Photo (CC) by Richard Stephenson, on Flickr

Of all the reasons why small-business owners start businesses, two are noted most often. They are a desire to be in control and having more time for family.

Yet once in business, many owners indicate that neither goal has been achieved.

By its nature, control should allow for deciding how much you want to work. Yet realistically, the question of when and how much you work is more often customer driven along with the ability of the business to support hiring additional staff and managers. The bottom line for small-business owners is they struggle to find a balance between work and life.

When small, the owner has few resources to hire additional help to cover some of the required tasks. Days are seen as a treadmill consuming all available time. Opening the doors, ordering stock, working with customers, marketing to potential customers, making sales, handling customer service and looking forward can’t wait.

As such, small-business owners get frustrated with the lack of control and not being able to have a “life.” And home-based business owners feel it even more.

The owner does not need to feel this way, however. With prioritizing and planning, it is possible to run a successful business and to realize the personal goals such as control and family time.

Start with schedules, and then follow what you planned out. Adjustments will be needed, but a simple schedule makes you aware of your priorities and subtly forces you to work on the most important items first.

Another opportunity for small-business owner is to mix family and business. That may mean having family members help in the business, with the trade-off that you spend more time at home. Also understand that the business flow goes up and down, as do family demands. Understand the cycles and plan accordingly.

However, mixing family and business for home-based business owners can be troublesome. Being at home often sends the message to the family that you are available. You need to set boundaries. Even very young children can learn that a closed door means you are at work. Also, set times, such as the morning, when you focus on work.

Organization of your business and work space also lends itself to achieving the work/life balance you want. As with prioritizing, you want to spend your time on those tasks, whether work or family, that provide you with the most value.

For example, having the tools to do a job in one space and doing related tasks all at one time is helpful. Cluster meetings together, do office work at one time and even set aside certain times for handling the influx of communication you receive each day. And cut down on unnecessary communication. Be selective in what you read and handle. The old standard, “Only handle a piece of paper once,” remains true whether it is paper or an email. You can read informational items in those spare moments that come along.

Work/life balance is possible. It takes effort but many owners will tell you it can be done.

Photo (CC) I Believe, on Flickr

“There never is enough time.”

You probably would agree with me that we hear this phrase repeated over and over by people everywhere.

Because time is a limited resource and we feel we never have enough, we’ve been bombarded with hundreds, if not thousands, of suggestions on how to make the most of the time we have.

One such suggestion is the “to-do list.”

This list comes in many forms and fashions. Today, many list variations are available in a technology-based format. Yet all are driven by two needs: the need to feel in control and the need to get more done from that scarce resource, time.

Although we have no clear history for when the to-do list began, several articles note that Benjamin Franklin was an early user of the list.

To-do lists have a proven track record of working. And yet, many of us do not see the benefits. We have several reasons for that, reasons that, if we are aware of them, may help us get more from this tool.

Common reasons for noneffective list making come from:

• Making the list, and not the items on the list, the priority
• Listing too many things – Good lists help motivate us to focus on the priority tasks. They are not intended to schedule every minute of the day.
• Making too many lists – Some assume that if one list is good, then two are better. That may be a good idea, but all that happens is we become more frustrated, as well as double-book ourselves.
• Spending too much time on the list so that it consumes us and becomes the priority
• Not prioritizing what’s on our list
• Doing the low-priority items just so we can cross things off as done
• Making and then ignoring the list
• Feeling guilty when we don’t get our list done

How many of these reasons can you claim? I can put a check beside each one.

And the advent of technology tools, by itself, doesn’t solve these issues. Technology actually just allows us to make more and longer lists.

So effective time management through to-do lists requires your awareness of reasons why they don’t work for you, changing those behaviors and then checking yourself to ensure you are not falling back into old habits.

As a small-business owner, you have lots to do. Effective time management through the old to-do list can be a great friend. Find a way that works for you.

I leave you with a time management quote from the late Beryl Pfizer, a writer and radio and TV producer. You probably can relate to it: “I write down everything I want to remember. That way, instead of spending a lot of time trying to remember what it is I wrote down, I spend the time looking for the paper I wrote it down on.”