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Clearly, the number of hours you can work each day is not unlimited. You have to sleep, eat, perform routine daily tasks, as well as have a social life.
By working through this five-step strategy, aimed to help you to focus on your systems and processes, you will be able to take control and get organised now.
Even if you can implement only one tip from each strategy, you will benefit enormously.
Take control of your email
Email is a wonderful resource, which allows us to communicate quickly and easily and makes a real difference to our daily lives. But, beware; emails can soon take over if you let them.
Emails are not urgent
If something was genuinely 'urgent', the sender would telephone you, so do not think that you have to answer an email as soon as it arrives, even if it has a 'high priority' tag or 'urgent' in the subject line.
Set times to check emails
Set times to check and respond to emails. This will focus your time more effectively. Checking your incoming emails twice a day is enough - try 11am and 4pm.
Disable email notification
Make sure that you disable the notification sign and sound, so that you will not be tempted to check each time an email arrives. This allows you to focus on tasks you need to complete without distractions.
Take control and manage your day-to-day activities
Unless you have a daily plan, you will soon be asking yourself what you have achieved at the end of each day - it is all about working effectively and efficiently.
Create a schedule
Include all personal and business appointments in your schedule, so that you do not miss any important appointments.
Include deadlines on your schedule
Include all your important deadlines in your schedule, both clients' and your own, so that you can plan the work accordingly.
Treat yourself like an important client
Set aside time in your schedule to complete your own work; in that respect, treat it the same as you would an appointment with an important client.
Take control and keep projects on track
It is important that all project work is planned, so that you know what you want to accomplish and by when.
Have a budget
All projects need a budget to allow you to monitor expenses effectively. Use a simple-to-use spreadsheet program, such as Excel, to record all income and expenses.
Create an expenses system
Create a spreadsheet to monitor all expenses against budget, on either a weekly or monthly basis.
Create a contact-management system
Every project, regardless of size, requires the support from a number of people. Therefore, you should have a contact-management system to allow everyone involved to be able to access all the necessary contact details easily.
Review your project regularly
Regularly review projects against objectives and budget to monitor your progress. You can then make any necessary changes immediately instead of leaving them until the last minute.
Take control of your filing
Few people like filing, but it is an important part of running any business successfully - you need to be able to retrieve any document quickly.
You should do your filing regularly - I do mine on a weekly basis.
Remember, the simplest systems work best!
Paper filing System
System needs to be simple and easy to maintain otherwise there is no point. I make use of a two-drawer filing cabinet and use a colour-coding system:
Drawer 1 (yellow files) includes: general and financial information
Drawer 2 (pink files) includes: marketing, projects and client information
Electronic documents filing system
Ideally, this should mirror your paper-based system to make things easy.
Email filing system
You should make sure that your inbox does not get cluttered. Again, this should mirror your paper and electronic filing system.
Back-up system
It is imperative to have a back-up system and back up your work regularly. You can use of an online system, an external drive or a memory stick.
Take control and delegate
A support team is a group of people to whom you can delegate certain aspects of your business and personal life. They might include: a virtual assistant, a cleaner, a gardener or a childcare assistant.
Who could you have in your support team?
Set deadlines and prioritise
When delegating tasks, set deadlines and prioritise tasks for the person doing the work.
Clear instructions and information
You need to be clear with your instructions and information to avoid any misunderstandings.
Give advanced notice
You need to give advanced notice of required tasks, so that people have enough time to complete the work.
Communication is key
Communication is the key to an effective relationship with those to whom you delegate work to, but it is a two-way process. And, remember to treat people how youwould like to be treated!
By taking some time now to review and implement some of the tips in this five-step strategy, you will save a great deal of time in the future.
About this Author
Emma Walker is a co-founder of Academy for Online Business, a company devoted to helping self-employed professionals; 'solopreneurs' and 'mumpreneurs' build their own online business empires.
If you would like to receive practical and informative online business training products to help you create your perfect VA business, from solid foundations, to which systems you need in place, so that you can start running a business you love, visit http://academyforonlinebusiness.com/blog/.
Emma is a serial entrepreneur, author and busy mother.
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