4 Ways to Re-Evaluate Your Business (part 2)

Yes­ter­day I started a post of 4 ways to re-evaluate your busi­ness. This is part 2 of that and if you haven’t read part one yet, click here.

Yes­ter­day we went over check­ing both your expenses and your tasks and nar­row­ing them down to what you really need to run your busi­ness and get­ting rid of the rest. Today we are going to look at mak­ing a sched­ule and one other very impor­tant aspect of your busi­ness; check­ing your goals.

Make a Schedule

Run­ning a busi­ness takes a lot of ded­i­ca­tion and hard work. Espe­cially for some­one that is com­ing from a typ­i­cal 9–5 job where they tell you what to do, when and how. You don’t have to think of any of that at a typ­i­cal job. But when your run your own busi­ness you have to run the show as well as do the work.

This is a pretty big adjust­ment for a lot of peo­ple and can cause all kinds of prob­lems with moti­va­tion and pro­cras­ti­na­tion. But there is a sim­ple solu­tion that will help. You’ll still need that ded­i­ca­tion but mak­ing your­self a sched­ule will set things up for you to fol­low and make it much easier

Just like a reg­u­lar job your basi­cally giv­ing your­self a list of things to do and a cer­tain time frame to do it in. You are your own boss. So it may help to give your­self some direc­tion. So set up a sched­ule, just like a typ­i­cal boss would do for you.

The first thing you will want to do is give your­self a time frame to work in. It can be 2 hours or it can be 8, but try to make your “work” time at the same time every day. This will cre­ate a rou­tine which ben­e­fits both you and those around you.

You will men­tally be pre­pared to work within that time frame and it will help in deal­ing with dis­trac­tions. And if you have fam­ily they will also learn that this is the time you work and that you shouldn’t be both­ered. In other words punch in to your own time clock.

Remem­ber all those tasks you have to do? Your going to take those and break it down even more. Set up a sched­ule for your­self within your allot­ted “work” time. Using the idea behind the Pomodora tech­nique your going to chunk up your time between each task. Usu­ally these “chunks” are about 40–50 min­utes and then a break afterward.

Take each task and give them a cer­tain amount of time that rea­son­able for each. Give a lit­tle more time to impor­tant things and set up smaller times for the lit­tle things. You’ll want to sched­ule your breaks as well. Use a timer or just keep and eye on the clock, but the idea here is to do one thing at a time and put your full con­cen­tra­tion on that one thing and then move on to the next right after­ward. Here is a sim­ple example:

9:00 to 9:10 — Check email — :10
9:10 to 9:30 — Check RSS — :20
9:30 to 9:40 — Take a break — :10
9:40 to 10:30 — Write up post — :50
10:30 to 10:45 — Take a break — :15
etc, etc.

The idea here is to set up your work­ing time sched­ule, breaks included. Just make sure to keep it flex­i­ble, it’s going to change at some point or another.

If you already have a work­ing sched­ule that you use, this is the per­fect time to review it and see if there are any changes you need to make. What tasks can you use a lit­tle less time on? What tasks can you use a lit­tle more time on? Shift things around but keep it within allot­ted “work” time. There is only so much time in the day and the only way to make more time is adjust from one task to the other.

Just remem­ber that even though you are mark­ing every hour with work it still has to be flex­i­ble and this is why. It will need adjusted as your busi­ness grows. You may take on new tasks or become faster at oth­ers. In which case now would be a good time to adjust.

This will help you take a look at where your busi­ness is going and how it’s get­ting there. This will give you scope of how well your busi­ness is func­tion­ing and work­ing.

Check­ing Goals

Think of goals as your loca­tion. It’s where you want to be at some point or another. Goals are where you going, your final des­ti­na­tion. Goals cre­ate focus and direc­tion and help drive your busi­ness for­ward. It gives you some­thing to look toward and strive for. You do make goals don’t you?

Now is the per­fect time to go over these goals of yours. And if you don’t have goals now is the time to make them. Write them down on paper and set them up some­where you can see them. It’s impor­tant to write them down.

Take a look at your goals and see what you have accom­plished and if you are any closer to any of them. It doesn’t mat­ter how big or small your goals are, a goal is a goal and they all serve their purpose.

You may have accom­plished a few of your smaller goals since you last went over this. If that’s the case, pat your­self on the back, spoil your­self with some­thing, you accom­plished some­thing and are mov­ing for­ward. Now check out your other goals and see how much closer you are to them.

On the other side, just like every­thing else so far, it’s a good time to clean out some of your goals as well. As your busi­ness grows your goals are bound to change, both large and small. If you have goals that no longer per­tain to your vision, throw them out.

Make some new ones and adjust where needed. Just like before flex­i­bil­ity is impor­tant. You have to be able to change your goals as needed. This is not to say you want to bounce all over the place but if some of your smaller goals no longer per­tain to the big­ger pic­ture then there is no point is keep­ing it right?

Make your­self a new list and hang it up. You’ll want to be able to see your goals. Espe­cially the big­ger, long term goals. Those are what you aim­ing for. Use your smaller goals as step­ping stones to achieve you larger ones.

That’s Not All

These are only 4 ways to re-evaluate your busi­ness and there are more aspects of your busi­ness that you can look at. But I think these are 4 of the big ones. They all directly affect you and your busi­ness and help it to move for­ward. A suc­cess­ful busi­ness take ded­i­ca­tion, per­se­ver­ance, and believe it or not, a lit­tle bit of hard work. But it’s oh so worth it.

~Chris

What other ways can you think of that would be impor­tant when you want re-evaluate your busi­ness? What other things can you go over to keep your busi­ness healthy and mov­ing for­ward?

Sim­i­lar Posts:

• 4 Ways to Re-Evaluate Your Busi­ness (part 1)
• Goals, Do You Use Them? You Should, It’s Essential
• 9 Ways to Free Up Time in Your Day

I’m glad to see you back at The OMV. I hope your enjoy­ing your time. Feel free to con­tact me for any­thing and if you haven’t already, don’t for­get to sub­scribe to The OMV Newslet­ter. Leave a com­ment too! I’d love to hear from you.