Working from a home-based business means that we can take full advantage of multi-tasking…or not—depending on our temperament and preferred mode of working. Folks who are really great multi-taskers can often do family, personal and work errands all at the same time and take advantage of excellent time management skills. I am someone who can lose a whole day to errands and then find myself playing catch-up in my typically “off work” time.
What I do know is that momentum is important to me and how I work—if I have to leave my desk and work focus to run errands in the middle of the day, it is very a very slim chance, indeed, that I will be able to return to work with the full focus I had when all cylinders were firing. So, I try to keep errands isolated to one day, and I make that an afternoon since mornings are my most productive time. Others may be able to sprinkle errands throughout the week, but I try to lump all my errands together and just dedicate an afternoon (usually Friday afternoons) to taking care of personal and work-related errands.
I imagine that those who run home businesses where there is the need to mail and ship or visit customers are faced with needing to organize their time to include and incorporate errands. If part of your business operations requires you to be out and about regularly, taking care of errands might be easier. I do know one woman who runs an e-bay-type business and she has evolved to only doing her shipping and mailing twice a week—on Mondays and Thursdays—all because it was taking up too much of her time to do it as orders came in.
Time management is an ongoing issue for those of us who operate home-based businesses, and how we deal with running our errands during work time is just one element of effective time management!
See Also: When Your Work Schedule Changes and Working From Home–6 Time Management Tips