Top time management tips from real business women

Ready for some tried-and-tested time management tips from real women in business?

Last week at The Likeminded Network, we had a ‘Your Business Dilemmas Solved’ session where we all sat around a big table and had our pressing business questions answered by the rest of the group. This was a simple but brilliant idea, not just because we were pooling the combined experience of around twenty women in business, but because it was a great way to get to know one another.

As most of us are on our second or third career, there was a heck of a lot of expertise in the room.

My question was on time management – what tips did people have for getting everything done? Here’s what they said:

• Work in fifteen minute blocks. – Claire Land, Save Our Sanity
• Accept that you’ll never get to the end of your to do list! – Emma Perry of Shabby Rock Chic
• Put down how long you spend on everything in an Excel spreadsheet, then at the end of the month create a graph so you can see exactly where you are spending your time. – Penny Norton of PNPR
• Turn off Facebook, Twitter and close your email while you’re working. Then check them once or twice a day at set times, otherwise it’s too distracting. Anna Brim of Aloha Photography and others!
• If you’ve got a task that you don’t want to do, spend just ten minutes on it then give yourself ten minutes of something more fun or creative as a reward. Mary Mansfield, Cambridge Interiors
  
• Do similar tasks together. For example, do all your invoices once a month in a block so you’ve got all the right paperwork and files open at the same time. Anna Brim of Aloha Photography
• Set up email folders according to priority, then put your emails in the appropriate folder as they arrive. Then you can deal with all the urgent ones first, the less urgent ones later and so on. Otherwise you end up dealing with them in the order that they arrive, which isn’t the best use of time. – Chrissy Brown of Crafty Monkey Pottery Painting Studio
• Don’t read your emails or make phone calls in the first hour of the day as this puts you in a reactive frame of mind for the rest of the day. Get into a proactive mindset by focusing your first hour on the task that’s going to bring in the money. Use that hour to work on your business rather than in it. – I’m not sure of this person’s name, please leave a comment if it was you and I’ll add you!

Hope those are helpful!

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