Time management is a special challenge for those who work from a home office as an entrepreneur, remote worker, or freelancer.
If you do remote work, your boss sets the priorities and it’s up to you to juggle all your tasks to make it happen.
If you do freelance work in a home office, you have multiple bosses – your clients. You have the challenge of balancing all their deadlines and needs.
If you are an entrepreneur who works from a home office, you are the boss and have to set your own priorities.
One technique for organizing your work day that I see over and over on websites from Harvard Business School Review to LifeHacker is to set three priorities for the day – and do them.
Get it done cheque list
Among the personal and productive variations on this technique are:
Leo Babauta of Zen Habits recommends making a list the very first thing in the morning, then identify your three Most Important Tasks (MIT – a handy acronym) and among those tasks have one be an action directly related to a larger goal for your business.
Brian Tracy of Eat the Frog suggests you do the most difficult or odious task first to get it out of the way. Then you can relax and focus on the rest of your priorities and tasks for the day.
David Rock of Your Brain at Work says to do your mentally most challenging tasks first while your brain is still fresh and functions at its best.
Linda Varone, author of The Smarter Home Office ;-) suggests you make a list, just write tasks down in no particular order, without thinking. Then review the list and number each task in the order of importance. You can group similar tasks such as emailing or calling people. Star the three most important and then just do them. Don’t think about them – that leads to excuses and procrastination – just do it. You will be surprised at how much you can get done in that first burst of energy and focus.
What variations on this technique work best for you? Share them in the comment box below.
photo by Artois Bibliotheques
