Everybody gets the same amount of time: 168 hours in a given week; 8,736 in a year. And yet a common complaint among entrepreneurs and small-business owners is that they wish they had more time

By PAUL B. BROWN

Published: April 1, 2008

While a 25-hour day is impossible, there are ways to become more productive within the existing 24.

Donald Wetmore, who conducts time management seminars, offers a number of ideas — some obvious, others not — on Powerhomebiz.com, a small-business Web site.

Here are some of his suggestions:

¶Plan tomorrow today. If you do not wait until you get into the office to plan your day, you will be that much further ahead. Accept the idea you may not get everything done. The solution is to prioritize. In creating your “to do” list the night before, “put the No. 1 next to the most important item on your list. Place the No. 2 next to the second most important item on your list, etc. Then tackle the items on your list in order of their importance. It sounds simple, he says, but most people don’t do it, deciding to complete tasks that are easier to do, but not necessarily the most important.

¶Do not try to keep it in your head. “A faint pen has more power than the keenest mind. Get into the habit of writing things to do down using one tool (a Day-Timer, pad of paper, Palm Pilot, etc.) Your mind is best used for the big picture rather than all the details.”

¶Sleep. “You can have a great to do list for your next day but if you are tired, your productivity will be adversely impacted. Schedule a sufficient amount of sleep.”

¶Take a speed reading class.

¶Break for lunch. “After doing what we do for several hours, we start to ‘dull out.’ Sure, we can work through lunch and be productive, but that is not the issue. The issue is ‘how much more’ productive we can be. A lunch break, even a short 15-minute break, gives us a chance to get our batteries all charged up again to more effectively handle the afternoon’s challenges.”

MAYBE YOU NEED LESS TIME Before he became known for writing the best seller “The Four-Hour Workweek” (Crown, 2007), Timothy Ferriss was known, if he was known at all, for running a business, BrainQuicken a developer and distributor of sports-nutrition products based in San Jose, Calif.

He was working 15-hour days and was exhausted.

He says, in an article in Fortune Small Business, that one of the best things that ever happened to him was discovering the work of the economist Vilfredo Pareto who argued, among other things, that 20 percent of the population owned 80 percent of the property in his country. Others subsequently found that the principle could be applied to a range of issues like company profits, where it is often the case that 80 percent of the profits come from 20 percent of the company’s customers.

Mr. Ferriss came to realize that only 5 of his 120 customers were generating 95 percent of his revenue, and he reorganized his business to focus on them.

This raises the question to other entrepreneurs: Where are the bulk of your revenues coming from? Are you sure?

NO EXCUSE When asked to explain their inability to manage their time, a common reason people cite is “information overload.” There is just too much data they have to keep up with.

David Allen, the author of the book “Getting Things Done” (Penguin, 2002), has an answer to that.

Writing in the recently restarted Success magazine, he says: “Too much information is not the problem. If it were, we’d walk into a library and faint. We would run from the computer having gone just a few clicks into the results of a search, since each hyperlink leads to a seemingly infinite number of other Web pages. Information overload indicates we’re not managing our commitments effectively.”

WHY WE WAIT “There are many ways to avoid success in life, but the most sure-fire just might be procrastination,” Psychology Today writes.

“Procrastinators sabotage themselves. They put obstacles in their own path. They actually choose paths that hurt their performance.” The problem seems to be self-created.

“Procrastinators are made, not born. Procrastination is learned in the family milieu, but not directly. It is one response to an authoritarian parenting style. Having a harsh, controlling father keeps children from developing the ability to regulate themselves, from internalizing their own intentions and then learning to act on them. Procrastination can even be a form of rebellion, one of the few forms available under such circumstances.”

Oh, by the way, the magazine says the standard comment of procrastinators, “I do my best work under pressure,” turns out not to be true.

Procrastinators “do not turn out to be more creative; they only feel that way.”

LAST CALL Pace Productivity, a company that provides time management services, understands that people do not want to waste time at home either. Of all the tips they offer, here’s our favorite.

“Would you like to avoid telemarketing calls while you’re having dinner? Simple. Don’t answer the phone at dinner time. If it’s someone important, they’ll leave a message or call back.”

Everybody gets the same amount of time: 168 hours in a given week; 8,736 in a year. And yet a common complaint among entrepreneurs and small-business owners is that they wish they had more time

By PAUL B. BROWN

Published: April 1, 2008

While a 25-hour day is impossible, there are ways to become more productive within the existing 24.

Donald Wetmore, who conducts time management seminars, offers a number of ideas — some obvious, others not — on Powerhomebiz.com, a small-business Web site.

Here are some of his suggestions:

¶Plan tomorrow today. If you do not wait until you get into the office to plan your day, you will be that much further ahead. Accept the idea you may not get everything done. The solution is to prioritize. In creating your “to do” list the night before, “put the No. 1 next to the most important item on your list. Place the No. 2 next to the second most important item on your list, etc. Then tackle the items on your list in order of their importance. It sounds simple, he says, but most people don’t do it, deciding to complete tasks that are easier to do, but not necessarily the most important.

¶Do not try to keep it in your head. “A faint pen has more power than the keenest mind. Get into the habit of writing things to do down using one tool (a Day-Timer, pad of paper, Palm Pilot, etc.) Your mind is best used for the big picture rather than all the details.”

¶Sleep. “You can have a great to do list for your next day but if you are tired, your productivity will be adversely impacted. Schedule a sufficient amount of sleep.”

¶Take a speed reading class.

¶Break for lunch. “After doing what we do for several hours, we start to ‘dull out.’ Sure, we can work through lunch and be productive, but that is not the issue. The issue is ‘how much more’ productive we can be. A lunch break, even a short 15-minute break, gives us a chance to get our batteries all charged up again to more effectively handle the afternoon’s challenges.”

MAYBE YOU NEED LESS TIME Before he became known for writing the best seller “The Four-Hour Workweek” (Crown, 2007), Timothy Ferriss was known, if he was known at all, for running a business, BrainQuicken a developer and distributor of sports-nutrition products based in San Jose, Calif.

He was working 15-hour days and was exhausted.

He says, in an article in Fortune Small Business, that one of the best things that ever happened to him was discovering the work of the economist Vilfredo Pareto who argued, among other things, that 20 percent of the population owned 80 percent of the property in his country. Others subsequently found that the principle could be applied to a range of issues like company profits, where it is often the case that 80 percent of the profits come from 20 percent of the company’s customers.

Mr. Ferriss came to realize that only 5 of his 120 customers were generating 95 percent of his revenue, and he reorganized his business to focus on them.

This raises the question to other entrepreneurs: Where are the bulk of your revenues coming from? Are you sure?

NO EXCUSE When asked to explain their inability to manage their time, a common reason people cite is “information overload.” There is just too much data they have to keep up with.

David Allen, the author of the book “Getting Things Done” (Penguin, 2002), has an answer to that.

Writing in the recently restarted Success magazine, he says: “Too much information is not the problem. If it were, we’d walk into a library and faint. We would run from the computer having gone just a few clicks into the results of a search, since each hyperlink leads to a seemingly infinite number of other Web pages. Information overload indicates we’re not managing our commitments effectively.”

WHY WE WAIT “There are many ways to avoid success in life, but the most sure-fire just might be procrastination,” Psychology Today writes.

“Procrastinators sabotage themselves. They put obstacles in their own path. They actually choose paths that hurt their performance.” The problem seems to be self-created.

“Procrastinators are made, not born. Procrastination is learned in the family milieu, but not directly. It is one response to an authoritarian parenting style. Having a harsh, controlling father keeps children from developing the ability to regulate themselves, from internalizing their own intentions and then learning to act on them. Procrastination can even be a form of rebellion, one of the few forms available under such circumstances.”

Oh, by the way, the magazine says the standard comment of procrastinators, “I do my best work under pressure,” turns out not to be true.

Procrastinators “do not turn out to be more creative; they only feel that way.”

LAST CALL Pace Productivity, a company that provides time management services, understands that people do not want to waste time at home either. Of all the tips they offer, here’s our favorite.

“Would you like to avoid telemarketing calls while you’re having dinner? Simple. Don’t answer the phone at dinner time. If it’s someone important, they’ll leave a message or call back.”