Time Management for the Home-Based Business Entrepreneur… Part 2

Everybody knows, we all have the same 24 hours in every day...no matter where we live in the world.

Now that you have tracked your time expenditures and set up your Daily Activities chart, let’s look at a few of the ways we spend time on our business and personal activities.

One of the biggest time consumers I’ve encountered is email. I send and receive email to & from various sources: family, friends, business contacts and personal business. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but I got to the point of feeling swallowed alive by correspondence.

Here are a few tips I’ll share with you that helped me tame the wild email beast.

First

I set up different email accounts for the different groups of people I interact with.

Your Internet Service Provider should provide you with the ability to create several email addresses. I use Comcast & they offer 7 additional accounts.
If you have a website, your web hosting service allows you to create several email addresses as well.
Another option is to use a free service such as Gmail or Hotmail. These services are less likely to ban mass emailings (such as you what you would receive from your MLM company).

Additionally, the emails are stored on their servers & never downloaded to your computer, which can protect you from harmful viruses. This is handy in the event your computer crashes since your addresses & saved emails are on their server.

Here’s how I’ve done it…

I’ve kept my original Comcast email for family and friends communications and personal business.
I use my email from my cattery website, www.kadokits.com, for all communications with my “cat” friends, cat Yahoo groups, and cat related business.
For my MLM business and Mentoring For Free, I opened up a Gmail account. I use this email address for the online sites I use for business activities like Direct Matches, You-Tube, and Facebook.

I have been able to prioritize my use of time interacting with my emails much more efficiently now.
Each day, as I review my schedule, I choose which email categories I can spend time on & how much time I can spend on each.

Next

Set a time limit for yourself and stick to it! If you’re getting too many “fun forwards”, ask people not to send them to you, or make a decision to delete the unread ones every week.
If you love those “fun forwards”, be sure to delegate a set amount of time every week for reading those. Likewise, be sure to set aside time for non-business emails with family and friends.

Always look at the value of spending the time on emails.
You can’t read everything in depth…learn to skim for the essentials.


Wishing you a Lifetime of Success!
Karen