What do you imagine to be the biggest obstacle to setting up and running your own home based business?  I’d imagine that most respondents would say time.  Be honest now, are you one of those people who think that they just don’t have the time to devote to starting up a home business? You’re not alone. The vast majority of people would probably claim they have too much to do and not enough time to do it. So instead of focussing on what they want to do and where they want to be they get bogged down with the time issue before they even get started.

Your day job, family, keeping fit, the garden, watching TV and so on – ultimately these are just excuses, nothing more.  But, there is hope!  Believe it or not, it is possible to find and, what is more, to maximize your time in order to build momentum for your venture. What you must do is analyse your time and seek out the slack, then commit to using that time for your home business only. Here are some strategies for doing just that.

What are you doing at any given time of the day?

Write down your schedule. It may sound silly, but you should start at the beginning and write it all down until you go to bed.  Be honest and include everything.  So there’s getting ready for work, taking the kids to school, going to work (travel and attendance), exercise time and any other time commitments.  Do the same for weekends, and most especially, don’t forget your family.

This exercise is the bedrock of finding a better way to organise your time to devote some of it to working from home.  It will give you a great view of what your schedule looks like.  No matter how busy you think you are, you will see openings in your week.  Don’t beat yourself up now, look to find two hours you can commit to spend on your business.  There must be some slack in there that you can use.

Stay with your new schedule and reassess

So, you’ve found yourself some time, stick with it for a trial period. This may well be tough, after all, you are creating a new habit.  Once you’ve tried it for a week say, reassess your schedule.  You may well find more time to spend on your business.

I believe that discipline is the most important element in working from home.  So, you have to find a way after work, after eating, after putting the kids to bed and so on.  Remember this is why you analysed your schedule.

Don’t Forget Your Family

We all have different commitments, my family is my tope priority. If you have young children, like me, I’d imagine that your main time to focus on your business will be when they’ve gone to bed.  I find that the evening is best time for me to spend on my home business.  If nothing else, it’s the most quite part of the day.

If you do have to use family time to spend on your business, communication and managing their expectations are paramount.   There has to be give and take on both sides.  It is vital that you set a time aside for spending with your family.  Balance is the key here.

Embrace Distractions

Life goes on and distractions will arise.  I’d suggest that you embrace this instead of fighting it.  If your child stays up late, focus on helping him calm down and go back to bed.  Don’t dwell on what you could otherwise be doing.  Your work will still be there when you are ready.

If you are required to stay late at your day job, then do that.  Just focus on one thing at a time as getting yourself hyped up about things outside of your control is counterproductive. You’ll be less efficient and effective.  Having a clear and guilt free mind while working on your business is essential.

If you’re really excited about your new project, it’s likely that the ideas will be whizzing.  Keep something handy to record these new ideas.  You can always analyse and prioritise at a later date.  This will help you use less energy dealing with distractions, which in turn you can devote to growing your business.

So as we can see, there IS good news when it comes to finding the time to devote to developing your home business.  Forget despair and frustration, focus instead on this fact:

You and you alone have total control of your time and your ability to change your habits in order to build momentum in your businesses.

Good Luck!