image by Boy Girl Party on Etsy

Time management seems to be a struggle across the board. It doesn’t matter whether you’re starting out with your business or you’ve been doing it for 15 years. Life changes. Situations change. And that means schedules have to change.

So the first thing to take note of when working on a schedule for yourself is that your schedule must be FLEXIBLE! It’s not going to be written in stone. Be very aware of that. You will not create a schedule & stick with the same one for even 1 year…I guarantee it!

Let me also add in here that if you’ve not gone through my Time Management Series yet, you really need to check that out.

the first step

The first step in making a schedule that works for you is to be realistic about the time you have available for extras.

So do this right now.

Grab a piece of paper, make columns with the days of the week, & write down all the things that you have to do on a daily basis under each day. These are must do things. Important things.

the second step

The next thing you need to do is figure out when you have time to slip in some “work related activities” throughout your day. It doesn’t matter if it’s 1 hour a day or 6 hours a day…just so long as you know how much realistic time you have & where that time is at during the day.

For me, I have 30 minutes of time when I wake up in the morning, I have 30 minutes before I have to make lunch, & I have 2-3 hours when my kids nap. Many days I have time if my hubbie is watching the kids or when they go to bed, but that isn’t time I plan on. That’s extra time. I’m talking about times when you know you can work on things.

the third step

Break down your business goals into bite sized pieces. Everyone has business goals even if you don’t realize it yet. You want to sell 10 items in your shop this month, you want to blog 2 days a week, you want another wholesale order, you want 50 new Facebook fans, etc. Those are goals.

Now, turn your paper over & write down your goals for this month – putting each goal into a separate column. 4-5 goals max! Don’t overload yourself. Now focus on the steps you need to take to accomplish each goal & get specific.

For example: Get 50 new Facebook “likes”

• add my FB url to my email signature
• write blog post about “liking” my FB page & link to it
• create welcome page for my FB page
• include a “goodie” for liking my page that’s included on the welcome page
• tweet about my goodie
• tweet about my FB page
• let customers know about FB page via email
• engage current fans via questions, responding to comments, & linking to info they’d like

And on & on. There are so many things you can do.

the fourth step

Once you’ve broken every goal down, you need to plug your bite sized pieces into your schedule during available times.  Where do you do this. On a calender of course! You have so many options. You can use a physical planner/calender or you can use an online calender like Google Calender.

Don’t try & stuff things into your available times. You’ll only be discouraged because you didn’t get much accomplished.

the fifth step

Stick with it!

If by chance you get everything done on your list for the day & you end up having some more extra time somewhere…like when your kids go to bed & your man is vegging out on the couch without you…then go & do something else. Whatever pops into your head that you need or want to work on. It can be for you or for your business because it’s your extra time.

final thoughts

Sometimes it’s hard to stick with working on something for a set amount of time. Use a timer to help you stay on track.

Don’t forget to make “you time” mandatory during the week. Dinner with friends, pedicure, bath & book, whatever.

At the end of the month, go back & evaluate how well you did sticking to it or how well your schedule worked for you. If it didn’t help you at all then you need to figure out what went wrong & work on those things. If it did, then make out your schedule for the next month with new goals.

Wanna read up on more posts like this one? Click here for my guest post on Oh My Handmade & click here for my post “How To Accomplish Your Monthly Goals Easily”