Mastering Your Time: The Art Of Getting Things Done Quickly And Efficiently And Taking Control Of Your Life by Khan Mohammed A

Author:Khan, Mohammed A [Khan, Mohammed A]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-04-28T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

Efficient Time Management For The Self-Employed

I’ve been self-employed for the last 5 years and one of the reasons why I chose that path was the fact that I knew I would be able to make more money in less time.

One of the benefits of being able to work for yourself is that you have 100% control over most things. This means you set your own hours, you decide how much money you’re going to make and you decide when you take your vacation days. The downside to this is the amount of money you make per hour can be lower than a typical 9-5 job.

Self-employed people MUST learn time management otherwise you’re not going to be reaching your potential. The main point of time management in your professional environment is to maximize your earnings by minimizing the time spent.

Here are some tips that I’d like to share with you all so that you can maximize your potential and earnings with the least amount of time.

Set a Timer

I do this for everything, literally. Virtually any task I do, I set a timer for. The theory behind this is to guestimate how long each task would take. So if one of my tasks is to write a 1000 word blog post on a specified topics, I’d estimate with the SEO research included that it would take me about 20 minutes to write a 500 word blog post. I’d multiply that and would arrive at 40 minutes and add another 5 minutes for unintended interruptions.

I’d set my timer for 45 minutes and this plays a psychological trick on your mind and actually helps you focus even more because you only have one thing on your mind, to finish your task within the allotted time.

Write It Down

Take note of when you start a task and when you finish in a small notebook or a smartphone app. I use the ‘worklog’ app on my android smartphone. This is mainly for logistics purposes and really does help in figuring out how many hours you worked per week, per month.

Create an Outline

When I was still in high school, my English teacher emphasized creating an outline before any work I do almost daily. That thought has stuck to me ever since. Your outline doesn’t have to be detailed, simple bullet points is perfect. Once you have a simple outline, you actually save more time by not having to think as much while doing the task.

Work With Dual Monitors

Studies have shown that working with more than one monitor can increase your productivity by as much as 44%. You can hook your laptop up to a second monitor just as easily as a desktop computer. There are even options for tablets.

The 2 Minute Rule

Some productivity experts say that if a task takes 2 minutes to do, do it as soon as the request comes in. The problem with these small tasks is we humans inherently ignore them till they become big headaches at the end of the week where we have a pile of 100 something tasks that all take 2 minutes to do.

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