10 More Ways to Manage Your Time

Here are 10 more ways to manage your time.

1. Automate or systematize your life and your business as much as you can.
2. Check email 3 times a day - or at certain specific times that you've sheduled.
3. Back up your files - every week at a minimum.
4. Get the most out of the software you use - and look for new software to help personally as well as professionally.
5. Slow down and take time to think.
6. Take 10 minutes at the start of your day and 10 minutes at the end of your day to review your calendar, schedule, appointments, meetings, etc.
7. Respond to emails as soon as you read them. Get to the point quickly in your response.
8. Close your door.
9. Return calls at certain times during the day. Utilize voicemail as an empowerment tool to get things done. Return all calls within 24 hours to avoid adding more to your list for tomorrow.
10. Take an hour everyday just for yourself. Use it to read, workout, watch TV, listen to music - anything to relax and do something just for you. [The people around you will notice and appreciate it, too!]

Sara L. Fitts is a time management expert and can help you become more productive and efficient in your life and in your business. Contact her directly for more information. 703.791.4741 or visit www.SLFConsulting.com for more information.

10 Ways to Manage Your Time

This Week with Sara Fitts offers ways to manage your time. Here are 10 ways that you can implement today. After trying them for a week or so, you will definitely see their benefits.

1. Write things down.
2. Prioritize your tasks and projects. Do first things first.
3. Plan your week.
4. Say "no" when you need to say no.
5. Don't do other people's work.
6. Keep one calendar and put everything on it - personal, work, and family activities.
7. Don't be a perfectionist. Get it done. Revisions can last a lifetime if you let them.
8. Don't attempt the impossible. Candidly assess what is possible for you.
9. Don't chase waterfalls. We all have seen how this eats up time and energy.
10. Delete, shred, and throw away.

More time management tips will be available later this week. Check back to find them.

12 Performance Review Questions

This Week with Sara Fitts focuses on questions to ask when reviewing the performance of your employees. Small businesses vary in their approach to performance reviews - and after working with a number of small business owners, we have come up with 12 questions that help guide the performance review process.

1. What are the contributions of this employee to the organization?
2. What actions of this employee have moved the organization forward?
3. How has this employee improved the overall organization?
4. How has this employee hindered the organization?
5. What 3 words come to mind when this employee's name is mentioned?
6. What needs to be addressed for improvement?
7. How can this employee improve, specifically?
8. What does the organization need more of from this employee?
9. What does this organization need less of from this employee?
10. What skill or training needs to be developed or acquired in the next 30 - 90 days?
11. Where do you see this employee within this organization in the next 5 years?
12. What are the goals of the organization and how has this employee contributed toward their achievement? OR What are the specific results attributed to this employee?

These questions are not a "check-off" nor a ranking of 1 - 5 rating system. These questions are generally meant for small businesses with 5 - 250 emplyees. They are meant to provoke thought and generate candid opinions of employee performance. Too often small businesses do not take the time to assess their employees on their contributions to the overall success of the business. Whether pay increases result from candid assessment or increases are given for longevity - if you're the owner, I think you need to know how your business is impacted by your employees. In my opinion, the only way to do this is with candid performance reviews.

More to come . . .

Sara L. Fitts is a business coach and consultant who works with small business owners, self-employed professionals, and entrepreneurs to help them grow and develop their businesses and balance their lives. Please contact her directly for more information on her Simple Little Formula for business success. Her direct line is 703.791.4741. Visit us online @ www.SLFConsulting.com .

Performance Reviews: Is There a Point?

Performance reviews can be difficult, stressful, informative, motivational, and sometimes even ridiculous. We've all probably had good ones, inaccuarate ones, nice ones, or ones that never address our true roles within the organization. This Week with Sara Fitts takes on the performance review and offers perspectives for both sides of the table - for the giver as well as for the receiver of them.

In my limited research, the use of performance reviews in small businesses is extremely varied. Some businesses never use them for a variety of reasons - and other businesses use them every quarter for all staff members. Whether given annually or at other increments of time, there really can be benefit of the performance review - benefit to the business as well as to the employee.

Some performance reviews are given to justify pay raises while others are given to justify firings and lay-offs. Sometimes performance reveiws are used to justify the business itself and to look at the results over a period of time. Sometimes investors want to see how well their investment is really working - and performance reviews can be used as justification for change.

Throughout the week I will post several perspectives on performance reviews - and how we can use them better to create more successful businesses. As for now, here are my questions to you:

1. Do you use performance reviews in your small business? What is the cycle or calendar for them?
2. What is your point for using them?
3. Do you use a standard format - or do you use one that is exclusively yours?
4. What do your employees think of their performance reviews?
5. Do you base pay raises on them? Do you use them to terminate employees?

More to come later . . . .