1. Cut Your Workday by 30 Minutes You will get more done. A deadline forces you to eliminate all the little time-wasters (silly interruptions, procrastination, perfectionism). Just because you can work all the time doesn't mean you should. If you work in an office, stick to your scheduled hours. If you work at home, set an alarm to end your workday, and dedicate evenings and weekends completely to your personal life.

2. Define an Outcome for Every Meeting Identify a topic and outcome for every meeting, and send it to all participants a minimum of 24 hours beforehand so that everyone comes prepared. Well-run, useful meetings provide enormous value--they can solve problems, generate ideas, save you time, clarify direction, tighten work bonds, build teamwork, and reignite passion for projects. 3. Reduce Paper Clutter Eighty percent of what is filed is never looked at again. Before saving any document, ask yourself whether you would trust that the information is up to date next time you look for it. If not, it's time to pitch, shred or recycle. For printing, use duplex printing to generate fewer pages. When it comes to printing information from web pages, consider using software such as Canon Easy-WebPrint EX--and print only the information you really need. 4. Create Templates As entrepreneurs, we write many proposals, thank you notes, customer e-mails and press releases to various contacts. However, there is no need to write from scratch every time. While you don't want your correspondence to sound like a form letter, writing every letter from scratch is an enormous waste of time. Creating a template for every document that must be sent more than once opens up your schedule for other work. Just be sure to customize your template based on the contact to whom you are writing. 5. Set the Due Date No matter how much room you leave for creativity in the delegation process, never be vague about the due date. If you leave the due date vague, other priorities will usurp your delegatee's focus, or not leave you enough time to correct the work, if necessary. Leave enough of a cushion so that if the work doesn't come back as you'd hoped, there is enough time to correct it before the real deadline. It's sometimes helpful to give the person an estimate of how long you think the task should take and how long you want them to spend on it. Put a reminder in your planner to follow up the day the task is due. Source: Entrepreneur.com

Every business in the world is run by an entrepreneur, at least at the initial stages. Entrepreneurship isn't as easy as one thinks. There are many things that are needed in an entrepreneur to become a successful entrepreneur. Out of these so many things one thing that has changed for good is the misconception that entrepreneurs are only born and cannot be created. If this would have been true then there wouldn't have been so many huge business schools making people entrepreneurs who weren't originally entrepreneurs. Here we will look at some of the most important qualities that an entrepreneur must have in order to be successful in entrepreneurship. 1. Self Confidence In order to succeed anywhere in the life one needs to have self confidence. Self confidence not only gives a person self assurance that he is right but also gives him or her courage to face the unseen challenges ahead. Often people think that self confidence only means to assume that everything that one thinks is right and the whole God damn world is wrong. Self confidence depicts the confidence in one's abilities and endurance to bear the unbearable of the toughest situations in life. 2. Pro-activity One other key feature of entrepreneurs is being proactive. As the businesses in this fast changing world have become very dynamic, it has become very difficult to see the changes come through and react. It is not also an advisable option to react to the situations that arrive in one's life. Entrepreneurs need to see the things in a very different angle. They need to be sure of the coming things and they should be forward looking with prepared minds to be prepared and able to handle any kind of situation that may arise in their lives. 3. Self initiative It is very important that entrepreneurs should be self starters. Often entrepreneurs don't get the things done unless they need to. Especially in cases of initiatives that need to be carried in an organization for any kind of change. Facing change is difficult but it will become worse if you behave like a sitting duck in a pound waiting for a crocodile. Grab the challenges and get yourself ahead of the competition be being more of an initiator rather then a freaking mindless entrepreneur only waiting for things to go wrong or do something when need may arise. 4. Self discipline A golden trait of an entrepreneur is being self disciplined. It is very hard to imagine that entrepreneurs won't be self disciplined. But that is the hard fact of life and that is why most ventures fail. Entrepreneurs usually become lousy when they are nearing success and think that that's it. But a successful entrepreneur is the one who doesn't lapse in efforts and is consistent with his efforts the way he use to put in efforts before. Source: Ezine Articles

If you're an entrepreneur--whether you're working solo or with employees who share the load--time is your most valuable commodity. There simply aren't enough hours in the day to stay ahead on the job, let alone have a personal life. The answer isn't to work harder--chances are, you're already putting in 50 to 60 hours a week--but to work smarter. And that means doing what you do in a more productive way.

Photo via Entrepreneur.com

1. Stop Thinking Of Time as an Unlimited Commodity Essentially, just as a closet is a limited space into which you must fit a certain number of objects, a schedule is a limited space into which you must fit a certain number of tasks. When you realize the actual limits of your time, you become much more selective about what you put into the "closet" of your day. 2. Create A Time Map Subdivide your day into three blocks of time--morning, midday and afternoon--and decide what category of work you will tackle during each chunk of time. The regular structure creates mini-deadlines throughout the day that keep you focused on your goals and priorities. Here's how:

• Set office hours: Say, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. If you like to jog or eat a leisurely breakfast, wake up early so that you can be ready to hit it by 8.
• Divide your day into three parts: An example would be serving existing clients, marketing for new clients and taking care of administrative tasks. If you feel you have all day to do all things, you'll be less productive.
• Keep a schedule: For example, devote 8 a.m. to noon to existing customers, 12:30 p.m. to 4 p.m. to marketing, and 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. to tasks such as printing invoices and updating your contacts list. Look at it this way: In the morning, you're working to make money. In the afternoon, you're selling your business.
• Dedicate 10 or 15 minutes at the end of each day to planning: Specifically think about what you will do in each of the three parts of the next day. Break projects into small steps: One morning can be devoted to polishing up Project A and getting halfway done with Project B.
• Create three-day plans: Once you get used to planning a day ahead, start looking further down the road and update those plans at the end of each workday.

3. Group Similar Tasks Batching your to-dos will allow you to build momentum and boost efficiency as you repeat each action. For example, doing a series of prospecting calls in a row saves time. With your sales "hat" on, your spiel gets clearer and sharper with each consecutive call. If you have several proposals to write, it's more efficient to blast through them sequentially rather than switch to financial activities in between. 4. Don't Write To-Dos In A Million Places Scattering your tasks and reminders between a variety of Post-its, notepads, planners and applications is a recipe for confusion. Hours are wasted transferring information, second-guessing what to do next, and living in fear of what might be forgotten. Commit to one single, consistent system. Once you get into the habit of writing everything down in a single location, you'll stop worrying that you're forgetting something and will be able to concentrate on getting things done. Source: Entrepreneur.com

[caption id="attachment_328" align="alignleft" width="336" caption="Image via Lumaxart"] [/caption] Team building skills are critical for your effectiveness as a manager or entrepreneur. And even if you are not in a management or leadership role yet, better understanding of team work can make you a more effective employee and give you an extra edge in your corporate office. A team building success is when your team can accomplish something much bigger and work more effectively than a group of the same individuals working on their own. You have a strong synergy of individual contributions. But there are two critical factors in building a high performance team. The first factor in team effectiveness is the diversity of skills and personalities. When people use their strengths in full, but can compensate for each other's weaknesses. When different personality types balance and complement each other. The other critical element of team work success is that all the team efforts are directed towards the same clear goals, the team goals. This relies heavily on good communication in the team and the harmony in member relationships. In real life, team work success rarely happens by itself, without focused team building efforts and activities. There is simply too much space for problems. For example, different personalities, instead of complementing and balancing each other, may build up conflicts. Or even worse, some people with similar personalities may start fighting for authority and dominance in certain areas of expertise. Even if the team goals are clear and accepted by everyone, there may be no team commitment to the group goals or no consensus on the means of achieving those goals: individuals in the team just follow their personal opinions and move in conflicting directions. There may be a lack of trust and openness that blocks the critical communication and leads to loss of coordination in the individual efforts. And on and on. This is why every team needs a good leader who is able to deal with all such team work issues. Here are some additional team building ideas, techniques, and tips you can try when managing teams in your situation.

• Make sure that the team goals are totally clear and completely understood and accepted by each team member.
• Make sure there is complete clarity in who is responsible for what and avoid overlapping authority. For example, if there is a risk that two team members will be competing for control in certain area, try to divide that area into two distinct parts and give each more complete control in one of those parts, according to those individual's strengths and personal inclinations.
• Build trust with your team members by spending one-on-one time in an atmosphere of honesty and openness. Be loyal to your employees, if you expect the same.
• Allow your office team members build trust and openness between each other in team building activities and events. Give them some opportunities of extra social time with each other in an atmosphere that encourages open communication. For example in a group lunch on Friday. Though be careful with those corporate team building activities or events in which socializing competes too much with someone's family time.
• For issues that rely heavily on the team consensus and commitment, try to involve the whole team in the decision making process. For example, via group goal setting or group sessions with collective discussions of possible decision options or solution ideas. What you want to achieve here is that each team member feels his or her ownership in the final decision, solution, or idea. And the more he or she feels this way, the more likely he or she is to agree with and commit to the decided line of action, the more you build team commitment to the goals and decisions.
• When managing teams, make sure there are no blocked lines of communications and you and your people are kept fully informed.
• Even when your team is spread over different locations, you can still maintain effective team communication. Just do your meetings online and slash your travel costs.
• Be careful with interpersonal issues. Recognize them early and deal with them in full.
• Don't miss opportunities to empower your employees. Say thank you or show appreciation of an individual team player's work.
• Don't limit yourself to negative feedback. Be fare. Whenever there is an opportunity, give positive feedback as well.

Finally, though team work and team building can offer many challenges, the pay off from a high performance team is well worth it. Source: Time Management Guide

In today's busy world people are running out of time and somehow finding more things to do at the same time. Professionals and high school amateurs alike, no one s got a second to spare. So it’s all about utilizing all 24 hours that’s been given per day. So with such a rush who has time to read emails? It'll be easier just to ignore them. Unfortunately this is not possible. Most people s jobs depend on the internet and emails that they receive. If by chance an important email is lost or forgotten things could get awful. That is where email management systems like Taroby come in handy. An email management system will undoubtedly provide you with the tools that you need to manage your emails. Such an email management system is considered to be the same as an email archiving system where the emails will be managed and structured in order to help you with maximum efficiency. Most emails that you receive may be useless. Junk mails amount up to almost half of the emails people receive if it does not come through a secured server. So that is why an email management system works dedicatedly to make your life easier by filtering out unwanted emails. Also for big corporate firms and small businesses such an email management system would come in extremely handy. Some of these email management system software has the ability to auto reply to agents and customers by using a set of rules. Also the management of customer questions and other important business communication material would be highly favorable for businesses. So there’s no doubt that an email management system can lighten up your day at work, and at the same time improve the overall productivity for your organization. Read the Full article here: http://bit.ly/d4kAb9