I am always quite surprised at the time management courses that expect you to spend a lot of time going over a lot of what you already know.  I expect that most people would know the basic concepts but have difficulty in the practicality of putting a lot of the concepts into their every day routines.  Small business owners especially who work as a solopreneur or are just starting their business often have to fulfil so many roles that they find it hard to manage their time.

I think the biggest misconception is that you follow similar "rules" as a small business owner, as you did when you were employed. This means that the small business owner has a "to do" list and attempts to be as efficient as possible while their main focus should really be on being "effective".  How often have we seen in the corporate world experts who are only good at looking busy.  You know the type that march quickly around the office with a clip board and a phone glued to their ear.  Generally, they are promoted up as they look and act the part, yet they may be totally ineffective.

In small business, we need to make sure that our time is as effective as possible.  We should not multi-task but concentrate on finishing one thing at a time.  We should also automate or outsource those tasks that can be done easier and more efficient by a smarter system or a smarter virtual assistant.

So the next time you are tempted to put a to do list together, cross out the items that are not your core business and make it a to action list for you.  The crossed out items are those that you should either automate or outsource.

As happens so often when free services go well, the bigger players come in and buy the product to harness the community and convert you to a paid user or use advertising with the main aim of bringing in big dollars rather than provide a free, ad free service that works.

Now that Skype has been bought by Microsoft it may be time for you to consider another provider.  There are plenty available and this article on about.com highlights just some of these services.

http://voip.about.com/od/voipsoftware/a/SoftphoneList.htm

Skype wasn't the most feature rich service available but it was definitely the most popular.  I have been a user for over 8 years and have used the service and seen its progression through a number of upgrades.  I first used the service because it had a large number of users, at that time around 2 million.  It was also easy to install and start using and others I knew started to use it.

Over the coming weeks we will be testing the other services available and will make recommendations on the best service for our virtual assistants and clients to use.