Today we have a guest blogger to share her ideas, tips, and inspiration with us! Her name is Elaine K Stephen of
Inspirational Gift Gallery She has inspirational Christian Stories, Poems, Gifts and a Blog. Be sure to check out what else Elaine has to offer!
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One of the first things I noticed when I started my home business was that there were an awful lot of tasks that had to be tended to on a regular basis and still fit them in with all my personal life tasks too. I started writing sticky notes and attaching them to my computer monitor. Before I knew it, I had so many sticky notes on my computer monitor, they just blended in with the edge of my computer monitor and I stopped reading them. I was always behind on getting things done or late for appointments. I needed to organize my business and personal life tasks, and real soon!

I thought and thought about what would work for me and here is what I came up with…

I purchased an eraser board, a cork bulletin board and a pocket calendar. On one side of the eraser board, I listed all of my business and personal life tasks that had to be performed on a regular basis. I listed them in order of importance, daily tasks, weekly tasks, monthly tasks, quarterly tasks and annual tasks. On the other side of the board I would add in appointments, holiday and vacation plans, and one time projects that I wanted to accomplish. I selected an eraser board because I wanted something that would be easy to change. As my business grew and changed, so would my business tasks and personal life plans are always changing. I wanted something that would be large enough to fit and see everything at a glance and hard to ignore without wasting a lot of paper.

The cork bulletin board was a necessity because along with certain business tasks come informational papers. I wanted to be able to get my hands on what I needed fast and easy. I tacked up my papers with push pins. When it is time to update them, it is fast and easy to replace them.

When I was leaving the home to go to work, keeping track of days and dates was much easier. I had to be at work on certain days and at certain times and I had to request vacation time, so who could help but keep track of time? But when I started working from home and had the freedom to work whatever days and times I wanted to, suddenly keeping track of the days and dates became much harder. A pocket calendar was a necessity.

Now it was time to put my plan into action. If I didn’t do it immediately, my eraser board, bulletin board and pocket calendar would have become as obsolete as my sticky notes in a very short amount of time. I decided that every morning as soon as I took care of my son’s and my own personal needs, I would go directly to my computer room and pick up my pocket calendar and mark the day. Then I would look at my eraser board and determine what I needed to accomplish that day. I would look at my daily task (examples: processing orders, reading hour with my son), weekly tasks (example: every Monday update product availability, every Friday go food shopping), monthly tasks (example: last day of the month, tally up state sales tax collected, 1st day of the month review my personal checking account statement) and quarterly tasks (example: submit my state sales tax online, plan upcoming holidays and vacations) and write out my day’s schedule on a piece of paper that I could carry along with me wherever I went.

It wasn’t long at all before I could complete my daily schedule in 10 minutes or less. By following the schedule and marking off tasks as I accomplished them, my business and personal life was finally organized. Things were getting done on time!

As we all know, nothing is perfect. Sometimes an emergency occurs, I forget to write an appointment on the board, or the tasks on the board take longer than the day is long. But one thing I can say for sure is, I always know what day it is!
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Thanks Elaine!

I just realized how long it has been since I posted here at my blog!  Holy Cow!  Well, something that I have been trying to implement in my daily life is the topic for today! 

Time Budgeting and Multitasking! 

A friend of mine recently told me that multitasking is a bad way to get anything done.  I have pondered on this concept for a while because the reasons she had behind this theory make sense, so here is my conclusions.  Multi-tasking is NOT bad BUT there are some simple rules that will make is more successful than others.  These rules are the reason that I’m combining the time budgeting along with the multitasking idea.  How many of us try to watch the kids while trying to work on the computer or do e-mail and/or dishes and laundry?  That was me about 3 weeks ago.  My work on the computer would take 4 times as long, I would end up frustrated, the kids would be crying and the laundry and dishes would be half done as well. Not really a good example of finishing anything. 

So here are my thoughts.  First, Make a to-do list of the things that you need/want to accomplish in a day.  Now re-write your list.  Put the most important things up at the top and put a star by them.  Put the least important things towards the bottom.  You can mix business and home stuff.  For example, there are some days that I HAVE to do the laundry…so that’s at the top.  Then the things that could possibly wait a day or until later in the day are closer to the bottom. Second, schedule out your time during the day.  It doesn’t’ have to be anything to rigid, just a general plan.  For instance-for the past few weeks I will start my morning out slowly.  I put in a load of laundry and start the dishwasher (if it wasn’t run the night before).  I will play with the kids and do general cleaning until naptime.  At naptime, the baby goes down and my 3 year old has quiet time.  Then I work on the computer.  I will check and respond to my e-mail, update webpages, write in my blogs…etc.  When the baby wakes up, I finish the last thing I’m working on and again step away from the computer.  I will rotate the laundry and then start to think about dinner. 

And Third…When you are multitasking, you need to group similar items together.  While taking a business call, label some of your flyers or cut out coupons to hand out for your business.  While cooking meat for dinner…cut the veggies.  In this way, you are still able to multitask, but you will get more done in the long run! By applying these simple steps, my days run a lot smoother, my kids are a lot happier, and I get more done in the time I have.