New Venture Lab: Equipping Christian Entrepreneurs

If you operate your own business, you are most likely living out the struggle of trying to manage the demands of the business and shepherding your family.  A frequent question for entrepreneurs of small businesses is the question of how to better manage their time.  This article offers eight tips on how to do just that.

Gregg Steiner refuses to be a 60-hour-a-week slave to his own company. He knows just how to keep the demands of his operation in check.

"I use a system that lets me send automated e-mails, birthday reminders, or reminders to buy my product to all my clients," says Steiner, who manages customer service via the Web for Pinxav, a diaper-rash ointment manufacturer based in Cleveland. "It links with my accounting software, it tracks my schedule, it keeps me on top of my business with pretty much every tool I could ever need.

"Saving those extra hours every week gives me extra time to enjoy life with my family. Isn't that what's it's really all about?"

For many entrepreneurs and small-business people, trying to cut down on endless workweeks seems as likely as Wile E. Coyote finally enjoying a meal of Road Runner au jus. But there are effective ways to be productive in less time -- without having to suffer through any simplistic "work smarter, not harder" pap.

Here are eight, culled from experts in entrepreneurship and career consulting.

1. Build the business to fit the time you want to spend. Far too many entrepreneurs start something, only to see the time commitment prove overwhelming. Instead, scale your business to jibe with just how hard you want to work. That may mean fewer clients and less profit, but more freedom to pursue other things.

"If you want to work five days a week, create a business that will let you do that," says Chuck Berke, a Newton, Conn.-based executive coach. "Decide what's important to you, like going to your kid's Little League games."

2. Chart your time. A well-worn financial principle urges consumers to track their spending to the penny. That way, sneaky, surreptitious leaks can be discovered. If you already have a business up and running, follow the same lead. Track how you're spending your time and on what. Chances are good you may uncover waste and needless wheel spinning.

"If you're working too many hours, creating a visual will help you better understand how your time is being spent and what you're accomplishing as a result," says Susan Eckert of Advance Career & Professional Development in Brightwaters, N.Y.

3. Try ignoring time. That may seem akin to healing a broken leg by running, but one of the major culprits behind unduly long workweeks is a focus on time. Put another way, if you're watching how long it takes to do something, the longer it's likely to take. Instead, try placing your attention on the tasks at hand. "If you think in terms of time, you're not really thinking about the things you need to get done," says Berke.

4. Go on autopilot. Like Steiner, investigate those areas of your business that may prove a good fit for some sort of automated system. That can take in everything from billing to client communications. Have a look at products such as Microsoft Outlook 2003 with Business Contact Manager and Microsoft Office Live Meeting, for affordable solutions that can save you money and a hefty chunk of time to boot.

5. Delegate the superfluous. Another land mine for the overworked entrepreneur is the mindset that he alone has to look after everything. That may hold true with regard to business planning and marketing but, last I looked, most anyone can push a broom. From handling files to running to Office Depot, letting someone else sweat the small stuff not only can save reams of time, it allows you to focus more on issues of far graver import than making sure there are enough Post-it notes on hand.

6. Seek out cheap help. Not every business needs a CPA who crunches numbers at $100 an hour. If you want to delegate more substantial chores, look for inexpensive alternatives. For instance, family members or friends with special skills can help lighten your workload. If you live near a university or college, investigate cheap (or even free) help from business students.

"The chance to get motivated, savvy students out in a hands on setting, doing 'real' work should be a real enticement for program administrators," says Larry Bennett, director of the Larry Friedman International Center for Entrepreneurship at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, R.I. "I jump at every chance I can to get 'wanna-be' entrepreneurship students into experiential market research, sales, operations, human resource and finance accounting settings."

7. Don't be afraid to scale back. Short of Clark Kent, nobody's flying around with a crimson "S" on his chest. That said, leave the superhero stuff to the man of steel and acknowledge that not everything has to happen here and now. And, if that means simply committing to taking on less work, embrace it as a sign of sanity, not failure.

8. Recognize the dangers of interminable work. Finally, understand that an endless stack of 60-hour weeks means more than dragging home late every night. Working too hard for too long can be devastating on both a physical and psychological level. It can take a toll on your health, not to mention convincing you to chuck a rewarding business that's just too much to handle.

"Depression and burn out are pretty much the same thing," Berke says. "There are serious costs, both internally as well as externally."

By: Jeff Wuorio

Source: ConnectIT News