Yesterday evening, I had the privilege and honor of being the guest speaker for the Women on the Move Teleconference founded by Stylicia Bowden, in which I spoke on the topic of Time Management and Business Productivity. I received such great feedback that I decided to write this blog post to share on the topic.

Early on into building my first business, I quickly learned how important it was to be organized with managing my time and I started a system for myself based on how quickly and effectively I needed to get things done, not only in my business but with my family as well. Because for me, at the end of the day, I’m mom first and the reason I made the choice to start a business was so that I could always be available to my family and for my children.

So, I’m delighted to be able to share with you, how I have set up a system that helps me manage my time most efficiently so that I can get the most done during my days to build my businesses around my family without compromise.

The first thing I strongly encourage is that you first believe in yourself. No matter what your business is, no matter if you’re a brand new business owner, a seasoned business owner or whether you are just thinking about taking that initial step towards starting a business, you have to believe in you. In order for anything to manifest from your dreams, you have to first believe in your own vision. It’s important for you to connect with your subconscious and envision exactly where you want your business to go in order for you to take the necessary first steps to getting there.

So, that should be your first step, even if your not sure of HOW you will make it happen, write down your goals anyway. Over time, this can help you develop your own road map to success. But for now, just commit to getting started.

My favorite business motto is Plan Your Work and Work Your Plan this is something I use for every new project or idea I have with my business and it’s something I encourage you to adopt as well, Plan Your Work and Work Your Plan.

Here are my 5 tips to effective Time Management

Tip # 1 Develop your Daily Method of Operation This is when you will want to determine and write down each task you need to perform each of the days you work your business that are necessary, for the daily operation of your business. The first set of tasks should be your income producing activities. These are the things that bring money into your business, for example: sales/or follow up calls to clients, product/service inquires via email, product presentation activities, anything that you do in your business on a daily basis to generate income.

Your next set of tasks should be those that will build your business. These could be things like, blogging, article marketing and social networking. These will be the tasks that get your business in front of your audience and help you gain exposure. Write down everything, and don’t worry about when you will fit it all in yet, we’ll cover that next, this is just determining WHAT you have to do.

Tip #2 Design Your Schedule What I like to do is use a blank monthly calendar and fill it in for the month. You can also do this on a weekly basis, it’s all about what works best for you. I know some of you may work a regular job and have children so the first thing you will need to do is include that into your schedule. Mark down the days and times your work your regular job, when you go to school, mark down the kids appointments and extracurricular activities, include all your family and personal activities for the month as best as you can.

The goal here is to have a visual that will help you better carve out the time you can commit to working your business. You can even color code the different activities if you want. After you’ve done that, you can then go ahead and include the days and times you are available to work your business. This will give you a clear idea of how you can adjust your schedule to fit your lifestyle. You’ll know by a quick glance, on what days and times you are able to plan and execute certain tasks for your business. (You can download a free calendar at www.printablecalendar.ca )

Tip #3 Plan Your Tasks and Prioritize Your Activities The next thing you can do to ensure you have a productive business day is to work from a To Do List. You can use a regular sheet of notebook paper and simply write down the tasks you need to get done for that particular day. I suggest you prioritize your tasks, tackling the ones that are most time consuming and beneficial to your business and working down from there. For example, I write articles, blog posts and newsletters before I conduct any social networking or checking email.

I normally do my list for the next day at the end of my current business day so when I get to my desk the next morning, I’m ready to go. I know there are some of you on this call who may work your business at night or only on weekends, so again, it’s all about what works for you. This is also the time you can revisit your daily method of operation list and begin to incorporate those activities onto your To Do List.

I also find it very helpful to designate a specific time frame for each task so that I’m not spending too much time on twitter or Facebook for instance, when I could be writing a post for my blog. As you complete your tasks, you can cross them off your list and move on to the next one. It is very important to prioritize and have a good understanding of which activities bring the most value and benefit to your business and your customers.

Tip #4 Goal Setting and Project Management One of the most important steps to managing your time and being productive is learning how to set goals. Setting long term and short term goals when working on a project can help you get more done while helping you stay organized and focused on completing small chunks at a time. That way it’s not so overwhelming and can curve procrastination.

When you are ready to start a new project, again, you will need to write down your idea, Plan Your Work and Work Your Plan. During my project planning, whether it is a marketing campaign or blog series I want to do, I usually work back words. I write down what my objective is, or what it is I’m going to accomplish, I will write down the steps it will take for me to complete my project and most important, a goal is never complete without a DEADLINE!!

When you set a deadline, you eliminate procrastination and put yourself in the mindset of completion. Now you can break it down into small tasks, spread that out over a period of time and complete your project in pieces. Setting goals helps you get important things done.

Tip #5 Achieving Business Productivity How to be productive is a huge concern with many entrepreneurs who understand the value of implementing social media into their business building. What applies to me also applies to each of you and that is we must be willing to be disciplined. When you take on the role of “being the boss” you have to live up to the title.

Think about this for a minute…What makes it okay, for you to get up, 5 days a week at 7am, to be at a JOB for 9am, work hard for 8 hours of your day, to put money in someone else’s pocket yet, you don’t dedicate that same drive and desire for your OWN business? As women in business, we have to step our game up and stop treating our business like a hobby. You have to be disciplined and it’s okay if you have to learn it, because it is a skill. That’s why I said in the beginning of this call, you have to believe in yourself, trust your vision, go with your passion and MAKE IT HAPPEN!! We all have to start some where. If you don’t know how to implement a certain aspect in your business, LEARN IT. If you need advice or help, SEEK IT. You are the boss, be accountable to yourself.

There are great tools that can help you leverage your time online. One of my favorites is HootSuite for twitter. It allows me to manage multiple twitter accounts, my Facebook fan pages, my Facebook profile page and my RSS feeds. I can schedule updates across my networks and plug in my blog feeds for them to go out automatically.

WordPress also offers this option to schedule posts. Sometimes if I know I’m going to have a busy week, I will write 3 blog posts in one day for that particular week and schedule them to post on my blog on different days. Another great tool is using an auto responder, MailChimp is my favorite, it’s free and you can send out pre-scheduled messages to your entire mailing list. You can pretty much set it and forget it and have an email marketing campaign working for you on complete auto pilot. Each of these tools provide a way for you to track website traffic and statistics so you can better utilize the marketing strategies that are working great and tweak the ones that aren’t.

Another thing to help you stay productive in your business is to be aware of your habits that cause procrastination. One of my bad habits was having the need to keep checking my email and Facebook during my writing time. My plan would be to just skim through my messages and get down to work. But, before I knew it an hour would have went by and some how I ended up clicking a link somewhere and would be heavily involved in reading a blog post, then another and another.

So, to get the important work done, you need to learn how to eliminate your distractions while working. Close those social media tabs on your browser while you are working on something for your business, turn off the TV, the black berry, anything that can cause you to get distracted. Make a conscious effort, to do what is necessary to make the time you spend building your business most productive.

I teach women how to build a business with no-cost marketing because that’s how I built my business. I refused to let a limited income stop me from fulfilling my dreams and I want to tell you, that you can do the same thing. YES, you may have to work harder than your peers who may have a substantial marketing budget to start with. YES, you just might have to work longer hours then her, but that’s okay, because THIS is your business, your baby…make it happen! Be active in the growth of your business, always be willing to learn and be coachable. Find a mentor; connect with women who are where you want to be. Be a sponge, absorb everything they teach you.

You can not be afraid to ask for help, there are business women online who love to help other women reach their dreams and I just so happen to be one of them. You can only create greater opportunities for yourself and your business when you first learn how to align your vision with effective time management.