Making time for your home based business

Here’s the penultimate instalment in the series on “Breaking Free Of A Salaried Existence - Being Your Own Boss”.

1. Breaking Free Of A Salaried Existence - Being Your Own Boss
2. Your Mind - Your First Hurdle
3. Getting The Money To Start Your Own Business
4. Making Time For Your Home Based Business
5. Getting The Experience To Manage Your Home Based Business

I hate to start off a post with bitter medicine but here goes - if you don’t make the time to work on starting your own business, you MAY NOT have time left. I meant that figuratively and well as literally. At the expense of sounding morbid, we NEVER know how much time we have here on earth, so don’t delay. Procrastination is the number one killer of dreams. I can say this because I was a BIG lazy bum too - once upon a time. These days, I even have to limit my quiet time in the loo! But looking back, if that big disaster didn’t happen four years ago, I’d still be on my backside, killing time surfing from one website to another - doing “research”.

I don’t like to use the “time management” phrase, but basically, if you don’t prioritize your life and get things in order, you will never have time to dream about being your own boss let alone making it a reality.

I have to practise “time management” if I want do everything I need to do in a day - from taking the kids to school in the morning, to chopping chicken and washing veggie, to lunching with my kids, tucking them in for the nap, to delivering the food on time right down to playing UNO and Pictionary with them.

The same goes for you if you are serious about starting your own business. The planning stage is critical. You NEED time to learn about your niche, to meet suppliers, to talk with your spouse, to plan your budget, to… well you get the idea. Before you can make time to work on your business, you have to WANT your own business (or at least to work at home).

I can hear you screaming at me “BUT I DON’T HAVE THE TIME!” .

Okay, okay, I hear ya… but there ARE ways to make time…

1. Delegate. Believe it or not, there are lots of things that your staff at work can do without you being involved. If you’re not the boss, refer to No. 2. You might be surprised that you actually cut your working hours by up to 2 hours. That’s 2 hours you can be at home planning your business or actually working at your business.
2. Prioritize.Prioritize.Prioritize. There is a difference between knowing what is “URGENT” and what is “IMPORTANT”. We’re all guilty of it. My weakness? I get sidetracked whenever I do research online. Not staying focussed is the primary reason for this. It’s so easy to suddenly find yourself looking for “plasma TVs” when you are supposed to be researching “business laws in the state of Ohio”. Prioritizing and staying focussed means you (should technically) waste less time.
3. Stay at home more. Most families make regular trips to the mall or entertainment outlets out of habit. Time out with family is important, but quality time doesn’t have to mean going to the mall. Wasted time travelling and waiting in queues mean less time you have to devote to planning and working at your business.
4. Routine-ize your life. Set a routine for your work and family. When you get into a routine, you can basically predict when you will have time to work on your business. I’ve managed to get my kids into a routine so that I can predict when I will have blocks of time to work on my blogs and/or marketing, budgetting and planning for our catering biz.
5. Get a job closer to home. Not easy I know, but most folks spend up to 4 hours daily in a sardine packed bus or traffic jam doing nothing. That’s time you could put to use for you business. The other alternative is to …
6. Get a job with flexi hours. Again, not easy I know, but there are many companies now that realize it’s not the best and most cost effective way to keep staff in an office 8-12 hours a day when they are not fully utilized. What happens when staff are idle is internet and phone usage goes up (for personal use), coffee and tea consumption goes up (bad, if employers are footing the bill). Companies are realizing that it makes sense to pay staff less, but allow them to work at home where they can surf the net, drink coffee or nap all they want as long as the work gets done!

When my wife and I started our catering biz, workload was low, so my wife continued working in the kindergarten in the mornings while I delivered food after work. Then when we were more of less ready to fly, she worked on the business full time while I cleared it with my boss to work as a part-timer in the mornings. I took about two and a half years before both of us began working full time on our home based business. Now, we’re going to apply the same system as we think about moving from our catering biz to other less labour intensive income streams and to increase my online income.

So if a less than bright guy like me can do it, I don’t see why you can’t!

In this series :

1. Breaking Free Of A Salaried Existence - Being Your Own Boss
2. Your Mind - Your First Hurdle
3. Getting The Money To Start Your Own Business
4. Making Time For Your Home Based Business
5. Getting The Experience To Manage Your Home Based Business

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