When you work from home or own your own business, it is really easy to get sidetracked. You might think of an errand you need to run or decide you need to do some laundry or household chores instead of dealing with your business, and before you know it you've spent a whole day not getting much business related done.
Even if you've been focused and in your office all day, you can still leave in the evening with the feeling that you haven't gotten as much done as you should have or as you'd planned. And you probably couldn't say where the time went.
That's why it can be very helpful to track where your time goes each day. Some people are very meticulous trackers; using online programs that also help them keep track of billable hours to chart where every minute of their day goes.
You don't have to get that fancy. You can just use your calendar or a piece of paper to keep track of what you're doing and how long you're spending on it.
Every time you change tasks, note the time. Or stop at the end of each hour and write down everything you did for the previous hour.
The key to this is that you have to be honest with yourself. If you checked your e-mail five times and played three games of solitaire, that needs to go in your tracker. And if you stayed on task the whole hour, that should be noted, too.
The point of writing it all down is so you can literally see where your time is going. At the end of a week you can look at your list and attack it with a couple of different colors of highlighters -- say, green for money-making tasks, pink for time wasters, yellow for things that aren't work related at all.
This will allow you to get really clear about where your time is going and allow you to set ground rules for yourself that will help you stay on task a little better. For example, you might only check your e-mail once an hour, you can only check your RSS feed reader at lunchtime and you only get a computer game break when you've crossed something off your to-do list and you can't play for more than 10 minutes.
These ground rules will vary depending on what's taking the most of your time or what is distracting you. You might find that you need "office hours" when the kids aren't allowed in your office, even during the summer, or you might need to put your foot down and stop doing household chores during work hours.
After you've set these rules, continue to track your time for a few weeks to see how you're doing. And once a month or so do it again to make sure you're staying on the productive path.
Author Resource:-
www.moredonelesstime.com is an expert at helping small business and home business owners get more done in less time so they can make more profits and take more time off. Discover More at MoreDoneLessTime.com.
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