As an entrepreneur, you are interested in many different areas but if you continue over-committing, you will hurt your business and your health.

Do you over-commit, because each pretty, shiny new idea sounds soooooo good? Then, when you fail to accomplish all of it, do you beat yourself up about it; feel like a failure, or at the very least, think of yourself as not very good at what you do?

Youhave created this stressful situation.

If you don’t take care of yourself, if you let the stress of trying to do too much continue, you will not have a healthy life or business.

Here are some examples of self-sabotage:

You decide that you need to start networking more. You begin accepting every invitation, to every event going on in the area. You are frantic once you start doing this, and do not relax enough to truly get to know anyone at any gathering. You get tired, because you are driving somewhere every day, and other commitments are suffering. You moan, “Networking is too much work! I am not good at this!”You have a project. You decide that you will commit the morning to it. The phone rings, and you answer what turns out to be a very long call. You finish the call and you have lost your focus. You throw up your hands and cry,” I will never get this done!”You need to re-prioritize.

It isn’t a matter of re-prioritizing the “to-do” list. It is a matter of re-prioritizing your life list.

List what is important to you.Put these items in order of importance.Look carefully at your top three. Are these the items that support you financially and emotionally? (Health should be included as one of the top three, because if you don’t take care of this, everything else will suffer.)To successfully stop the self-sabotage, you will have to change the way you have ordered your life up to now. Whenever you need to make a decision concerning the expenditure of your time, look at your life list. Will the activity support those items?

You need to recognize the fatigue and the crankiness that are symptoms of overload and stress. You must constantly re-evaluate and re-focus. Change takes time. You start with changing your thoughts, and this will lead to changing your actions.

One final note: Do not let yourself speak negatively about yourself. Remind yourself that you are an entrepreneur with many interests. That’s not a bad thing to be!

Many of us complain or brag about not having enough time. At its crux, time management is really self-management, which includes managing our environments, both at work and at home.

The secret to time management? Know that time management is all about knowing what’s important to you, what your priorities are and managing yourself. To do that, it’s important to be aware that you do have choices, although it might not always seem that way. Start practicing the following nine steps and you’ll become better at time management:

- Look at where you are spending and wasting time.
- Learn to discern between urgent and important.
- Set boundaries, and learn to say no.
- Establish priorities and reduce distractions.
- Eat well, exercise and participate in activities that fuel rather than drain you.
- Get organized, it saves time in the long run.
- Say no to meetings that could be done on the phone or handled by email.
- Communicate your goals, objectives and strategies to friends, family and co-workers.
- Delegate.

It’s your life, how do you want to spend it?

Take Action Challenge

Look at your discretionary time; if you are employed outside the house, examine every hour that you’re not at work and/or travelling to work. Next, think of what’s important to you in your life. Then look at how you’re currently spending your time. Is it doing what’s important to you? If not, why not?

Then eliminate all activities that drain you, that aren’t important to you. Enjoy the space and free time in your schedule. Then, do one of two things. Slowly fill the time with activities you love doing and that re-energize you. Or leave the time open and see what turns up.

Be forewarned, it’s possible that not everyone in your world is going to be as happy as you about how you choose to now spend your time.

The visitor stood in front of the enthusiastic group “It’s time for a quiz!” He then pulled out a one-gallon, wide-mouthed mason jar and set it on the table in front of him. From his pockets he produced about a dozen fist-sized rocks and carefully placed them, one at a time, into the jar.

When the jar was filled to the top and no more rocks would fit inside, he asked, “Is the jar full?” The class responded, “Yes.” Then he added, “Really?” as he reached under the table and pulled out a bag of pebbles. He dumped some in the jar and shook it causing the smaller pebbles to work themselves down into the spaces between the big rocks. He continued pouring and shaking until the pebbles had reached the top.

He smiled and asked again, “Is the jar full?” By this time, the class was on to him. “Probably not,” one student answered. “Right!” he replied. And he reached under the table and brought out a pail of sand. He poured the sand, shaking the jar gently as the sand sifted down and filled the spaces left between the rocks and pebbles. Again he asked, “Is this jar full?”

“No!” the class shouted, curious about what else he could add. Once again the speaker agreed, “Right!” He grabbed a pitcher of water and began to pour until the jar was filled to the brim. Then he looked up at the class and asked, “What is the point of this illustration?”

One pupil offered, “No matter how full your schedule, if you try, you can always fit more into it!” The speaker laughed, “We sometimes think that, don’t we? But, no! That’s not the point.” He continued, “What if we filled the jar in the reverse order?” “You wouldn’t get any big rocks in.” the class replied.

“That’s it, no room for the big rocks. It’s too late to fit them in?”

The speaker urged the students to ponder this lesson and it’s implications for their future. He had learned this lesson the hard way wanted to spare them some grief.

“Repeat after me;” he said, “BIG ROCKS FIRST!” The class applauded.

In business and life the big rocks form a foundation for you to build on.

What are your big rocks? What are the important things you need to focus on in your business or your life? What have you been putting off that’s critical to your long-range success? Repeat after me, “BIG ROCKS FIRST!”

Time vampires are people; they can be difficult clients, co-workers, or relatives who take up a lot of your valuable time. They always have complaints, questions or they bother you with futilities. It does not avail you anything, try to avoid them as much as you possibly can.

Relationships that can move through arguments and challenging circumstances grow in productivity and trust. Dealing with these people will surely test your patience and perseverance so you have to learn the tools to understand the process of conflict resolution, from building clarity and mutual understand, to working with emotion and judgment.

Be calm, be patient, and be clear. Be explicit, and be very clear with the client, about everything. The more information given to the client in writing, the less likely there will be misunderstandings.

Be clear with the client about the expectations you have of the client regarding the client’s treatment of you and the treatment of your staff.

Be sure the client understands whom to deal with on which issues.If there is someone in your workplace who is driving you crazy then you should know how to deal with him. Difficult people exist at work, in all facets of life, and they come in every variety. And it is much tougher when they personally attack you or damage your professional standing.

While you probably can’t change such person, you can avoid being the victim by doing the following things:

- Identify problem people- Learn to know when a colleague is “toxic”. They must be those who talk constantly and never listen while others must always have the last words. Some coworkers fail to keep commitments while others criticize anything that they did not create themselves.

- Assess your situation- Take a deep breath and try to understand exactly what is happening to you. Realize that you are not alone.

- Take concrete action- Once you are fully aware of what is happening, let the coworker in question know that you are on to his or her game and that you will escalate it to a higher authority if necessary. Make sure to take action swiftly. It’s far better to tackle the problem while you can maintain some objectivity and emotional control.? Don’t sink to their level- You have to avoid doing dysfunctional approaches in dealing with them like sending anonymous notes, gossiping about the person, bad-mouthing him or her to the boss.

Dealing with a problem relative is a whole different beast rather than having difficulties with clients and coworkers.

A relationship that makes you feel violate isn’t healthy. You have to assert yourself to restore the balance.

Make sure you make your way in talking and discussing the problem with the person concerned.

Let him or her know you are bothered with what he or she does. Knowing where the problem rooted from will certainly help you in indicating what you necessarily have to do to solve the conflict.

If the person refuses to change, think deeply about your relationship with him or her.

You might find that you harbor one or more beliefs that perpetuate the problem. If your boundaries are reasonable, and the person is either unwilling or incapable of complying with them, you’re done because in most situations it would be foolish to continue such a relationship.

It will erode your self-respect and certainly affect your work.

You don’t want that, do you?

Many, having felt the unwarranted anxiety of extra exertion, may propose that a person should relax! Western man, with his ideas of temporal linearity and progress, is constantly conquering. Life for many is simply, and unknowingly, a dazzling spectacle: a pageant of archetypical warriors parading down a one-way street of time, wondering what riches lie ahead and yet behind them since they sprint backwards, motivated not by the unseen future rewards for their neurotic work, but propelled by the looming shadow engulfing the path of destruction created by their trampling feet. Anything, including others, become stepping stones towards the malleable future in the mad dash away from the unchanging past of not-enough.

Imagine, then, the veteran who begins to think this stretch of road may be a giant treadmill. No amount of additional effort will bring him any closer to the end of this mobius strip. Suppose he drops his Calvinistic work ethic and adopts the practice of karma yoga. By the old adage “work smarter, not harder,” his efficiency and, therefore, his leisure increases. His sense of urgency has diminished. He relaxes.

Much psychological toil can be passive. Propose a problem, and instead of actively deliberating, trust the subconscious mind to ruminate. It will chew on the problem while you carry on with leisure, and spit it back into your conscious cognition through one of its bridging mechanisms, such as a dream.

All one must do is stay aware. Consider the Pareto Principle: 80% of the results are derived from 20% of the efforts. This means effort is subject to diminishing returns, requiring an additional 80% of effort to produce an additional 20% of results. If one were to perform a utilitarianistic calculation weighing one’s time and effort, the most happiness would definitely be generated by shedding the inefficient 80% of effort. The veteran now works less than a quarter of the time he once did, and can still compete if he wishes.

Still a workaholic, the veteran, although content with producing 80% of the results he used to, falls victim to Parkinson’s Law. Parkinson’s Law states that “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” His old work ethic forces guilt upon him, and instead of enjoying himself and not concerning himself with the fruits of his labor, he performs his psychological drudgery. Procrastination, misdirection, and distraction bind him. The key to release the shackles is trust in his own psychology. Procrastination is more often a sign that time can be used more efficiently than a complete disregard for responsibility.

Flowers bloom when they bloom. A snake sheds its skin only at the rate that it sheds its skin. Sometimes, problems solve when they solve. A fly will push against a window until it dies of exhaustion. Maybe, instead of calculating the solution, tweaking the variables will allow the solution to present itself.

About why you’re doing something and whether you’re really committed to doing it. If you’re not – then ask yourself

What will happen if I do this?What will happen if I do this?What won’t happen if I don’t do this?

And then see whether you feel more or less committed than before.

If you’re not committed and can live with the consequences of not doing it – take it off your to do list.

2. Be honest with others

About where you’re focussing your energy, whether you’ll undertake a task or not and the time and resources needed to complete it.

And keep them up to date with progress.

3. Know that you always have a choice

It’s not unusual to put off tasks we consider unenjoyable, onerous or which we feel have been forced upon us. It’s as if we resent time spent on things we consider we ‘have to’ do rather than something which we choose to do. The reality, of course, is that we do have a choice. We don’t, for example, ‘have’ to complete a tax return. Sure, there always are consequences if we don’t – but we can still choose whether to or not.

4. Once you’ve decided to do something – be clear why you’re doing it

What are the benefits? Why did you choose this task over another? If, for example, I’m working on my tax return and get it in on time then I avoid paying a fine – leaving me with more money in my pocket – that might be reason enough to do it.

5. Recruit a ‘buddy’

Tell them what you have decided to do and the timescale you’ve set yourself (make sure it’s realistic). Ask them to check in with you at regular intervals to help you assess your progress- and to encourage you along the way.

6. Divide all but the smallest/easiest/quickest tasks into bite size chunks

To make them more manageable.

When you do this you know that as you take action each day on your project, you only have to focus on one step at a time. This prevents any feeling of being overwhelmed by the sheer size of the project. Because today’s project – the only thing you need focus on – is just the right size.

7. Take a first step

Note I’ve said ‘take a first step’. Not ‘take the first step’. One of the things that can sometimes hold us back is feeling we don’t know where to start, or feeling that we can’t start unless the whole path is mapped out before us. Focus on what you can do right now.

There comes a time – often before we recognise it – when it’s right to stop planning and start doing. Taking a first step opens up possibilities and options and takes us nearer our goal.

8. Invest in a kitchen timer

Decide how much time you’re going to spend on each task that day and the focus on it – and only it – for just that amount of time.

As soon as it the allotted time is up stop. And begin work on something else. This discipline is important – it helps you make progress in several areas each day rather than using one area as an ‘excuse’ to procrastinate elsewhere.

9. Reward action as you go

NB reward action. This is particularly important for long/multifaceted projects where it may be some time before you see results.

And, of course, you can also reward yourself when you get the desired result

10. Know when to stop. And do so.

However organized a person you may be and however much you may care about keeping up with your “to do list”, there are some people who can take too much of your time and prevent you from staying on schedule. Preventing others for consuming more of your time than you actually have is the best defense.

When it comes to clients, let the voice mail or your assistant take the messages for you while you can still get away with it. When it comes to supervisors, spend time where you can work hard but not be easily reached and leave a note on the office door saying that you are in the library, taking care of errands or experimenting in the lab. Work is a good excuse even when it comes to bosses. If the boss is actually you and your employees keep you busy with unimportant matters, you can always ask them how their work is going to make them want to shorten the discussion.

When coworkers spend too much time chatting with you, you will both be seen as idle and distracted. It is best to shorten the talks for both your ability to stay focused as well as for your reputation at the job. Here are some good lines to use with them: “I would really like to talk but it’s not the right time, I’m sorry”, “I have to finish this, I’ll meet you at lunch time in the break room”, “Could this please wait? I have to send this by 2 o’clock and I’m still working on it”.

Where family and friends are concerned, you may be disappointed with yourself for thinking that they are stealing away your time. If staying focused at work is important to you, then just offer them as much of your free time as you can so that they don’t need you in your working hours. In this way you won’t be feeling bad about saying no to them from time to time either, because you actually give them attention whenever you can.

When it comes to new acquaintances whom you know you cannot get closer too, try and let them understand from starters that you are a busy person and that exchanging regular visits is not something that can fit into your schedule. Not being prompt when returning phone calls and not telling them things that are personal to you will maintain your relationship at the level of just being acquaintances. This attitude is fairer than it is to make friends with someone new and drop him or her when you see that you cannot keep up.

Limit your water/snack machine/coffee break/bathroom trips – Getting up to stretch at some point during the day is inevitable. After all, being in that cramped cubicle can be physically taxing on your body. But try to limit your breaks. Sure, you’ll get hungry for a snack or soda at some point and will end up making a quick run to the vending machine, and then there’s nothing wrong with that. But when people in the next department begin to know you on a first-name basis when the people in your own office barely even know your name, you know you’re making one trip too many. Focus on the task at hand and get some work done.

Return from your scheduled breaks on time – We all remember what it was like to be in class on a boring day, then hear the bell ring for lunchtime or recess. Remember that feeling of sheer liberty that washed over you, knowing you had some time to do whatever you wanted? You didn’t know whether to run outside and play kickball with your friends, scarf down the peanut butter and jelly sandwich with Capri Sun juice your mom prepared, or sneak in a quick nap in the shade behind the trees. It’s the same way in the corporate world; people are just a tad bit older. Kickball has turned into the conversation about the club or bar over the weekend, and that sandwich has probably turned into an unhealthy fast food meal. Anyway, we digress. We know you’re excited about your breaks, but be sure you get back to the office on time. Remember that you’ve got a ton of work waiting for you when you get back.

Try not to browse the Internet if you don’t need to. Popular, addictive websites like Twitter, Youtube, and Facebook (amongst others) are the main culprits. These sites are typically known to the corporate world as “side-trackers” – they can keep you occupied for hours on end if you’re not careful. Use the Internet for business purposes only; you’ve got plenty of time to check your favorite artist’s newest music video, or who your old college roommate is dating when you get home.

Keep cell phone usage/texting to a minimum (unless for emergencies, of course). Crazy how time flies, huh? Ten years ago, it seemed like only businessmen and people of extreme importance had cell phones. Nowadays, everyone and their grandmothers have one (if not more) of these ubiquitous technological creations. Now while they can undoubtedly provide hours of fun, they can also easily distract you while at work. You may be tempted to text back your friend who has the latest, juiciest bit of gossip, but realize that your boss needs that report done ASAP, and you haven’t even started it yet.

Cut down conversation time. Sure, you’re excited to hear about your co-worker Annie’s wonderful, wild weekend, but realize that you have a million things to do. You have plenty of time to catch up throughout the day. Even though the work day seems to be a long eight hours, they go by pretty quickly, and in the blink of an eye, everyone is packing up and going home. Meanwhile, you’re stuck in your cubicle with an eye-level stack of papers and a can of Red Bull. Cut down on the chit-chat and get your work done.

Realizing that these keys are for your own good is important and are also a clear sign of maturation. Remember that at jobs, first impressions always count. It doesn’t matter if you’re working for one your dad’s moving companies or a corporate job; you have to show the same tact and discipline. Keep these tips in mind the next time you’re trying to jump-start your productivity at work.