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How To Manage Your Time

by Jim Capobianco

I would like to touch upon a subject that it is not too often included as part of a home business course, tutorial, e-book or website and I feel it is vital to the success of your home-based business.

What am I talking about?

I am talking about Time Management.

In over 25 years of being self-employed, the managing of time has been the single most difficult hurdle to conquer and overcome and there are times when I still lose the battle.

In a home-based business, time management can be the difference between success and failure just as assuredly as any of the following:

* Under-financing,
* Mismanagement,
* Poor customer service,
* Over-extension or
* A lousy product.

What falls under the term "time management"?

How about procrastination? "Putting off until tomorrow..." Well you know the rest. You can find many excuses to put a task off. "I'll do it tomorrow." or I'll do it when I have more time." But you never seem to have more time and tomorrow comes...and tomorrow...and tomorrow...and tomorrow...

What about the attitude, "I am the boss!" It is so easy to goof off when you are your own boss, working at home. After all, there is no authority figure above you in the chain of command. But remember, you are the boss and as the boss you are ultimately responsible to get the job done.

Chances are, as a small one-(wo)man business, it will be solely up to you to get a lot of things done. But look on the bright side. When your business is successful you can hire someone to do all the things you don't want to do, just like your boss does now.

Or how about misspent time or time not spent wisely. For instance, you keep checking and reading your e-mail and not getting other work done or you surf the Internet for no specific purpose or go off on a tangent while doing research on another subject.

You take the easier road or course of action. For instance, you know that promoting and marketing your product and website are ongoing and daily tasks. But they can be boring, arduous and time consuming, so you put up your website and then sit back and wait to get rich. Then you wonder why you are not successful?

I am sure you or I could find many other ways to "waste time"; I always said I had it down to an art form. But the bottomline is that time (next to your health) is probably the most important commodity an individual in his or her own business has.

Time management is crucial to your business plan. You must "control" the use of your time; because the one thing you have no control over is the "passing of time". No matter what you do, time is still going to go by, therefore, you should make the most of your time.

This is not an easy task by any means and as a big-time time waster; I do not make light of it at all. After all, I consider it important enough to devote a whole section to it in my e-book.

What will it take to conquer time? You probably never will! But if you are aware that it is a problem that plagues us all and challenge it, you can be time's master and not its slave.

What you need above all to conquer time is focus and discipline.

Here are, without a doubt, the two most important attributes a self-employed person can possess: Focus and Discipline. If you have focus and discipline, everything else will fall into place.

Jim Capobianco, the author of "10 Steps to Your Own Home-Based Business", has been self-employed for over 25 years, both on and offline. At his website, Cap-Tech.com and in his newsletter, The Cap-Tech Times, he shares his experience and expertise when it comes to owning your own business. Come pay a visit at http://www.cap-tech.com.

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