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The rumour mills will have you believe that it's only women that can multi-task but considering some of the most successful businesses are run by men and women alike, I think it's safe to say that that's just not true, which is a good thing as the ability to multi-task is a must have skill if you want to do well in business.

One of the biggest stumbling blocks a lot of people seem to struggle with is the ability to balance or juggle 2, 3 or 4 projects at a time. When you are running your own business you become the manager, secretary, PR, cleaner, payroll, office assistant, accountant and everything else that a good business needs to run, and wearing that many hats at once is going to take a large amount of organisational and multi-tasking skills.

Write it down.
Make a note of everything that comes up that has any relevance to your business. Quite often we think of things that need to be done and convince ourselves that we'll remember it later, and then what happens? Yep, poof! Just like that, the very important phone call or email that we had to send falls out of your head until it's far too late.

Organise your paperwork.
The more organised you are the easier it becomes to run your business. Keep papers and files relating to different aspects of your business separated and clearly labelled.

Allocate your time.
As you have so many different roles to play it's important to give each aspect your full attention. To do that separate your week into specific tasks that need to be completed. You can*t be too rigid with this as things will crop up from time to time that you just need to take care of but unless it's unavoidable, stick to the schedule and get things done.

Get a diary.
As well as noting down what you have to do it's a good idea to keep a note of what you have already done. Get a diary in which you can enter a daily summary of your activities that way you will always have a record of what you did and when you did it. This can also come in very handy if you ever loose any work or suffer from any sort of network or computer failure.

Stay focused.
Finally stay focused on what you are doing. If you*re anything like me there are times when you are your own worst distraction as your mind races around thinking of all the other things that you need to do. At that point get your note book out and write it down or stick it on a post it and come back to it later.

To keep your quality of work high always finish what you*ve started.