If you run your own business, you need to learn some basic time management skills. Even if you have a hobby like freelance writing or online selling that makes some money, you can greatly benefit from teaching some time management skills to yourself. But where should you go to learn all about time management? Quite frankly, you can waste a lot of time having others teaching you time management skills. If you REALLY want to learn, then you are fully capable of teaching time management to yourself.

Should You Get Special Supplies?

There are many time management supplies on the market, such as time management software, online courses, DVDS and business organizers. If you are actually going to use the stuff (or if you're a Virgo, which typically love making incredibly detailed lists) then great, go for it. Perhaps you might be able to write the stuff off your taxes.

However, you don't necessarily need it any extra stuff in order to succeed in teaching time management to yourself. If you have Microsoft Office, then you have a program called Outlook that acts as a time management electronic calendar. But really, all you need is a pen and paper (especially for all of us Scorpios who will only make a to-do list if a gun is put to our heads).

Make Your Own Calendar

Get lined paper and a pen. Make twenty four or forty-eight lines to mark out daily hours or half-hours. Some people even like to divide the day into fifteen minute sessions, but I think that's just being mental. Write down how you usually spend your day. You can usually see right away if you are taking too much time doing one aspect of your business and not enough of another.

Making a calendar yourself can also help you juggle a lot of projects, so at least you know you are spending a good amount of time on each one. In teaching time management to yourself, break the task up into smaller tasks you know you can get done instead of being overwhelmed by the whole mountain of work you have to climb.

Just the act of writing down a brief plan (even if you don't follow it to the letter) is a great way of teaching time management to your subconscious. Our ancestors believed in the power of the written word; that the words themselves came to life to make a spell come true. In some ways, this is true. By writing down a plan, you are making a commitment to not only yourself, but the universe at large.