Entrepreneur: Organize Yourself in 9 Steps

Written by Barbara Myers


Owning a business requires expert organizing skills in order to keep on top of everything. Follow these steps and make more time in your work day.

1. Make a list of all your responsibilities as a business owner. Prioritize them. Income-producing tasks should be atrepparttar top of your list. Place your prioritized list on your computer monitor. This will help you focus.

2. Make a list of everything that MUST be done each week. Noterepparttar 106456 amount of time needed for each task.

3. Reserve ten minutes each evening to schedulerepparttar 106457 next day. Generally, schedule only 70% of your time to allow for interruptions and emergencies. Be sure to draw from your list of things that must be done. Try to set up time blocks where you work on a specific area (for example, marketing) for a certain amount of time before you move on to finances.

4. Organize your office by category. For example, place all your marketing files and information in one place. Put all your financial paperwork together. This will help you focus on one project at a time. It is also a time-saver.

The Critical Path for Extreme Project Management

Written by Shaun Hasan Ajani


The Extreme Project Manager (EPM) stays at a high level, and understandsrepparttar big picture, atrepparttar 106455 same time being able to callrepparttar 106456 shots like a military commander. However, there are certain things, which can affectrepparttar 106457 general schedule, andrepparttar 106458 EPM must be aware of them at a relatively acute level. Particularly, I am referring to Critical Path Method (CPM) and Project Evaluation Review Technique (PERT). The EPM will use these analyses in a slightly different way to stay at a certain level.

Walkrepparttar 106459 Path

I have faint memories of hearing about CPM and PERT when I was a kid, many years ago. So what are such old ideas doing inrepparttar 106460 EPM topic? I could say that these are very important methods that every Project manager should know.

But then how would I be any different? And as a Project Manager, you probably know CMP and PERT well anyhow… Right? Well, I will make it worth it for you. In a truly EPM fashion, we will hit on CPM and PERT, in a cursory and a slightly different way, where you can use it just enough to give you some kind of a handle in keeping an eye on scheduling.

CPM lets you seerepparttar 106461 sequence of events of allrepparttar 106462 tasks, andrepparttar 106463 time required. It also showsrepparttar 106464 earliest finish, earliest start, latest finish, and latest start estimates, so you can seerepparttar 106465 slack in each of these tasks. You need to knowrepparttar 106466 slack, because if you are seeing a sequence of events, then you are also seeingrepparttar 106467 dependencies of each of these tasks.

Hence, if you are aware ofrepparttar 106468 slack, then you can get a better idea ofrepparttar 106469 adherence to schedule your project is enjoying. As an EPM, here is a way I found to make this simple: When you makerepparttar 106470 CPM, do not use sub-tasks. Try and stick to summary tasks. However, unlikerepparttar 106471 Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), where we use a similar method, you may have to use some of your sub-tasks, depending onrepparttar 106472 time to completion of that task. For example, if a sub-task takes a long time to complete, and has many dependencies, use it inrepparttar 106473 CPM.

Look onrepparttar 106474 Bright Side

Yes, even Project Managers are optimistic, especially EPM’s. Although, working with PERT, you have to be both, optimistic and pessimistic. Here is what I mean. Like CPM and WBS, PERT also involvesrepparttar 106475 breaking down ofrepparttar 106476 project into tasks. You then must dividerepparttar 106477 tasks into three schedule categories, most optimistic finish estimate, and most pessimistic finish estimate, and most likely.

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