In the last 27 years, I have had numerous clients complain to me that they had "no time." They often do not take time off for themselves, or never have time to actually manage the practice, as opposed to doing the work themselves, or have a wife/husband who complains that they never see them, etc. 

Many different factors contribute to this: not having the right staff who can be relied upon to do the work and do it accurately; not managing projects efficiently throughout the weeks, months, year, so not everything is a last minute emergency; doing work that is not at your level of expertise and hourly rate; and so on.

While all of these issues could and should be handled with the proper management system in place, there are a few steps anyone can take right here and now to improve their time management.

There are 168 hours in a week. If you deduct the time you spend on seeing clients or working on their projects, marketing the practice, management and training of staff, CE, meal times and sleep time—you will typically end up with somewhere between 10 to 20 hours—minimally—which are unaccounted for. So you DO have time.

What you do with this time might be very valuable—time with the kids, church, volunteering—or it might be less important, like watching TV or fiddling with your phone, but there IS time. That is the first thing that needs to be established.

Now we can carve out some of that time for vital things. That would be some time just for yourself, to do the things you like to do that help you relax and be upbeat; some time just with your spouse, to do the things you both like to do; some family or kids time and some management time. This last one is when you work ON the office, not IN the office, and get it more efficient, less “all on your own shoulders,” and so forth.

Even if you designate only one hour per week for each of the above, conditions would improve markedly. The tricks are:

1. Make it always the same day and at the same time for each function, so it doesn't fall out.
2. When you spend time with your spouse or kids, give them your full undivided attention—turn off the phone, do not discuss work, do things which are fun, listen and communicate.
3. Do not let anything or anyone interfere with these slots and put something else there. On the rare occasion when it is unavoidable, immediately schedule an alternate time for the function that had to be preempted.
4. Use the management time to become even more organized, and end up like many of my CPAs and EAs who are able to work much less hours, yet maintain steady expansion. In fact, a year or so ago, I was astounded to find out that nine or so of my CPAs took anywhere from one day to two weeks planned time off at the height of tax season. When I expressed my amazement to them ("You took two weeks off to go to Alaska in March???"), their answer was, "Isn't this what I came to you for?"

– Ahuda, Sterling Senior Consultant