When I was originally planning to become a restaurant owner / operators 1. my restaurant, I was told that I could expect to work 70 hours a week. At the time I was working as a GM for the restaurant and on average 55 to 60 hours a week. To be young and single, I took these hours as part of the package. Shortly after I opened the restaurant, I was married and significant changes in life style would be. I needed them to consider the fact that if I wanted to raise a family, my time was now divided.

As is often the case, when we do something a priority, we can usually make it happen. I knew only one way to win in running a restaurant and was taking me a long time. That’s why I hired Time Management consultant who was working with Hewlett Packard middle and upper managers.

Below are some tips practices and he taught me not only involve having the quality of my time to raise a family but made me a more effective manager of the restaurant my :.

1) Most importantly, I learned to run restaurant operations system. Systems designed for consistent and repetitious performance of procedures work. Instead of having to personally direct all aspects of the business, I now had a system that ran the restaurant. I ran systems and rushed staff. Clear and proven operating systems are the key ingredient to successful franchises restaurant. Start up restaurants without franchise type system will pre-determine the 70 hour week for GM or owner operator.

2). Is it important or just pressing? How often today is GM pause to answer a call that could easily be returned at the designated time set by GM? How often is the salesman drop by to introduce themselves and their product, when they could easily be said to please call for an interview? What may be important to someone does not necessarily make it important. It may also be important but not urgent, and can be treated later on GM time moderation. Therefore, the choice of time the GM should be based on the determination that it is both urgent and important.

3). Prioritizing time “to do list” is useful as long as the priorities for its activities are flexible. No matter how well the restaurant manager is organized, there will always be times when his or her immediate attention will be needed.

. 4) To see activities the next day and try to plan for them can save a lot of wasted time. For example, it might be a good idea to plan activities for the paper work on the slowest day of the week rather than a busy weekend day.

5) A good way to organize yourself to be more productive with your time in a week to monitor the activities of your time spent on them and take a “waste of time”.

Time management in the first time independent restaurant start up is usually more trouble than it is for a restaurant chain with a proven franchise style operating system. Time management is more by proven franchise style operating system described in proven restaurant concept operations manuals.