I was asked for these when contributing to a business survey recently.
1 – Set up rules in your email management system to reduce the time absorbed by incoming emails.
2 – Book time in your diary for regular activities such as bookkeeping, invoicing, personal development, replying to emails etc. If client work has to be done in a slot reserved for key activities, move them to another date – in the same week.
3 – Set up a simple strategic plan with month by month activities to ensure you focus on working ON building your business beyond simply working IN the business. Then monitor and work that plan. (And reserve time in your diary to do this each month)
What else do you find works for you?
Very good but I really dislike the term time management. Nobody can manage time! Whatever, there will be 60 seconds in a minute, 60 mins per hour, 24 hrs per day etc so time management is impossible! What you are talking about is time allocation. Time allocation is wholly appropriate and effective.
My passion is helping people with exactly what you’re describing–intentionally planning time for routine and development activities so they can:
-beat overwhelm
-build their business/career
-achieve work/life brilliance(tm)
In addition to the time blocking tasks, I recommend setting up a specific start and end time for each day. This constrained schedule has a number of positive benefits that I describe in this post: http://tinyurl.com/mpmkfy