SOHO Solo West Cork

omahonydonnelly January 5th, 2009

Oops… just spotted this languishing in the “pending” queue. Apologies all, especially Ann :-(. (CJ)

OK, it’s December 8th and I feel like I should be out doing some shopping and taking advantage of Clon’s 10-20% off.  In fact I did take some time out this morning to pick up a couple things.  Oh, then an interesting email newsletter came in and I couldn’t help reading it.  Is it lunch time, yet?  Maybe I’ll just put on the kettle and throw in a load of laundry…  You get the picture.

When you don’t have a boss breathing down your neck, how do you keep focused on the tasks at hand?  Two months ago (and a bit) we had a good talk on Time Management and all those things are good, but do you find it difficult to keep from being distraction when you are working alone nearly 100% of the time.  Do have any techniques that you use to help keep you focused?  I have recently picked up a couple (of course, they aren’t really working that well for me at this very minute, obviously, but for the most part…):

- Use your to do list and just keep plugging away at it.

- Set aside specific times for certain tasks. Monday am is my time for admin (invoicing, statements, etc.) Some of you don’t do that during the working day, but I need to.  (I definitely need to schedule my time for my blogging and twittering, or else that will become the biggest time waster of all!)

- Set a target for the day or week (so many sales calls, jobs done, etc.) and give yourself a reward.

- Have a good answer phone/voicemail system and use it.  I only answer my phone during certain hours so that I can avoid distractions from the outside world.  This doesn’t seem to impact on customer service and many know that I run a small operation and expect me to be either on another call, in a meeting or out of the office temporarily.  I make sure to make up for it when I do call by being prepared.

- Never give in to doing personal tasks during work hours — I do break this one occasionally and this is probably my worst downfall.  I use the excuse that the kids need some of my time, but then it comes down to doing personal errands, etc. that really should be done during lunchtime (see below) or on the weekend.

- Be sure to take breaks - lunch and a tea break perhaps.  Sometimes I work through lunch to make up for some other time waster that has come up, but I find I am less productive.  I used to work in a printing company in and admin job, but sometimes I’d work O/T in the pressroom.  In the manufacturing environment they had to have a 10 min break for every 4 hours and a 40 minute break for lunch.  After packing boxes, etc. for a couple hours you really did need that break and you’d find yourself recharged and ready to head back on the line after.  We all should use that as a work model.

- Get someone outside to provide a support (perhaps a SOHO Solo buddy, kinda like Alcoholics Anonymous).  Sometimes I think the problem is procrastination because I have all the ideas going around in my head and no one to bounce them off of.  I had some business coaching and I think that, more than the actual advice, having someone to talk the ideas through with brought energy to them.

I do well with this most of the time, but I do feel like I am losing a good few hours a week — and end up making up for it at night, when I should be concentrating on personal matters.

We all have different working styles and personalities and home living situations, but we all probably have at least one good tip that would benefit us all.

(OK, enough time wasting…..)

Tags: Home Working, self employment, time management

• Home Working
• Comments(1)

Calvin October 14th, 2008

At the SOHO Solo West Cork meeting today Jim Flynn of MTS Consulting gave a very interesting talk on Time Management for Small Business Owners.

Here are the slides from Jim’s presentation:

Jim covered a fair bit of ground in his presentation… including tips on organising your contacts and a history of your interaction with them, and focusing on the tasks that add real value to your business. He suggested keeping a log of your time for a week, then analysing it with a critical eye to see where you could improve efficiency.

Some of the highlights included:

• Identify the tasks that are really productive (focus on them) and those that are just making you busy but deliver little return (reduce, eliminate or delegate them)
• Look at ways you can speed up your regular tasks – set yourself deadlines and strive to meet them
• Organise and plan your workload with prioritised to-do lists
• Keep your promises to yourself
• Focus
• Monitor and manage stress
• Under promise and over deliver
• Know yourself – how do you work most effectively?

Jim certainly offered plenty of food for thought… and I think everyone at the meeting went away with at least one thing they could apply that would be of tangible benefit to their business.

If you have any feedback, or some time management tips, techniques or tools that you’d like to share – please dive right in and add your comments at the bottom of this post.

You can download Jim’s Time Log and To-Do-List templates (PDF files) using the links below.

Time Management: Time Log (62)

Time Management To-Do List (90)

Tags: Meetings, productivity, Resources, time management, tools

• Meetings , Networking , Presentations , Resources , Small Business , Soho Solo , West Cork , tools
• Comments(9)

Calvin October 1st, 2008

Date: Tuesday 14 October 2008 Time: 12:30 – 14:00

Venue: The Abbey Room, Celtic Ross Hotel, Rosscarbery

Topic: Time Management for Small Business Owners with Jim Flynn of MTS Consulting

Time! It’s an ethereal beast at best… and as a small business owner I often find it slipping through my grasp as I juggle the myriad responsibilities associated with running my own business(es) from home.

I’m looking forward to Jim’s talk, and to picking up some tips from him and other SOHO Solos on how we can all channel our time and attention more effectively and productively.

In these challenging economic times using time productively is paramount, so this talk is a must for small business owners everywhere… see you there!

NB. If you’re planning to attend please register for the event by dropping us a line via the contact form so or in the comments for this post so that we can keep track of numbers.

New members always welcome – so come along and bring a friend

Tags: Next Meeting, time management

• Next Meeting
• Comments(0)

CTS September 22nd, 2008

Image by BigBlue via Flickr

As small business owners I’m sure you’re all familiar with the pressures of trying to service your clients and keep up with the business administration as well. Keeping track of all the myriad of tasks that need to be done can be a real challenge.

One of the best tools I’ve found for managing tasks is My Life Organized. This piece of software comes with a large feature list; but it can be run in ‘Simple’, ‘Advanced’ or ‘Full’ modes depending on how complex or simple you want your task and to-do lists to be. I’m not going to try to describe the entire feature list here; but these are some of the features that help me keep on top of my to-do list:

• Tasks can be broken down into multiple smaller tasks. This is great for organizing larger jobs or projects.
• Tasks can be assigned a ‘context’. For example all the tasks that I need to do in Cork are assigned a context of ‘Cork’. Then, when I’m going to Cork I can simply view all the things I need to do there.
• Tasks can be assigned start and due dates as well as reminders.
• There’s a rapid entry facility. When something pops into my head that needs to be done I simply use the rapid entry box to record it. Later I can assign the task to it’s relevant project / context. This way those fleeting thoughts don’t get lost; they get captures and acted on.

That’s just a fraction of what My Life Organized can do. If you find yourself forgetting to do things then why not give it a trial.

Tags: management, organization, productivity, project, time management, to-do

• Home Working , tools
• Comments(1)