I have a small home-based business and I find that my home life and work life co-mingle regularly and I loose track of what I am doing and when, and how long I have been doing something.
I decided for 2020 I am going to challenge myself to account for most of my daily activities to track my time per project and what is business related and what is family related. I have tried doing this in the past and I lose steam after a few days, because it is daunting to track everything, but it is necessary when you run a business from home.
One reason to track your time is to see how long it takes to make the items you are planning on selling in order to decide how much you should sell your item or service for. Come up with an hourly wage. Base this wage on local area (minimum wage in your state) + experience, or you can just base it on an hourly wage. Not that you will charge that much in your area (again depending on your area). But this will be a way in which to determine how long it takes you to make the item (production time) and what your hourly rate would be to calculate a profit or loss (talk to an accountant to see if this would be accounted for as a business loss).
This way I can be accountable to others as well as myself. People that do not have an entrepreneurial mind do not understand the time it takes to build your business, especially if you hand craft items to sell. I know for me, the majority of the people in my life think I just sit around all day doing nothing but watch t.v. all day. People ask me to do things during my work hours for them, or want to talk on the phone for extended times because it is assumed that I am not doing anything. I cannot work on my websites, blog or craft items while on the phone because I cannot concentrate on what I am doing while talking and listening to the other person.
I am going to hold myself accountable by posting my days for 2020, I may drop off here and there (not going to kick myself, if I slip) but I will get right back to it asap. I think I will post weekly updates on the blog then do a monthly accountability log and at the end of the year accumulate how many hours were devoted to business development and production.
I plan to post some information for small business owners on how to account for income and expenditures and I will try to answer any questions you have about business related things. I do have a degree in business and experience in accounting for non-profit organizations as well as general businesses.
I am trying to get in the habit of time tracking and management starting to day to get myself into the habit and would like others to join in with the challenge.
No comments:
Post a Comment