Posted by Nadira Haniff on September 11, 2008 at 12:00am
HAVE A PLAN BWe are into another fast moving week! The news headlines are somewhat gloomy with all the economic pressures that people are dealing with. Today, I spoke with a 57 year old, wonderful woman. She was in tears describing to me her job of the past 20 years, from which she was just let go. I felt awful for her, not so much because she was laid off, but because she has no Plan B in place. Her Plan A (job) is now in shambles, and without a Plan B working for her, she is on shaky grounds. Her financial house is swaying with the times. Not a great place to be for sure. In fact a very uncertain place. So the message today is, don't wait until your Plan A is in jeopardy to get your Plan B going. Job security is fading into the past. Relying on anyone besides yourself is a bad play. The sooner you recognize that, the quicker you can get a Plan B set up and firing to stabilize and secure your financial house. Don't get caught with your pants down!If you have a Plan B (your business) already set up, then you've got to kick into high gear and accelerate your growth. Your business needs to be organized so that it brings in short term income and you build towards the long term residuals, without quitting along the way. Let's do it!TIME WAITS FOR NO MAN or WOMANThere is one commodity which is so slippery that many times it escapes and we are not quite sure where it may have disappeared to. Once gone this commodity is irretrievable. What is that commodity? It's TIME!One clear reason that many home based business owners have a tough time getting off the ground is time management. It is poorly addressed.A large portion of home based business owners are working part time or in some cases full time. So yes, time is limited in any given day. Add family, overtime, errands and a number of miscellaneous issues, and yes, it does narrow the time down. However, despite this limited time frame to work your business, it is possible to run a super successful business.But the fact is, your business will work when it is treated like a business. And for your business to work for you and return a profit - you have to work it! Below is a simple chart to use to allocate time. Time is divided into 8 groups. For example 'Household Tasks' may include, sweeping, washing dishes, laundry etc. So put your activities into one of the 8 groups. For everyone, your situation is unique. So work with that. Now, for 1 week, you need to track yourself diligently and fairly. No cheating. You would be amazed to see where the hours are disappearing."Time is what we want most, but... what we use worst" ~William Penn24 HOUR CHALLENGE
(1) Make a chart like this. Keep it simple. Don't complicate things. This is a daily tracking device. So you would need to duplicate this 7 times for the 7 days of the week to track accurately.(2) Be aware of time. Be conscious how you are spending your time, so you can record effectively. The numbers in the 'Hours' column are a sample. As you track your time, you will insert the correct numbers for the day there and eventually totaling up for the week.(3) Track yourself for this week, today all the way to Sunday, and account for your time. No cheating!(4) Assess where your time is going by the end of the week.(5) Are you happy with the way your week went? Did you get the results you were planning to achieve this week? If not, you must change some things around. For your business to turn a profit, time has to be allocated to engage in the revenue producing activities which would allow you to earn a profit.(6) So let's get pro active about our future and make today count.
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