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Entrepreneurs – Are You Working Efficiently Or Are You Just Plain Disorganized?

Written by: Lee Lister

Article Overview: We all know the situation, you are working for yourself, you are working hard but you just don’t seem to be getting anywhere. Could you be disorganized? If you are often late, miss deadlines, often stay late? Do you have a messy working environment and can never find anything you need? Yup you are disorganized.

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Entrepreneurs – Are You Working Efficiently Or Are You Just Plain Disorganized?

We all know the situation, you are working for yourself, you are working hard but you just don’t seem to be getting anywhere. Could you be disorganized? If you are often late, miss deadlines, often stay late? Do you have a messy working environment and can never find anything you need? Yup you are disorganized.

This is the most common symptom of poor time management, and the one of the easier ones to solve. The chief problems the disorganized workers bring upon themselves is not being able to find information and meet deadlines. A side effect is not being able to react to changes in a timely manner.

* Are you never able to find things?
* Do you miss meetings or deadlines?
* Never seem to achieve anything although you work hard?
* Find your paperwork rules your office?
* Never seem to have enough time?
* Never have time off?

You need to approach your problem from two sides:
* An efficient working environment
* Plan and manage your time

An Efficient Working Environment
Phone calls, emails, documentation and unexpected callers the biggest time wasters there are, try and manage them, but not by compromising service.
* Phone Calls – Allocate a time each day to make all your outgoing calls. Try and avoid telephone tag, by leaving a good time to call on voicemails and documentation.
* Emails – Use a spam buster, avoid personal emails and file efficiently.
* Documentation - The 3 D’s: Do one of the following: Deal With. Handle paper once and then file. Delegate to the appropriate staff member. Ditch and throw it away.
* Callers – discourage frivolous calls and make appointments for sales calls. Keep to the time that you have allocated.

Plan and Manage Your Time
By planning your time, you can review your time commitments and help yourself better plan in the future.
* Make and keep a “to do” list.
* Keep a diary and keep it visible to all that need it.
* Link it with your “to do” list.
* Plan realistically allowing enough time to do the important things
* Ensure you take regular breaks
* Plan some time for yourself
* Decide if you are a morning or evening person and plan important things for your period of greatest alertness.
* Keep at least ¼ day a week for admin – probably more.

Master these skills and you should suddenly find more time in your business and life to do the things that you want to.

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Home > Starting-A-Business > Lee Lister > Entrepreneurs Are You Working Efficiently Or Are You Just Plain Disorganized
Article Tags: appointments, chief problems, delegate, diary, ditch, good time, important things, paperwork, personal emails, poor time management, spam buster, staff member, time commitments, time off, time wasters, timely manner, voicemails, working environment

About the Author: Lee Lister
RSS for Lee's articles - Visit Lee's website

Lee Lister is a Business Consultant with more than 25 year's consultancy experience for many household names. She is known as The Bid Manager or The Biz Guru.

From an early age she began an unparalleled journey through business consulting that continues to span across the UK, USA, Europe and Asia. She has consulted for a considerable number of companies all over the world. Specialising in business change management, start up consultancy and trouble shooting. Lee's experience in marketing and internet marketing is also keenly sought after.

She is a prolific published writer of books, ebooks and articles and can easily be found on major search engine and Amazon. Her books include: FastTrack Bid Management, Proposal Writing For Smaller Businesses, How Much Does It Cost To Start A Business, Entrepreneur's Apprentice and a series of Start My New Business books that do as they say in the title!

Her major web sites are:
http://www.BizGuru.us
http://www.Bid-Manager.com
http://www.MarketingGuerrillas.com
http://www.StartMyNewBusiness.com



Click here to visit Lee's website
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