to cooperate. You might feel lethargic and unfocused, not sure when or where to start from. You know what? Pick on the simplest steps of that task or job, and start doing them. It could be in the form of writing out the main points of an article, for instance. Or drawing the simple parts of a complex shape; or just naming ‘Step 1, Step 2, ….’ Gradually your mind will loosen up, and one simple step will lead to another.
- Do Important Tasks Early in the Day: If you have an urgent or demanding task, it is best you start with just that task in the morning. At that time of the day, your energy levels are still quite high. Finish off with that task, then go and cool off before handling anything else. This will help you to recover well enough to take care of less-demanding tasks.
- Reduce Multitasking (or Avoid it Altogether): Trying to handle several tasks at once is the bane of the digital society we live in. We are deceived into believing we must move as fast as the internet and electronic media operate (in general). But the human brain only gets over-stressed and loses concentration while trying to focus on so many tasks. Research studies done at Stanford University and American Psychological Association have confirmed these assertions. Learn to do one thing at a time; then pause thereafter to catch your breath and evaluate. This will cool down your brain and ease your memory.
Don’t Forget to Cool Off: Take Regular Breaks
All work and no play/rest is the fastest way to get tired or bored. Your body and mind need to recover from the stress of continuous grind. Thus you need to inject regular break periods in-between your tasks. Flex out, take a stroll, sip coffee; just cool down for some minutes. You will return refreshed and ready to continue, far better than someone else who refused to take a break.
And learn to work at a pace that you can easily manage. Do not drive yourself so hard, because you will quickly lose focus from burning so much energy.
Make Optimal Use of Business & Productivity Apps
If you truly want to learn how to manage your time effectively as a business owner, do not ignore productivity apps. There are scores of business productivity apps that can help you to better organize and manage your time and business. The internet, app developers and digital devices are that good to you. Name them: calendars, customer relationship management, project management, accounting, email marketing, presentations, communication, and more. They can ease your stress by handling routine tasks cheaply and fast for you. Please make good use of them.
In Conclusion
Effective time management tips as mentioned above, will practically save you from drowning under the pressure of everyday work and business demands. So please make optimal use of them to improve your business productivity, and the quality of your life as well.
