EnTrends

Perhaps the scarcest commodity the new
home-business owner just starting out has
is time. This is particularly so if you are also
working a traditional, full-time job and
building up your business "on the side" in
your spare time.

This is a situation I am all too familiar with. I
still work a full-time 8:30 - 5:00 job while
building my own internet-based business in
my spare time. So how do you go about
burning the candle at both ends without
burning yourself out in the process?

First off, let's think about priorities.Working
a full- time job while developing a business
requires stamina and endurance if other
areas of your life are not to be neglected.
This means being fit and healthy. Make
time to exercise at least three times a week.
Four or five is better. I know how hard it
can be to commit an hour to working out
when you've got an endless (and I mean
ENDLESS!) list of things you need to be
doing NOW for your business. But make
the time. It pays BIG dividends in terms of
stamina and endurance. For me, this means
getting up at 4:00 am on workout days. If
that's what it takes for you, do it!

Second, eat right. Don't just grab a
McBurger on the way home from work and
scoff it down as you're driving. Take the
time to cook a proper meal and relax for a
half hour or an hour before getting down to
business. This gives you a break and time
to unwind from the pressures of the day,
making you much more productive when
you do get down to work. Eating proper
meals will keep you in good health and,
coupled with a regular exercise routine, will
help keep your energy levels high.

OK, so you're physically in shape and
taking care of yourself. The next major
thing to think about is time management.
Every weekend, before the working week
starts, prepare a business plan for the
coming week. This is nothing more
complicated that writing down the various
business-related activities you must do
over the course of the coming week and
then scheduling them according to how
much time you know you are going to have
on a particular day.

By planning out your time this way, you
can schedule your business activities
alongside your other activities. Take

care of as many of them as you can
through the course of the day. Whether
you are able to do this depends on the
nature of your 9 to 5 job but if you have
even a little autonomy you should be able
to squeeze out a little time here and there.
Not huge chunks, just 10 minutes here
and there.

The nature of your job may mean you
don't have the luxury of that sort of
autonomy. If this is you, then there's

nothing for it but to free up time before
and after work. This may mean getting up
an hour earlier every day, for
example.Whatever your personal
situation, by planning ahead you will

at least have the peace of mind of
knowing that time has been allocated to all
important business-related tasks.

By eliminating the "scatter gun" approach
you will find that the limited time you do
have will be much more productive.

There are going to be some activities that
you have to do day in, day out. Decide
what time of the day is best for you to
attend to these routine tasks. The more
you can integrate business activities into
your daily routine the more efficient will
be your use of time. Let's take email, for
example. Anyone running an online
business has to deal with email on a daily
basis. I use the time between when I get
up in the morning and when I start my
workout for this.

It gives me time to wake up before I
launch into physical activity and it is a
relatively undemanding task that does not
require precision concentration. Make use
of autoresponders for as much of your
email processing as possible. This will
further reduce the amount of time you
have to spend on this aspect of your
business.

Other routine activities include things like
site promotion and search engine position
monitoring. Now there are a lot of great
tools to help webmasters with this part

of their business. For example,
WebPosition Gold will automatically
review your position in all the major
search engines and report back to you
with the results. It can also be
programmed to auto-submit at
appropriate intervals. Be sure to use
quality automated tools wherever
possible. They can save you literally
hours of work every week and as we all
know, time is money in this business.

Keep a journal for a week. Record in it
everything you do during the day from
the moment you get up in the morning

to the moment you go to bed. What
activities can you eliminate in favour of
freeing up some time for your business?
Maybe it means getting up an hour
earlier. Maybe it's forgoing the sleep-in
on the weekend. Maybe it means giving
up those two hours of TV every night.
You will find even 15-20 minutes blocks
here and there can add up to a sizeable
chunk of time over a week or a month.

If you travel, keep a copy of your website
on your laptop and work on it while
you're in the air or waiting for a flight. Or
answer your email ready to send it when
you get plugged in again.

As you can see, the trick is to practice
the "nibble" technique. If you wait until
you have a great chunk of time in one
block, such as the weekend, you'll only
waste all of those little bits of time you
could have put to good use during the
week and fritter away your "quality" time
on routine tasks rather than business
development.

One final piece of advice. Take time every
week to just relax and do something you
want to do. Although the pressures of a
new business are demanding, failing to
take time out will only lead to burn out.

Elena Fawkner is editor of A Home-Based
Business Online ... practical home
business ideas for the work-from-home

entrepreneur. http://www.ahbbo.com