8 Tips for Effective Time Management

Time is precious, particularly when it comes to running a small business. Yet there are never more than 24 hours in a day. Some entrepreneurs respond to this fact of life with focus and purpose. Others freak out.

Are you in the latter group? You don’t have to be. With the right approach, you can work efficiently, productively, and relatively stress-free.

Here are seven tips for effectively managing your time:

1. Know your goals.

Make sure you’re engaging in activities that support your business goals, both short- and long-term. Everything else is a potential time-waster. Your daily plan should revolve around working on tasks and activities that directly relate to generating income and growing your business.

2. Prioritize wisely.

Stephen Covey, co-author of First Things First, offers an organizational tool for your to-do list based on how important and urgent tasks are.

Looking at what goes into making up your day, where do your activities fit into these categories?

• Important and urgent — Tasks that must be done. Do them right away.


• Important but not urgent — Tasks that appear important, but upon closer examination aren’t. Decide when to do them.


• Urgent but not important — Tasks that make the most “noise,” but when accomplished, have little or no lasting value. Delegate these if possible.


• Not urgent and not important — Low-priority stuff that offer the illusion of “being busy.” Do them later.

Write down your three or four “important and urgent” tasks that must be addressed today. As you complete each one, check it off your list. This will provide you with a sense of accomplishment and can motivate you to tackle less essential items.

3. Just say no.

You’re the boss. If you have to decline a request in order to attend to what’s truly important and urgent, do not hesitate to do so. The same goes for any projects or activities that you’ve determined are headed nowhere: Be prepared to move on to more productive tasks. Learn from the experience to avoid wasting time later on.

4. Plan ahead.

One of the worst things you can do is jump into the workday with no clear idea about what needs to get done. The time you spend thinking ahead and planning your activities is trivial compared with the time you’ll lose jumping from one thing to the next (and rarely completing anything). Depending on your personality, try one of these options:

• The night before — At the end of the day, take 15 minutes to clear your desk and put together a list of the next day’s most pressing tasks. It’s a great decompression technique, and you’ll feel better sitting down at a clean desk in the morning.


• First thing in the morning — Arrive a few minutes early and assemble your prioritized to-do list (see #2). This may prove to be the most productive part of your day.

5. Eliminate distractions.

Start paying attention to the number of times someone interrupts you when you’re in the midst of an important task. Track self-induced interruptions, too, particularly those of the social media variety. Your smartphone is extremely useful, but it’s also addictive and among the most insidious time-wasters known to mankind.

It may take a massive exercise in will power, but shut the door and turn off your phone to maximize your time. Instead of being “always on,” plan a break in the day to catch up on email, call people back, talk with staff, etc.

6. Delegate more often.

If you’ve done a good job of hiring talented, dedicated employees, there’s always more work they can take off your desk. Running a successful small business depends upon the owner’s ability to think about what lies ahead and not get mired in day-to-day operations. Look for opportunities to pass responsibility for specific tasks to others on your team.

7. Watch what you spend

How many productive minutes are you packing in each week? Use this simple timesheet tracker by TSheets to quickly and easily clock in and out of various tasks or projects throughout the day. Switch jobs or tasks with just one click using the TSheets mobile app, or track time directly from your desktop. Then generate robust, real-time reports to see exactly where you’re spending your most valuable asset — and where it’s being wasted.

8. Take care of yourself.

Be sure to get plenty of sleep and exercise. An alert mind is a high-functioning mind and one that’s less tolerant of time-wasting activities.

Time management tips - how to do more in less time?

Importance of Time Management Tips

A tiresome topic - this time management tips. One of the most heard sentences in the exam time is "I have no time, I have to learn". This "having no time" is something very common. But why are there people who somehow always do better and make things better? The answer is to put time management in combination with priorities. But how is it possible to do more in less time? Here are 7 time management tips to help you make better use of your time and get more done.

Daily Planning

This is one of trivial time management tips, but still the most important of them all. If you want to be successful, you have to plan your day. Nobody can pass it. The most successful personalities, such as Apple founder Steve Jobs, have always done so.

There is no trick on how you can save time or how the clock runs slower. The only thing you can do is not live the day. In the best case, you should always sit down the evening before and plan the next day as detailed as possible. What are your appointments, when do you have lunch and dinner, how much cooking time do you have to plan, do you have to go shopping, when do you go shopping - all these questions should be answered in the evening.

How you do it is up to you. You can do it by hand, or on the computer. Helpful are also special software, such as Trello.

Important Tricks

Now a few important tricks that you should keep in mind when planning your day:

Pay attention to your priorities. Important and urgent activities should take up most of the time and be processed first. How to plan your priorities you will find in Tip # 4.

• Schedule buffering times. Best in the morning and afternoon 45 minutes. In this way, an unannounced phone call, an extensive homework assignment, or a squeezed presentation preparation will not mess up your entire daily schedule.


• Tarpaulin in blocks. Block times for specific tasks and include them in your daily schedule. For example Lecture "Accounting" 2:00 pm - 3:30 pm and then 3:45 pm - 4:30 pm follow-up of the lecture.


• Also, plan recreational activities such as sports and friends.


• Take enough free time during the day. Be it for half an hour in the morning and one hour in the evening. You should use this time to avoid stress. For a relaxed breakfast in the morning or a series in the evening.

2. Audit/learning plan

In addition to the daily planning, a learning plan is very important for the next 4-8 weeks. Especially if the tests are due in the coming weeks. This learning plan should include a daily overview of the coming weeks to the last exam. First and foremost, you enter your exam dates into this plan.

Subsequently, all other appointments that are due during this period will be entered. This can be, for example, a dental appointment or Grandma's birthday. Now you think about how much time you have to plan for each exam. Think again of sufficient buffer time. At least one day buffer time you should plan. If you start early enough (and you should!), Plan your study time so that you are through with the material about 3 days before the exam. So you could write each exam 3 days before the event. In this way, you will outsmart your brain and then have enough time, if something intervenes or in the best case of deepening.

Like the daily schedule, the learning plan should be recorded either in writing or digitally. Place this in a place where you always see it. This could be over your desk, for example.

You should always carry another version with you either on the smartphone (App: Trello) or on paper. Of course, you can also transfer the data to your pocket calendar. As soon as an appointment comes up or shifts occur, you can note this on the go. In this way, nothing is lost or even forgotten.

3. Eliminate sources of interference

The people who have the least time are usually the people with the largest, unidentified sources of interference. Be it the little brother or the smartphone. If you want to be productive and learn, eliminate those sources of interference. Find a quiet place to study. Most people are unaware of what their sources of interference are. Therefore, it is important to have defined these in advance. What are your sources of interference?

Once you have analyzed and identified these, you can also make sure that they do not occur anymore. In addition, you should actively plan your time planning with your family or for Instagram. In this way, you plan your sources of interference, which incidentally happen actively in your day at a certain time. But this also means that the sources of interference must be limited in time.

4. Set priorities

A tip that you should do first. Think about what matters in the coming time your priority. You can, for example, write down these and assign priorities from A to C. If learning or upcoming exams are on your Priority List A, you should consider this in your scheduling and plan most of the time for learning accordingly. Priorities can change over and over again, so it is very important to question your own priorities on a regular basis.

Eisenhower Matrix

The difficulty lies in the allocation of priorities. To simplify this, Eisenhower matrix can help. This basically contains a 4-field matrix.

1. Do: important and urgent


2. Plan: important and not urgent


3. Delegate: not important and urgent


4. Eliminate: not important and not urgent

Using this matrix, each task can be questioned as to whether the completion is important and/or urgent. If it is important and important, the task should be checked first and in a timely manner. Urgent tasks should be done immediately while the important tasks can wait.

The following YouTube video explains the principle in a comprehensive and practical way: How to Prioritize Tasks efficiently and effectively.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czh4rmk75jc[/embed]

5. Bundle of similar tasks

Another important trick to save time and to make the most of your energy. In Tip # 1 we already talked about planning in blocks. This you can combine well with this tip. For example, you should bundle medical appointments and do one afternoon in a 3-hour block. It's similar to phone calls you have to make. In this way, the brain can concentrate optimally on the respective task and you do not consume unnecessary energy.

Usually, the task does not take most of the time, but the preparation and follow-up. Bundling tasks into a block increase in working time, but the time for preparation and follow-up remains the same.

6. Biorhythm

Our biorhythm determines our entire life, our behavior, our productivity, and our success. Therefore, it is very important that you know exactly how your rhythm is going. To find out, write down for a week each day how you feel in the morning, noon, afternoon, and evening. How fit, balanced, motivated and productive are you at certain times of the day?

Most people are most productive in the mornings. Lunch and dinner is the most unproductive time. If you recognize yourself here, get up early!

Of course, it is important to get a good and adequate sleep, but you can get up at 6 in the morning. In this way, you have time in the morning and can be productive before the first lesson or lecture.

7. Eat the frog

A principle that you should consider in your daily planning. Always do the hardest or most important task first. In this way, on the one hand, you have the first sense of achievement as soon as this task is completed. And secondly, your brain subconsciously continues working on this task throughout the day. Brian Tracy wrote the book " Eat the frog " years ago. In this, he shows 21 ways to create more in less time. Eat the frog is one of the strategies and also the title of the book.

For example, if you give an important presentation the next day, preparing for this lecture should not only be a priority in today's daily planning but also be the first to be done. The reason for this is the application of importance and urgency.

Now it is up to you to implement all the mentioned time management tips. With the implementation, you will notice how much more productive your work. In this way, you will create more in less time. There is no secret recipe to establish good time management. You have to implement it.

Good luck with your own time management! Don't forget to review this article: 7 time management tips before you leave. Thanks.

If you like the above given 7 time management tips, please do like, comment and share.

Expenditure

Contents:

• When do expenses arise?


• Effort and operational service provision


• Expenses - Definition & Explanation – Summary

Expenditures are all expenses incurred on use of goods and services. The expenses are always periodized.

Expenses arise in a company through the "value-based consumption of goods and services". So, when a company removes materials from the warehouse and delivers them to production, it's an expense. Expenses influence the company's success.

Examples of expenses

1. Wages/salaries


2. Control


3. Energy / Water (consumption)

When do expenses arise?

In accounting, the expenses are practically a superordinate term, which always refers to the total assets of a company. Accordingly, this is understood to mean the assessed consumption of goods, whereby a specific billing period is used for this purpose. Expenses include all reductions in operating net assets that did not result from a payment of capital to the owners of the company.

It should be noted that expenses are always prioritized. For example, a company today can buy a machine for 1 million euros, which will then be used for 10 years. Accordingly, an issue of 1 million euros has arisen, but no expenses of 1 million euros. For the acquisition costs are distributed over the useful life and depreciated accordingly. Each individual depreciation then represents an expense.

Effort and operational service provision

Every company has a specific business purpose. For example, a furniture manufacturer produces furniture and a baker sells sandwiches. However, there may also be expenses that do not arise directly from business operations (neutral expenses). For example, a company may make donations to charitable associations, which is considered an expense but would not be included in the income statement.

Even extraordinary expenses, which arise only once and unforeseen, are not to be recorded as costs. For example, it may be uninsured disaster damage or theft. In the context of cost and activity accounting, the recorded expenses must, therefore, be analyzed and characterized accordingly as neutral or operational. Only then it is ultimately possible to determine an exact operating result.

Expenses - Definition & Explanation - Summary

Expenses are reductions in the net worth of a company

They can arise from both external and operational incidents

By contrast, costs always arise due to the business purpose itself

Expenses - Costs

Contents:

• What are expenses?


• What are costs?


• Difference expenses and costs examples


• Difference Expenses - Costs - Definition & Explanation – Summary

Expenses are all activities that reduce a company's equity in a given accounting period. It does not matter whether these expenses were incurred for non-operational and operational purposes.

Costs are all expenses incurred during the operational performance process. Expenses of wages and salaries are, for example, also costs. (Logical that the employees who work in a company are integrated into the company performance process).

What are expenses?

Expenditure is always to be considered when the expenses of a company are periodized. Expenses are incurred (usually) within the scope of the company's service provision and are compared to the income.

Examples:

• A company pays its employees 150,000 euros in salary in January.


• For materials that are consumed directly in production, supplier bills 250,000 euros.


• Repairing a machine costs the company 1,000 euros.

However, a distinction must be made between operating and non-operating expenses. The former is always incurred when the expenses are related to the company's main business activities. For example, a furniture manufacturer could buy wood which is then used to produce chairs. On the other hand, non-operating expenses are incurred if the business transactions have nothing to do with the actual core business. For example, the company could rent apartments above office buildings and install a new heating system here.

What are costs?

Usually, the costs are derived directly from the expenses. Basically, it is the valued consumption of economic goods, which in turn serve the creation of other goods or services. Based on the expenses, the costs are calculated as follows:

Expenditure

- Neutral expenses

+ Additional costs (e.g. imputed company wage, imputed interest or similar)

+/- Conversion of imputed expenses into other costs (a form of imputed costs)

Thus, the costs related to the actual core business of a company, the aforementioned expenses such as rented apartments would not be included. The reason: In practice, the operational business of companies is crucial to their continued existence.

Difference expenses and costs examples

Example 1: A furniture producer decides to donate 100,000 euros to a charitable organization. This is undoubtedly an effort that cannot be recorded as a cost, however. Although the effort is related to the period, albeit external. After all, the donation is not directly related to the actual service provision of the furniture manufacturer.

Example 2: In the first quarter, a furniture producer buys raw materials worth 1 million euros. These raw materials are needed to subsequently produce chairs and cabinets. Because this effort is related to the period, not extraordinary and related to operational purposes, it also involves costs.

Example 3: In the factory of the furniture producer, a fire breaks out, causing a great deal of damage. There is a need to buy new production facilities worth 10 million euros, of which only 9 million euros are covered by insurance. Although the expenses are directly related to the provision of services, they are not costs. Because this effort is to be described as extraordinary and not on a per-period basis.

Summary

1. Expenses are incurred as part of the provision of services for goods or services


2. This is also the case with costs, but they are always period-related, operationally-related and not extraordinary

How does money work?

As a means of payment, money is nowadays indispensable. After all, who still operates today's traditional barter trade as one knows it from earlier times? It is simply more convenient to trade in a form of payment that everyone can use and that everyone accepts as a mode of payment.

What is money?

Money has become so integrated into the daily lives of people that hardly anyone could make a concrete definition about money. Basically, money is all liquid assets available to the state, businesses, and individuals. These include all three types of money, such as coins, banknotes and book money. A bank is a financial institution, which can be used for money transfer from one place to another.

What can you do with the money?

Actually, a rather superfluous question on which you usually get the answer "everything". It should be noted in this regard, however, that you cannot buy everything in life for a long time with the mere money. Affection, real friendships, and love, for example, you cannot buy using easy money in the world.

Difference between Efficiency and Effectiveness - An Easy Approach

Contents: Efficiency and Effectiveness

• 1. Definition of effectiveness


• 2. Definition of efficiency


• 3. Effectiveness and efficiency in everyday life (examples)


• 4. Summary

The difference between efficiency and effectiveness is not that easy to understand. We will try to light up the difference.

1. Definition of Effectiveness

Effectiveness is the measure of the achievement of goals. Which means the ratio of the desired goals to be achieved. The underlying effort does not matter.

Or:

Effectiveness is the completeness and accuracy with which a particular goal is achieved.

"Doing the right things"

This raises the question of whether the public or the customer benefits and whether "the right things are done".

The effectiveness has a greater political significance than economic efficiency. Efficiently doing wrong things does not lead to the goal, but is usually a waste of money.

2. Definition of Efficiency

Efficiency represents the ratio of input to output as well as performance to cost. Efficiency thus corresponds in many cases to cost-effectiveness.

Or:

Efficiency is the effort involved in achieving a specific goal in proportion to completeness and accuracy.

"Doing things right"

This raises the question of whether "things are done right" (effectiveness: "doing the right things").

Efficiency is without question very important. But if the wrong things are done efficiently, it's a waste. Hence, the effectiveness has a higher priority. Strategy goes before efficiency.

3. Effectiveness and efficiency in everyday life (examples)

Rico wants to clean his bike on a warm summer's day. However, if he just lazes and basks all day, he is not effective in the sense of the actual goal (to clean the bike). Hence, he (in terms of goal achievement) makes the wrong thing.

If he only cleans the bike with water and a rag, he is quite effective (since he is working to reach his goal), but not efficient. He would be efficient and effective if he does the right thing with the right means (suitable cleaning agent, brush, etc.) (Cleaning the bike).

4. Summary

Effectiveness is a measure of output - doing the right things. One possible sub-goal of effectiveness is efficiency. This represents a relation between "input" and "output". It also serves as a benchmark for resource economy - doing things right. Thus, efficiency is not a sufficient or necessary condition for effectiveness.

The difference between effectiveness and efficiency is not always immediately obvious. "Doing the right thing" answers the question of WHAT - What needs to be done to reach the goal? The right thing to do then, answers the question of HOW - How can it be implemented? Aligning one's own actions in everyday life in terms of effectiveness and efficiency guarantees a lasting success - private, professional and entrepreneurial.

Deadweight Loss

Deadweight loss is the fall in total surplus that results from a market distortion, such as a tax. In economics, a deadweight loss (also known as an excess burden or allocative inefficiency) is a loss of economic efficiency that can occur when equilibrium for a good or service is not achieved or is not achievable.

Under limited circumstances, it can be assumed that monopolies are the cause of welfare losses. The welfare loss, in this case, is based on the assumption that the monopolies cause one or more inefficiencies. Basically, the reduction of the consumer's pension is seen as a welfare loss. Marshall defines it that way, on condition that the optimality conditions of the comprehensive competition are disturbed.

Monopolies can have positive effects and are not always the cause of a welfare loss. A technical advance or a short-term maximization of profit may have beneficial effects, but will not be considered in this analysis.

A loss of welfare occurs when the number of goods produced deviates from the optimal amount. The balance in the competitive market would be disturbed. In theory, welfare losses can be calculated. Taxes, duties, and prices, as well as monopoly formations, are included in the calculation. A consideration of the welfare loss is never complete. Future effects cannot be included in the calculation because the market and the behavior of the consumers are subject to a certain dynamic.

Calculate welfare loss

Welfare loss, also called deadweight loss , can be calculated using the following formulas:

Function of market demand: D (p) = 200 - 2p
Function of the market offer: S (p) = 50 + p

First, this function can be compared and calculated in lockstep:

200 - 2p = 50 + p = 150 = 3p
p = 50; x = 100

Finally, the quantity tax is included in the calculation. Here we assume a tax rate of 7.5 percent:

200 - 2 (p + 7.5) = 50 + p = 200 - 2p - 15 = 50 + p
135 = 3p

Including the quantity tax, p = 45 and x = 95. The welfare loss can be calculated as follows:

W = 0.5 * taxes * (x without quantity tax - x with quantity tax)
W = 0.5 * 7.5 * (100-95) W = 18.75