There are a few things that I get asked over and over as a woman entrepreneur, and one of those is ... How do you do it all? How do you manage your time? and comments like, You must be really organized.
There is a part of me that finds these questions and comments odd ... and another part of me that thinks, Ha, you really don't know me at all ... and on good days, I pat myself on the back and think that I have this whole time management thing figured out. There are also days I look at the pitiful number of things that have been crossed off my to do list and wonder what on earth has happened to those hours. As I write this post, I also remember, we are all given the same number of hours in each day, sometimes we have a choice on how to use those hours, and on other days it seems like no matter how hard we try, the deck is stacked against us.
We now live in a world of Amazon ... where you can click, click, buy and have things delivered to your door in two days, sometimes even the same day! Our lives are over scheduled, and technology puts us in the mindset of more more more, now now now, faster faster faster. However, we are still humans, and our lives generally involve other humans ... and we are not being upgraded as fast as our computers.
Perhaps, this is one reason that I enjoy gardening as a hobby. I am often amazed and humbled that my grandparents grew almost all their own food, enough food to raise 6 children, and other crops to sell to buy other essentials. I look at my 8 tomato plants and see the bounty of tomatoes on them but realize that those will be gone in a few short weeks ... then I will be faced with cooler nights and tomatoes that will never fully ripen without a lot of coddling from myself. I see how fast the weeds grow and suck up the water and nutrients from my food producing plants ... and that my knees and back will only allow me so much time to combat those weeds. I don't expect myself to grow enough food to feed my family ... nor does my family expect me to grow food for them. I'm realistic about the amount of time I have to spend in the garden.
Even with all the technology in the world, the garden needs patience and tending. I haven't found the magic wand or fertilizer that takes the tomato from small plant to nice red fruit overnight. I've also found that a neglected garden sometimes produces but most often fills up with weeds faster than you could ever imagine. I also pick and choose the plants that I tend to, depending on what season they are in ... and I never expect the zinnias to produce tomatoes, or the tomatoes to produce zinnias.
The tomato plants remind me that business is so much like a garden. My 8 tomato plants don't
require 8 hours of attention from me every day to produce ... but they do take some attention each day, or every other day, to stay watered, keep weeds at bay, pulling suckers, paying attention to leaves for potential disease, and harvesting to keep them producing. Business is much like this, each business, no matter how big or small, requires a dedicated amount of time to flourish and produce ... And much like growing tomatoes, if you don't know what you are doing, then you might lose your whole crop in a season before you figure some things out ... and if you neglect it entirely then you can't expect to harvest any tomatoes, although there are a lucky few gardeners that have laid a good enough foundation that they can harvest a small crop. I have also found, that even the most experienced gardeners, are sometimes faced with situations that cause them to have a completely failed crop ... for years, no matter how hard they try.
So, as I start out this time management series, the most important thing to ask yourself is ... have you made the time to tend to your business? If you haven't, why? How much time do you have to devote to working on your business? Are you committed enough to your business to make it a priority on your time management list? Do you know what to work on for your business, and when?
There is a part of me that finds these questions and comments odd ... and another part of me that thinks, Ha, you really don't know me at all ... and on good days, I pat myself on the back and think that I have this whole time management thing figured out. There are also days I look at the pitiful number of things that have been crossed off my to do list and wonder what on earth has happened to those hours. As I write this post, I also remember, we are all given the same number of hours in each day, sometimes we have a choice on how to use those hours, and on other days it seems like no matter how hard we try, the deck is stacked against us.
We now live in a world of Amazon ... where you can click, click, buy and have things delivered to your door in two days, sometimes even the same day! Our lives are over scheduled, and technology puts us in the mindset of more more more, now now now, faster faster faster. However, we are still humans, and our lives generally involve other humans ... and we are not being upgraded as fast as our computers.
Perhaps, this is one reason that I enjoy gardening as a hobby. I am often amazed and humbled that my grandparents grew almost all their own food, enough food to raise 6 children, and other crops to sell to buy other essentials. I look at my 8 tomato plants and see the bounty of tomatoes on them but realize that those will be gone in a few short weeks ... then I will be faced with cooler nights and tomatoes that will never fully ripen without a lot of coddling from myself. I see how fast the weeds grow and suck up the water and nutrients from my food producing plants ... and that my knees and back will only allow me so much time to combat those weeds. I don't expect myself to grow enough food to feed my family ... nor does my family expect me to grow food for them. I'm realistic about the amount of time I have to spend in the garden.
Even with all the technology in the world, the garden needs patience and tending. I haven't found the magic wand or fertilizer that takes the tomato from small plant to nice red fruit overnight. I've also found that a neglected garden sometimes produces but most often fills up with weeds faster than you could ever imagine. I also pick and choose the plants that I tend to, depending on what season they are in ... and I never expect the zinnias to produce tomatoes, or the tomatoes to produce zinnias.
The tomato plants remind me that business is so much like a garden. My 8 tomato plants don't require 8 hours of attention from me every day to produce ... but they do take some attention each day, or every other day, to stay watered, keep weeds at bay, pulling suckers, paying attention to leaves for potential disease, and harvesting to keep them producing. Business is much like this, each business, no matter how big or small, requires a dedicated amount of time to flourish and produce ... And much like growing tomatoes, if you don't know what you are doing, then you might lose your whole crop in a season before you figure some things out ... and if you neglect it entirely then you can't expect to harvest any tomatoes, although there are a lucky few gardeners that have laid a good enough foundation that they can harvest a small crop. I have also found, that even the most experienced gardeners, are sometimes faced with situations that cause them to have a completely failed crop ... for years, no matter how hard they try.
So, as I start out this time management series, the most important thing to ask yourself is ... have you made the time to tend to your business? If you haven't, why? How much time do you have to devote to working on your business? Are you committed enough to your business to make it a priority on your time management list? Do you know what to work on for your business, and when?
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