If you are a window cleaner, time management is of major importance. This goes for window cleaners just starting out cleaning windows part-time and continuing to work full-time or who have recently transitioned from part-time side hustlers to full-time entrepreneurs running their businesses full-time. Either way, window cleaners need to have good time management skills. When done effectively, time management can enable you to complete more and more jobs in less time. This is especially true during the peak season when it sometimes feels like there is very little time and way too much to do. Any downtime at all is typically spent going door to door with business cards or door hangers, making phone calls to managers or owners of commercial locations with information about your business, scheduling, invoicing, or even organizing your supplies for the next day or weeks schedule, or even re-ordering any new supplies that are needed.
When discussing time management, the first step is creating a schedule based on your top priorities. This schedule can be hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, or even quarterly. This can be done the old-fashioned way by writing it down with a pencil on a calendar or a piece of paper, or with a more modern method, such as electronically, by using a scheduling app on your phone or laptop. But remember the old saying regarding time management, ‘If you can’t find more time, change how you’re using the time you already have.’
“The Covey Time Management Matrix” was created by Steven Covey, the author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. It is built on four parts:
- Urgent and important tasks.
- Not urgent but important tasks.
- Urgent but not important tasks.
- Not urgent and not important tasks.
While you’re looking at your time and schedule ahead of you and realizing the list of priorities and jobs that need to get done, it’s important to find out how much time you’re currently spending. Goal orientation and prioritizing jobs are characteristics of successful time management for any business owner, especially owners/operators of window cleaning companies. Delegate enough hours during the day, week, or month to meet those priorities and jobs. Stick to your daily schedule and set reasonable time limits for each job. Not completing your jobs on time will frustrate you and the homeowner or business owner, and you will more than likely lose a customer.
Window cleaners need to learn to say ‘no’ when scheduling jobs that they feel will be beyond the time they have during that week or beyond the skills or equipment they have. When an estimate is given on a large commercial building or a large two-story or three-story house, it’s important that the window cleaner not only have a good idea of the time and work involved but also find out if they have the right equipment to get the job done in time. Items such as extension poles that will go out to the necessary length, the proper ladders, Waterfed Pole filtration systems, and different attachments make our job easier and quicker.
When dealing with time management and equipment, keeping all your gear and equipment as organized as possible on your work truck or van is important. The last thing you want to do is waste time on your first job of the day while trying to find the right gear for that job and have more locations to go to after that. Having a disorganized work vehicle will not only slow down the job you’re working on, but it will leave you frustrated for the entire job, which will more than likely carry over to the next job you have or even the next day’s job.
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