Mananging Your Time as a Business Owner 5
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I’ve heard a lot about goal setting. Does it work? Do I really need to write goals down?
Goals are a lot like vacations. To make them happen you have to pick a destination and map out a route to reach the destination. Writing your goals down and asking yourself what, specifically, you need to do to achieve each goal can give you the focus and direction you need to reach them.
I want to be rich, and I also want to finish writing my customer's program by the end of the week. Which do I write down on my list of goals?
Start by listing your long-term goals, but be as specific as possible. Getting rich is not specific. Boosting personal net income to $500,000 a year within three years is a specific goal. Once you have a specific goal, determine the steps necessary to reach that goal and set a date for doing so. If "buy a house" is your long-term goal, write down the amount of the down payment you are willing to pay and how much money you’ll need to earn to keep up with the mortgage payments, maintenance, utilities, and other bills. Consider what steps you need to take to make your business grow to achieve that level of income and set realistic target dates. See the sample goal-setting worksheet (Table 25.1).
I’ve heard it is a good idea to keep a time log. How does keeping a time log help me manage my time more efficiently?
Keeping the log will let you quickly detect patterns in the ways you use and abuse time. For instance, your log may show you that, like your corporate brethren, you are wasting anywhere between 35 and 45 minutes a day just looking for things on your desk or in your files. Or it may show that you are spending a lot of time making or accepting phone calls that have nothing to do with reaching any of your goals. If you waste even 5 minutes on each of a dozen calls during the day, you have wasted an hour of your time—plus the cost of any calls you made.
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