The Importance of time and project management

Kim Sones and Matt Eden are the founders of The Landscaper’s Hub, a free support group on Facebook created for business owners new to the landscaping industry, and also for those who are soon to embark on their landscaping business venture.  Matt is the owner of Eden Horticultural Ltd, a landscape gardening business based in Chelmsford, Essex, and Kim owns Accredited Supplier, Sones Accountancy Services.

Each Wednesday at 12 noon, Matt and Kim host a live session on a wide variety of different topics such as building a successful team, paving, types of business ownership, beds and borders, setting up the accounting system for your business and water management.  Over the past fortnight, the topics of interest centred around time and project management.  They learnt a great deal about these interlinked topics from the management course they attended with ActionCOACH and they thought they would share their knowledge with others.

Business owners juggle a million different balls and wear many hats.  It is all too easy to become completely overwhelmed by the size of to-do lists, and that’s if there's been the time to even write one!  Thankfully, there are many different techniques to introduce into both personal and business lives which will provide a better work/life balance.  Working late at night, starting earlier in the morning, and rushing things but not getting anything done properly, will be a thing of the past hopefully!

In a nutshell, it all comes down to one word. Planning.  Below are just some of the useful recommendations made in the live Facebook sessions:

• Take time to establish summer and winter schedules which feed into a two week work plan, so you know where you are at any given point in the year, month, week and day. Work with the peaks and troughs of your year and set your diary accordingly.
• Review your calendar at the start and middle of each fortnight to see if changes are needed.
• The importance of time blocking.  Only schedule appointments for new work on certain days of the week so you’re not rushing here, there and everywhere trying to squeeze everything in.  If a potential client can’t make one of those days, schedule them for the following week.  Time block for writing quotes and dealing with invoicing so that they do not get left until the last minute.
• Build in time for set up and clean down days on projects and invoice for them.
• Record on a document or time management app how long it takes to do certain work, e.g. cutting a hedge or laying a patio. You can use this information in the future to plan your work schedules effectively.
• Schedule a “faff-around” day once a fortnight to take care of all of those little things that help your business tick over, e.g. taking the van for an MOT.  If you don’t need it, then you can build it back into your diary.
• And many more…..

A word of warning though.  You can plan as much as you want, but if you are not strict with yourself about it, the whole system will come tumbling down, along with your good intentions.  Be vigilant about keeping to your schedule and looking after your valuable time.

If you would like to listen to the full live sessions, head over to The Landscaper’s Hub page on Facebook - https://m.facebook.com/groups/thelandscapershub/