Nigerian Entrepreneur

How often have you felt sad as an entrepreneur when you review your accomplishment in a day? How often do you feel guilty and tell yourself that you ought to have done better or accomplish more in your business venture or personal life? Well, instead of feeling guilty or sad, here are some tips that will help you get your acts together and become more productive in your business and personal life.

Plan Your Day, Have A To-Do-List

If you are really determined to become more productive as an entrepreneur, then the very first step is determining what you want to achieve. You must have specific business goals or objectives which when accomplished will give you that satisfaction that you have been productive. Once you determine your business goals, write them down. Then the next step is to draw up a plan on how you will go about achieving the goal or goals. Next draw up a To Do List outlining all the necessary tasks that must be done in order to accomplish the goal(s) and arrange the actions in order of importance.

Delegate and Outsource Some Tasks

The next step is to split those tasks that you have identified in step one into two categories. The first categories are those tasks that are better carried out by yourself. The second category should contain tasks that can be handled effectively by subordinates. Delegate such tasks so that you will be able to concentrate on those that must be done by you. You can also outsource some business tasks that are better handled by experts. Even though a lot of entrepreneur shy away from this because they consider outsourcing expensive, it is better to have an expert do a good job for you than waste time energy and other resources struggling with a task you are not good at. A good example is website design. So many entrepreneur makes a poor presentation of their business online with websites that looks like an extract from a 5years-old scrapbook (forgive me, I mean no offense).

Stay Offline Until You Have Something Specific To Do Online

You heard me right. I’ve personally discovered that Internet can be the greatest time waster after Television. If you are not careful, Internet can give you so much distraction such that you actually become unproductive. While online, the hours fly like minutes. So my suggestion is that you stay offline until you have something specific you want to do online. It helps if you allocate a specific time for catching up with friends via Instant Messenger and visiting Social Media Sites. Another great culprit that causes a lot of distraction is the Email Inbox. I recommend you ignore Emails until the time you have allocated in your schedule to deal specifically with emails. In order to avoid the issue of not responding to an important email on time, I suggest you use different email accounts for different purposes. You can then schedule to check important emails at least twice in the day while the less important one can be schedule to a period when you are about retiring for the day. The important issue here is that you ensure that mails you receive do not dictate how your day is run.

Take Clean Breaks Go Away From Your Computer

Take your break period seriously. Don’t spend your lunch break in front of your desktop or laptop. Go away to a neutral place and spend your lunch break enjoying a good meal or snack. I recommend you spend the extra time after taking your meal with friends or colleagues. That will do good to your mind and physical body. Trust me, your eyeballs will be grateful for the break and you will be able to work better when you return to your desk.

Take Your Vacation Serious

Plan and enjoy your annual vacation. Never trade it for anything. So many entrepreneur have experienced burnt-out due to overworking. Some have actually developed health complications because they attempted to burn the candle at both end. Successful entrepreneurs take as much caution in planning their annual vacation as they do in planning a business presentation for potential clients. Your health is your greatest asset. So, take your vacation serious.

Put Your Deadlines In Writing

We tend to work better when there is a little pressure. The brain tends to function better when there is a challenge such as meeting a deadline. So, having spelt out what you want to accomplish, put time limit within which each task must be accomplished. This will encourage you to use your time judiciously.

Review Each Day’s Activity

Get yourself a diary that you can use to track everything you do. Spend five to ten minutes before retiring in the night to review your activities for the day. Review your accomplishments of the day, and what new things that have come up. Look-up your schedule for the rest of the week or month and make necessary adjustment based on the review you’ve just done. Next make your plan for the next day. When you are done listing all the business and personal activities for the next day, put them in the order of priority by asking yourself questions such as “If I could only do three things tomorrow, what would be the most meaningful task I will do? What task will help me achieve my personal and business goals?

Well, the list is in no way exhaustive, but those seven tips is a good way to start. Please note, those seven tips will mean nothing to you if you don’t consciously force yourself to implement them. Remember, good habits are difficult to form, so don’t give up if you discover you are struggling to implement the tips. Just keep at it, after a while they will become natural and you will even enjoy using them. One thing is sure, if you put them into action, within a short time, you will notice a significant increase in  productivity both in your business and personal life. I know from practical experience that those tips work. You can get updates to this article and more business tips by subscribing to my RSS feed. If you have any contribution to this discussion 7 Tips For Becoming More Productive As An Entrepreneur, drop a comment. Such feedback encourage me to write better. Wishing you greater success in your entrepreneurship adventures. See you at the top.

Tags: Business, Business Tips, Entrepreneur, Entrepreneurship, Goal Setting, Planning, Productivity

This entry was posted on Friday, February 13th, 2009 at 11:41 am and is filed under Entrepreneur, Tips & Tricks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.