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!

So together we will be looking at a variety of time managements strategies that you may find helpful. Let’s being our discussion with this introduction to time management.

Procrastination is something that essentially everyone in the world has done at least once in their life, and unfortunately for a good amount of these people they have done it time and time again. A lack of time management often leads to a good deal of stress with things that just keep piling up on top of each other. Fortunately there are many ways that you can organize your time so you effectively get things done.

Creating a to do list is one of the best techniques out there for time management, as it gives you exactly what you need to get done and leaves you from questioning what to do next. To make your to do list even better consider prioritizing it, putting the most important tasks at the top of the list while the less necessary ones towards the bottom. This will allow you to at least get done the most important responsibilities out of the way first in case of an emergency in which you cannot complete the other tasks.

Another great way to utilize time management is to create unique personal goals for your self. Taking a big goal and breaking it down into a few smaller ones you’re your overall goal seem a little bit easier to reach at times. These goals don’t have to be something extraordinary, and should really be something that is reasonable and attainable. If you set a goal that simply cannot be reached, then you simply set yourself up for failure. When you set up a goal, be sure to give it in detail so you know exactly what it is that you have to do, also put in a date and time that it has to be done by. If you set goals that you can accomplish then you can achieve them and can be satisfied in what you have done, which is also one step closer to the big picture.

If you find yourself struggling to find a real reason why you should improve your time management skills, you should consider what your time is really worth. If you sit and do nothing sometimes just think what you could have been doing. Like something productive that could potentially earn you money, allow you to spend time with loved ones, or do something that you enjoy. Time wasted doing nothing means you have to spend more time later to actually get something done.

With all of this in mind try to improve your time management skills because they can only lead to a more successful you. Allowing you to become more successful in many aspects of your life whether in business or in your personal life.