Time-Management

6 Steps to Managing Your Overwhelming Workload

I enjoy thinking creativly, and talking or thinking about theology, leadership, and time management (amongst other things); however, because of my studies I'm going to have to "limit myself" and take #2 of this 6 step process to heart. Hopefully during the summermonths I'll have more time on here to post and "think out-loud". I miss not being able to post...)

A brief synopos of my perspective on time-management: I firmly believe more if more Christians would take a "business like" approach to Christianity and their own personal use of their time. If we as the "body and bride of Christ" would be more disciplined we would get more done!  Would Christ want anything less than our best (with the time, talents, and resources) that we have?? 

Too often we need to work smarter and not harder!


Ephesians 5:15-17 Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
Psalm 90:12  So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.
 ....
(Here's a great article I found on http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/232618)
  Let’s be clear, being a successful entrepreneur is hard work -- very hard work. From learning new tasks to managing employees and planning for future growth, there isn't a lot of time in the day to make huge errors. That said, entrepreneurs can learn to work smarter, not harder.
Here are six tips that will help the overburdened entrepreneur sort through the endless tasks on her plate.
1. Get your priorities straight. There will always be more work than you have time to complete. You aren’t going to get everything done. Accept it.
Tasks that are both urgent and important must rise to the top of the to-do list. Keep in mind, pressing work tends to take priority over the important tasks. Don't let this happen. Make sure you focus on both items.

2. Limit your time on tasks. The law of diminishing returns dictates that doing a certain task for an hour may be a good investment but spending five hours doing the same task may be time wasted. Make sure you do some tasks in limited quantities.
We have a colleague who each day spends only one hour on social networking to promote his business. The reason? Often social networking can be a time sink, and he wants to make sure he doesn't get sucked in.
3. Avoid perfectionism.We’re not suggesting that mediocrity is acceptable. However, continuing to work on something long after the incremental effort stopped delivering value is not beneficial. Further, it sucks up your time, keeping you from doing other tasks that do create value. Keep in mind, great work is what we do for our customers. Perfectionism is what we do for ourselves.
Related: The Secret to Prioritizing Your Time
4. Exercise discipline. As an entrepreneur, you can’t afford to spend time doing things you enjoy at the expense of mission-critical tasks. Make sure you remain focused on business-related duties.
5. Outsource, outsource, outsource. Depending on your skill set, many tasks should be outsourced. For example, we find that if our computer network is on the fritz, it’s much more cost effective to call a technician than to attempt the fix ourselves. He does in 30 minutes what would take us three days (optimistically), time we could be spent generating revenue.
6. Sprint. If you will be the only employee for years, this won’t work. You’ll need to use the tips above to find a sustainable pace. However, you may be able to sprint for a short period of time (say a few months) working at an unsustainable pace to get your business over the hump. This can be successful, if it allows your business to generate enough revenue so that you can take on employees. Then you can delegate work to others and throttle back to a sustainable pace.
Starting and successfully running a small business is a lot of work but following the tips outlined above can help you manage the workload.