So many of us dream of leaving our 9 – to – 5 jobs so that we can create our own work-from-home business. Most will just dream about it; others will work to make it happen – committing to long days, as most of us begin on a part-time basis, in the evenings and on the weekends outside of our 40-hour job.

I’ve recently made the leap into working my online business full-time. One of the challenges in taking on the role of managing our own time is that we often don’t do it very well. For many years, perhaps several decades, someone else has managed our time. But if our home-based business, whether it’s offline or online, is to be successful, we have to learn to manage our time effectively.

Unless we find ways to organize and manage our time, working at home can be a veritable landmine of time-sucking events – checking email, surfing the Internet, catching a sports event on television, receiving or making non-business related phone calls, and more.

While I knew that my productivity was suffering, I wasn’t quite sure how to go about improving it. Then something happened, serendipitously as these things often do, that shook the earth beneath my feet. I had signed onto a webinar series, and I missed all but two sessions. One happened to be a 14 year old boy from the UK who was quickly becoming a successful internet marketer. This young man just blew everyone out of the water – he was articulate, witty, knowledgeable, and very, very disciplined.

He shared his time management secret with us: using a timer, he works consistently for 50 minutes, then takes a 10 minute break. After three 50-minute cycles, he takes 30 minutes ‘play time’.

Inspired by this extraordinary teenager, I hopped online to find out more about the 50-minute strategy. My research paid off, leading me to one very helpful website with a whole set of free time management tools.

Are you ready? Get your fingers ready to bookmark this site, because it is pure gold. Here it is:

http://successbeginstoday.org/wordpress/2006/09/the-focused-50/

Now, there’s nothing really complicated about a 50-minute on, 10-minute off structuring strategy (that ‘playtime’ slot will be lunch). What’s so valuable about this resource is that John Richardson, the site owner, has provided a set of free tools, downloadable and printable. By organizing our time into 5, 10, 15, or 30 minute blocks for example, we can effectively target specific tasks and get them done quickly. Many of the printable tools are designed to be printed on business-card size stock, from which we can then create a pile of task cards that we can use to help to organize our use of time. And the templates he provides are not limited to just business-related tasks, but home organizational tasks as well. Because the templates are in Excel spreadsheet format, they can be easily edited to fit individual needs.

He also provides diet-planner cards, garage-sale cards, flow chart symbol cards, and more.

One item you’ll need to make this all work is a good timer. If you don’t have one, here’s one that I like:

Do you have any time management tips or resources you’d like to share? I’d love to know about them – just add your comment!