How to start a part-time business- Week 2 - Approaching the launch

by Startacus Admin

Planning your time management

There is no way around it… running your own business (even a part-time one) is going to be very time consuming. In fact, the difficulties which arise in this respect are sometimes even more acute with a part-time business because they are often undertaken alongside an existing career. However this doesn't mean that you must spend every waking minute of your life working - what it does mean is that you have to be very savvy with your time.

Create a list of your job duties and how long each is likely to take - You might say to yourself “I don't need to do that, i know what I have to do!” and whilst this may be true, quantifying your duties in this way will help you to identify the value of your time in relation to what needs to be done. This will hopefully help you to work more effectively and prevent a good deal of time-wasting.

Draw up a timetable - Use the information which you have amassed about your duties and the time they will take to create a comprehensive timetable. This is of vital importance for anyone running a business, but especially so if you also employed elsewhere. The benefits of this are self-explanatory, but the most important thing to bear in mind when putting together a timetable is to keep it realistic. It’s very easy to overestimate your capabilities, but this can put you under tremendous pressure to complete a workload which simply isn't achievable… increasing your stress levels and making the whole experience wholly unpleasant. Be strict with yourself but remember that one of the great perks of being self employed is the luxury of flexibility, so dont forget to use it from time to time!

Dont Stress about the Past… or the future - OK, so having a healthy concern about the future is page one of the self-starter hand-book, but stressing about the volume of work which you have to do tomorrow will not help you to achieve your goals for today. Likewise dont lament time you feel that was wasted yesterday - that is simply wasting even more of your time. Accept that there may be occasions when your working week does not go as planned, this is to be expected and does not mean that you are failing your business.

Hopefully this will get you thinking about the kinds of things that you need to be thinking about in the run up to your business launch! Keep an eye out next week because we will have the next part in our series of 'How to start a part-time business".

Join Startacus - the Self Start Society!

Subscribe to our newsletter

If you would like to receive our startup themed newsletter, full of the latest startup opportunities, events, news, stories, tips and advice, then sign up here.

• #part-time
• #
• #planning
• #launch
• #finance
• #time management
• #timetable

Published on: 12th February 2014