Time Can’t Be Manage, But You Can Be

Time really can’t be managed, because there’s no way to change a thing about it. But, you can definitely be managed. Manage yourself in a way to make the most of the valuable time that you have. Your business and personal life will be significantly enhanced if you are accomplishing a lot more and not stressing over things that you don’t need to stress over.

If you have worked at an agency you already know how important this is. Time is money and most of what you do will be billable by the hour. It is an essential business practice to keep track of your time. This may involve you creating a daily schedule for your activities. People have a tendency not to wander as much when you have a set time to do a specific task. You can do this quite easily from your email calendar. Schedule yourself reminders and warnings when you have gone overtime.

Time-Management Software Programs

If you need additional help there are some excellent time-management software programs out there that you can utilize. These are set up specifically with hourly rates and project management in mind. Many include a robust invoicing system as well. This will make audits and billing a breeze. Do your research and select the system that best suits your needs (some will have more features than you will want).

You can often get lost in tweaking so try to limit yourself to the amount of time you spend in frivolous experimentation. Stop yourself when you find that you are getting lost in a detail that doesn’t make a difference to the overall project. It is best to get the meat of the work done at the first and then portion out an hour for tweaks at the end. It will be up to you to determine how best to manage your process.

Use your time wisely

You only have so many seconds, minutes and hours in a day. Use them wisely. Make sure you make your customers’ time just as valuable.

Set aside time in the day for brainstorming, uninterrupted production, project briefing, and communications. If you segment your time to the hours of the day you can utilize time to the best of your ability. I find the early morning hours are the best for intense productions and complex tasks, towards the afternoon you may need a break to check your emails and regroup. Just always remember that your client is paying you by the hour or project. If they are paying you by the project, utilizing your time well will give you more “bang for your buck”.

Find the time savers

Set up your workspace to be streamlined and efficient. Take a few hours out of a day to set customize your preferences in your Adobe design programs. In Photoshop Batch images that need to be similarly formatted. Set up shortcuts and learn them by heart. Create commonly used templates for business cards, letterhead, #10 envelopes, and brochures. These are little time savers that will add up to save you hours.

Experiment with different combinations and time-savers to find out the best technique for you. Time is not only important for money and value, but for deadlines too. You need to get good at delivering on a schedule. Try to deliver ahead of schedule whenever possible. Prioritize your projects by importance and due date. Squeeze out the most of your day, for both you and your customer.

Thank you for reading graphic design tip #8, “Utilizing Time Management.” Be sure to subscribe to our blog and share with your friends.

ThePerfectDesign.com Team