Mananging Your Time as a Business Owner 6
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Can most people find such patterns in their workweek?
Yes. In fact, the 80/20 principle or the Pareto Principle (for the Italian economist who first expounded it) holds true for most businesses and individuals. In essence the principle says that 80 percent of your business will come from 20 percent of your customers or, alternatively, that 20 percent of your efforts will produce 80 percent of your income.
Your time log will help you pinpoint the customers and activities that produce the bulk of your income. To streamline your business and increase profits, focus on finding more customers like the 20 percent who now provide the bulk of your profit, and spend less time doing work for the type of customers whose work is marginally profitable.
How do I keep a time log?
It's simple, just record all your activities for a week. Every time you start or stop an activity, get interrupted by a phone call, stop working to throw a load of clothes in the washing machine, make a brief notation about what you did. Try to write these notes at the time you start or stop an activity, not later in the day when you may forget what you did, or how long it took. You can use a format like the sample time log below, or just keep a running tally of start and stop times on a pad of legal paper or in a notebook. Or use the time log function in QuickBooks, Gold Mine, or some other computer program you own. The important part is to keep the log.
How long should I keep recording my activities?
Keep the log for at least a week.
My work varies a lot from week to week. How can I see patterns?
While the type of work you do may vary, chances are the way you deal with your workload and interact with customers won't change much from day to day or job to job. Here are some questions to consider that may help you spot time-wasting activities or inefficient ways of dealing with your workload:
- Did you start each day with a plan of what you wanted to accomplish?
- Did you try to do too much?
- Did you usually finish one task before starting the next?
- Did you get a lot of incoming phone calls that weren't important?
- Were all the phone calls you made necessary?
- Did you spend too much time making unimportant decisions?
- Have you developed standardized letters and procedures for dealing with recurring situations?
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