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How to Prioritize Your Time When Working at Home

November 7, 2012 by Guest Author

by
Deb Bixler

Keeping on Track is Keeping on the Money

When you have a work at home business, it’s great to be your own boss. It can also be a nightmare to manage your own time. When you can’t fire yourself, it’s hard to actually motivate yourself to get anything done. However, time is money, and when you can’t get yourself to keep on a time schedule, you are doing little more than wasting your time. Put these quick tips into place to keep you on track and help you prioritize your time when it comes to your business at home.

How to Prioritize Your Time When Working at Home

First of all, do the hard tasks first. When you prioritize your tasks in order of importance and skill, you are less likely to procrastinate before you get anything done. Do the things first that have a deadline, are hard to accomplish, or are just plain boring before you move on to the more fun aspects of your work at home business, like marketing, designing, or making phone calls.

If you have to, put yourself on a time schedule. Working at home we often do not work a set schedule as if we had a job. When you actually write a business schedule you may find that you go to work more regularly. Many people treat themselves as if they are an employee in a classic job, and make themselves work from a set time to a clock out time in order to stay on track. Many work from home business owners actually even put aside time for a lunch break. When you have a hard time keeping track of your time, it may be best for you to treat your job as if you are in a traditional office setting, even if you are your own boss and your job is merely your living room.

Finally, keep track of the hours you work. You’d be surprised how much you are actually not working in a work week when you see your hard work in hours. When you keep track of your work hours, whether you delegate yourself to a time schedule or not, you can see how much, or how little, you are actually working, and it may be just the motivation you need to help you get moving.

Many people will say the hardest part about having a work at home business is finding the energy and motivation to physically start the day. When you put a little discipline in your schedule and keep track of your efforts, you just may find yourself putting more time into your business, and making more money at the same time.

Author’s Bio:
Deb Bixler retired from the corporate world using the proven business systems that made her a success working for others by incorporated them into her home business. In only 9 months Deb replaced her full time income with the sales and commissions from her home party plan business. Find her on Twitter at: http://www.Twitter.com/debbixler

Thank you for adding to the conversation!

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Filed Under: Successful Blog Tagged With: bc, LinkedIn, Productivity, small business, time-managment

One simple trick to get control of your life

July 19, 2012 by Rosemary

by
Rosemary O’Neill

One Trick to Help You Get Control of Your Life

One tactic greatly will increase your sense of peace and control over your life.
Set expectations up front.
When the people around you have total clarity on what you intend to do, and when you intend to do it, everything flows into place.

Parenthood 101

When my twins were two, and my older son was four years old, I learned about setting expectations out in the trenches—at the playground. After observing parents suddenly decide it’s time to go, and grabbing the child by the hand, and spending the next 30 minutes bargaining and cajoling, I knew there was a better way.

Once I started the 10 minute countdown and stuck to it, I never had to worry about the drama over leaving. There wasn’t any.

Time Management 101

Not to compare colleagues and customers to children (that’s a different blog post), but using crystal clear expectations, set up front, is a technique that will serve you well in just about every area of your life.

Here are some ways you can set expectations as a small business owner or entrepreneur:

  • It’s easy to be “on” 24/7 in your own business. If you don’t want to be left without weekends, stop answering work emails on the weekend. You’re teaching people that you are available (and telling your staff that you expect them to be available too).
  • Post your business hours clearly, even if you are a purely online business. Just because the internet is on all the time doesn’t mean you must be personally on.
  • When you reply to an email, give the recipient some idea of when you will follow through on whatever they requested. If the request comes on Friday, shoot back a “I’ll get back to you by Wednesday” and you’re set.
  • On your company voicemail, set an expectation of when you’ll call back. Tell callers that your corporate box is checked several times a day, and promise a returned call within x hours.
  • In meetings, whenever a new task is handed to you, set an upfront timeline for when it will be done. Then be sure to incorporate it into your time management system.
  • On your social media outposts, be clear about why you’re there and how often you will engage. If you start providing customer support via Twitter, you can’t suddenly stop. Consider posting your policy in your profile, so there’s no confusion.
  • Set up an editorial calendar for your content; you don’t have to be nuts about it, but having a plan in advance, and knowing how often you will produce content, gives you peace of mind.

How do you manage expectations? What do you expect of yourself?
Do you have any tricks to help you get control over your life?

Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for social strata — a top ten company to work for on the Internet . Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee

Thank you, Rosemary!

You’re irresistible!

ME “Liz” Strauss

Buy the Insider’s Guide to Online Conversation.

Filed Under: Business Life, management, Successful Blog Tagged With: bc, LinkedIn, management 101, set expaectations., setting expectations, small business, time-managment

All of the Information Available

July 5, 2007 by Liz

Knowing What We Can Know

Strategic Plans logo

Strategy is setting a vision, making a path, knowing what we can know, and planning for the variables. To know what we know . . . That means having command of the information available.

For a while now, new bloggers, mostly those who are younger, have emailed or IMed to ask me the most basic questions. It’s usually obvious from their message that they haven’t done the any research to answer the question on their own. I used to answer and send them on their way again. I don’t anymore. Now I point them in the direction where they might look.

Are they wrong to ask? No.

It’s always good to ask someone who’s been there. Though you might argue when to do that.

But they’re wrong if they rely on me to do their homework. It hurts them for several reasons.

  • I don’t have all of the answers.
  • My information could be dated.
  • I’m wrong as often as I’m right.
  • They’re not investing in themselves.

I’m only one source in a world of the Internet. We often stop at the first answer to our questions. The first answer isn’t necessarily the best. It’s a great strategy to seek out all of the information available.

  • Do a search.
  • Ask someone who usually agrees, someone who usually disagrees, and someone who usually doesn’t have an opinion.
  • Ask an expert.

Having a strategy to find all of the information available at the beginning sets the foundation to build upon. Curiosity is a great teacher.

end of story.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
If you’d like Liz to help you find your strategy, click on the Work with Liz!!

Related
Strategy: 40 Outstanding Blog Links, Bookmark Carefully!
20 Blog Promotion Guides to Inform Your Strategy
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Filed Under: management, Strategy/Analysis, Successful Blog Tagged With: bc, blog-promotion, decision-making., Strategic-Plans, Strategy/Analysis, time-managment

40 Outstanding Blog Links, Bookmark Carefully!

July 3, 2007 by Liz

Time Management and Research

Strategic Plans logo

What is blog reading and commenting to you? Is it entertainment, interaction, or research for your work? How much time do you spend on the average day reading and commenting on blogs. Think about that before you read further.

I’ll do it too.

Ready? Whatever our answers, we have defined blog reading and commenting to us and quantified how much time we invest in them. Now consider the time we have available in a day. What percent of that time is blog reading and commenting?

Does that leave enough

  • time for our family and friends?
  • time for our work?
  • time for ourselves and for giving away?

If people read as many feeds as they say, I’m guessing it does not. Time is a resource we cannot replace.

Ten Blogs on Blogging

Everyone seems to know Darren’s ProBlogger, our friend from SOBCon Lorelle.Wordpress.com, the “evil” John Chow.com and Successful-Blog here. These are ten others in (no particular order) that offer consistent and quality information about blogging as well.

  1. Bloggingbasics101.com
  2. chrisg.com
  3. BloggingPro
  4. Vaspersthegrate.Blogspot.com
  5. A List Apart
  6. Smartwealthyrich.com
  7. eMomsatHome.com
  8. Alister Cameron, Blogologist
  9. Daily Blog Tips
  10. Buildabetterblog.com

Top Ten Blogs for Writers

For the Top 10 Blogs for Writers Mike Stelzner asked his 20,000 newsletter readers to participate in the nominations. I’ve shortened his definitions of the quality that each blog represents.

  1. Brian Clark’s CopyBlogger: does an amazing job of helping writers improve
  2. Deborah Ng’s Freelance Writing Jobs: for freelance writers seeking new work
  3. Tom Chandler’s Copywriter Underground: regular doses of inspiration and writing tips
  4. Liz Strauss’s Successful-Blog: amazing insights into the craft of writing
  5. Angela Booth’s Writing Blog: something useful for all writers
  6. Kristen King’s InkThinker: improving the written word
  7. Anne Wayman’s The Golden Pencil: gold nuggets of information to freelance writers
  8. Carson Brackney’s Content Done Better: write better copy and make a living (now by Michi Beck)
  9. Dianna Huff’s B2B Marcom Writer Blog: marketing communications copywriting
  10. Allison Winn Scotch’s Ask Allison: For writers looking to break into the publishing world, be sure to check this one out.

Top Ten Blogs on Making Money

The Top Ten Blogs About Making Money in which Shane spends an entire blog post explaining how he came to choose his top ten.

  1. ProBlogger
  2. Shoemoney
  3. Self Made Minds
  4. Entrepreneur’s Journey by Yaro Starak
  5. John Chow.com
  6. Net Business Blog
  7. Bootmoney
  8. Andy Beard
  9. Dosh Dosh
  10. Mike’s Money Making Mission

Top Ten Web Analytics Blogs

This is the April 2007 update ranking from Occam’s Razor by Avinash Kaushik. Be sure to read the post that details how the ranking is done.

  1. Occam’s Razor
  2. Web Metrics Guru
  3. Google Analytics Blog
  4. Web Analytics World
  5. Web Analytics Demystified-Eric T. Peterson’s Analytics Weblog
  6. Increasing your website’s conversion rate
  7. Unofficial Google Analytics Blog
  8. Lies, Damned Lies…
  9. WebAnalytics.be Blog
  10. Web Analysis, Behavioral Targeting and Advertising

I gathered this set with the intention of an offering that would cross blogging cultures. In that way, I’m hoping we all might explore, expnd our tastes, but leave room to let some go early on.

We choose from thousands of books to read and movies to see. Let’s do the same with the blogs that we read. I offer this set of 4 lists of 10 blogs with the hope that we’ll keep the those give us the best return on our investment.

How do you choose the blogs that serve your purpose?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
If you’d like Liz to help you find your strategy, click on the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar. Is Your Business Stuck? I’ve Found a Way to Help

Related
20 Blog Promotion Guides to Inform Your Strategy
Strategy: How to Get Maximum Benefit from Complex Link Lists
The 5-Point Strategy to a Powerful Network
Money Strategy, a Dead Horse, and Folks

Filed Under: Strategy/Analysis, Successful Blog Tagged With: bc, blog-promotion, decision-making., Strategic-Plans, Strategy/Analysis, time-managment

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