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Let me let you in on a little secret. I have ADD and therefore issues with time management. O.K. That wasn’t much of a secret at all, but I felt you should have this in mind as you read this month’s post on time management for women entrepreneurs and small business owners.

When it comes right down to it, time management is basically about being focused. Without focus, you can loose track of time and get almost nothing done.

There are a heck of a lot of time management techniques out there, and at least one of them is going to work for you. Most likely, more than one will work for you. For me, I’ve found that one technique works well for one area of my life, and another works well in another area. So, my advice to you is to try them all on for size. See which ones fits and in which situations.

Some techniques for managing your time include:

• Creating a schedule — logging when you will do what on a calendar and sticking to it.
• Writing down clear goals, prioritizing them and focusing on the most important goals first.
• Creating a “To Do” list and ticking things off that list as they get done.

These are the core techniques of traditional time management. And all of these can work together to help the woman entrepreneur or small business owner manage her time.

But let’s dig a little deeper. On the surface, these techniques seem straightforward. But they won’t work unless you have some other underlying skills:

• Decision making — can you make good decisions quickly and effectively?
• Critical thinking — can you discern important tasks from busy work?
• Self understanding — do you really know who you are and what you want out of your time?

Time management is about getting results, not about being busy. And to truly get the most out of your time, you need to know yourself, be able to evaluate tasks that take up your time and make decisions efficiently.

Let me go into a little more detail about what I mean.

Decision Making
Let’s say you’ve decided to work on a new infoproduct today. You’ve spent your morning outlining what will comprise your product and are ready to start compiling it. The phone rings and it is a friend of yours who just happens to be in town and would like to get together for a coffee this afternoon before she heads back out. In that moment, you need to evaluate several things and make a decision.

1) Do you want to take time away from your project, thus effecting its momentum?

2) Is this friend worth the interruption?

I can’t answer these questions for you. And, most likely you won’t even be aware that you’re asking them. Depending on who the friend is and the timing of the get together, you may decide to meet her, or you may decide that today is not a good day. But you need to make that decision and then be O.K. with it. Whatever you decide, you need to accept and not look back.

Critical Thinking
You’ve created a list of things you want to accomplish today. They include:

• Outline what you want to say in tomorrow’s teleseminar.
• Pay some bills.
• Organize your supply closet.
• Call five prospective clients.
• Work on your goal planning for the next quarter.

Can you tell which of these tasks are key to your success if done today? Which can be put off for tomorrow? Which should be struck from your list altogether? Again, the answers will be subjective. For example, if the bills aren’t due for another week, that task can be put off a day or two. Maybe your goal planning for the next quarter is really something you think you should do to fill your time, but you really don’t need to do it. You need to be able to evaluate which tasks are important for today and which are not. As a woman entrepreneur or small business owner, this skill can make or break your business!

Self Understanding
In case you didn’t notice, this skill is the core skill. Without it, you won’t be able to make effective decisions and your critical thinking results will be off. For example, if “Pay some bills” was on my list — that would be a very important task for me. My ADD can cause me to loose bills if I don’t take care of them as soon as I receive them. This is something I’ve learned about myself, and so have made adjustments to how I do things to accommodate this quirk.

Maybe you know that you are much better at giving teleseminars on the fly than off an outline. If so, you would know to cross “outline what you want to say in tomorrow’s teleseminar” off your list.

Another thing you need to know about yourself is your typical circadian rhythm. Each and every one of us has a peak time and a down time when we slow down. These natural cycles are what make up our personal circadian rhythm. When you know what time of day you will be the sharpest, you are better able to schedule tasks that require you to be alert during those times.

Basically, you need to know your own behavior patterns and your time-wasting buttons. With this understanding, you’ll make better decisions about how to use your time.