Posts Tagged ‘time management’
Useful Points On How To Greatly Increase Your Billable Hours
You will certainly know how important it is to be efficient if you work in an environment where you have to account for every single second of the day. In the world of small business, consultants and certain professionals often have to track their billable hours as they provide their services to a client and a recording of time spent is therefore critical. We categorise this according to the amount of time that we spend brainstorming or researching, or devoting to an issue that may be billed at a set rate, or even by reference to the physical amount of time needed to perform a task.
In all cases, when calculating a client’s bill according to the passage of time, time management and measurement is very important. As human beings, we are not born with the ability to measure time naturally and must take time to understand and practice this art. As human beings, we react to many different external stimuli and we often have complex lives, multi-dimensionally distracting us at any given moment. During all our waking hours our minds are “working overtime,” thinking and planning what we have to do at some future stage of our lives. Our complex thought processes do not make it easy for us to focus on being wholly efficient when it comes to time management and we sometimes have to rely on external tools such as time management software.
Sadly, a typical workday is littered with non-billable tasks and other actions that quite simply can be referred to as wasteful. Some of us have a carefree attitude and quite frankly hate being told what we should be doing, but nevertheless you must categorise and prioritise if your income relies on billable hours.
Avoid unnecessary non-billable calls on your time. So many things could be classified as “optional,” but you should discard these elements if they take away from your billable time. Often, requests for your time can fall into a rather “grey” area, but you must understand that sometimes attendance at events or meetings that could primarily be classified as “non-billable,” could be valuable client or fellow employee-building relationship events. You never know when something very valuable could develop from these events in the future.
If you use time tracking software you will be amazed at how much more efficient you will become with this valuable asset. By formally focusing on each “box” of time you are analysing whether or not you have used that time most efficiently. Once you find that you have been inefficient, don’t make the same mistake again – as that would be almost criminal!
By consistently using online time management tools you will free up additional time for billable work. Audible and visual clues will be given by the software to tell you when it is time for you to move on and you should not ignore these guidelines. If you find that you have not completed the task in question, make additional time for it later on – and once again, make sure you do not make the same mistake in future.
Organizing Your Work Day
Have thoughts of a perfect workday? Regardless of whether you work within the corporate atmosphere or out of your home office, it’s very easy these days to lose emphasis with your targets, tasks and to-do lists. Here, we will supply several tips for planning that effective day that eludes you. We’ll also talk about a particular organizing application called the Franklin Covey PlanPlus software. For the purpose of this article, we will suppose that you work from home as this may really be one of the most challenging to beat with regards to sticking to a strategy.
What do you carry out when you initially sit down to begin your work time? Lots of people check their e-mail first thing each morning and this can be a probable time suck if you do not possess a clear strategy for dealing with your inbox. If you do decide to check out your email first thing each morning you should get in the routine of permitting yourself just some initial time to do so as this particular activity on it’s own can definitely derail your morning.
Here are some tips for successfully sorting through your email. Set a timer for 15-20 minutes or what ever time you need to allow so that the morning doesn’t get far from you all due to e-mail. Skim topic lines and instantly erase junk e-mail and non-important e-mails. Make use of a labeling or folder method for e-mail organization and instantly put these into the proper labels and folders for simplicity of use later within the day. If you work with the Franklin PlanPlus, 1 extremely cool function is the ability to change e-mails into daily tasks by simply dragging all of them to your task tab within the software.
We actually advice that you refrain from checking e-mail first thing each morning. Instead, the most effective use of your time and effort would be to sit down with your cup of espresso and prepare your entire day. To become most effective with this task, you’d have a plan for that month and week at your disposal to be able to easily track your progress towards specific objectives and targets for that month, week and day. This total strategy, of course, is what will have you on track for the successful yr and your long-term targets and perspective.
Preparing is essential for achievement with regards to running your home business. Productive individuals have this in common and they know that in order to accomplish objectives, they need to first have the ability to envision an end result associated with what that accomplishment will look like. There are many organizing resources that will help you to get from where you are now to a time projected into the future. All the FranklinCovey books, planners and programs are very well-liked and effective in helping people using this type of organization. The FranklinCovey PlanPlus is no different and if you’re presently using a paper system for scheduling and Outlook for your e-mail system, this is the perfect integration of the 2 in your case.
Here’s to your successful scheduling and lots of fruitful times ahead!