Juggling Skills
Being a small businessperson, an independent contractor and self employed, I find myself wearing so many different hats. I’m web designer, web coder, SEO weenie, mother to my gaggle of weblings via being their “computer and web expert” (okay, so it’s all relative!), bookkeeper, chief cook and bottlewasher, writer and blogger, editor, marketing department, estimator, photographer, artist, motivator and cheering section, etc etc etc.
The one skill I haven’t yet mastered to my satisfaction is that of time management. Though I’ve gotten better at working smarter instead of harder, it’s hard to fit all this stuff into a workweek that’s already stretching over the 60 hour mark, and during a time when the weather is beautiful and my garden is calling to me for some much needed attention. I’ve raised my prices since my portfolio is strong enough to account for the raise, and that should have helped. It didn’t. I’m busier than I’ve ever been, and almost all of it is either repeat business or referrals from past business. Which, I guess, is good news as well as frustrating news. Time to look at that pricing issue again.
I’ve started to farm out some of the small tasks to a friend who is just starting out, but having been in control for so long, that is a hard thing for me to do. Luckily he’s wonderful and we work well together. And so far there has been incredibly little he’s done that I’d do differently– his work is very high quality. So I’m dealing with this, and now learning how to be an employer. One more skill to acquire!
I’ve gotta wonder how other small businesspeople juggle their many tasks to get it all into the available time window, without letting your business take over your life to the point where you don’t have one. ** sigh **
[tags]time management, small business planning, web design[/tags]
