In life, you sometimes you have more time than money. Other times, you may have more money than time.

But the reality for entrepreneurs is that they don’t have enough of both.

Here are two business concepts that will help you manage your time and money.

Bootstrapping Builds a Business on Little Money

Bootstrapping is when you start a business with very little money and build it based on the money you make on sales. 

There are so many ways you can spend money when starting a new business. This is a challenge when you are not making much money. It’s important that you consider the following very carefully.

• Can you get the things or help you need for free? Perhaps you can trade something for what you need.
• Can you delay the purchase? A dollar spent later leaves more in your pocket now.
• Can you get a discount on the price? Sometimes simply asking for a discount will get you one.
• Will the purchase definitely help you make more money? Is that a guarantee or a guess?

A bootstrapping entrepreneur has to make a lot of decisions about how to spend the little cash they have. Remember, you can only spend a dollar once.

Set Priorities to Use Your Time Well

So much to do, so little time. This is the second, big problem for small business owners. That’s where the four boxes come in.

The Stephen Covey quadrant, or Time Management Matrix, helps you focus on your priorities and manage your time.  

• Anything you place in Quad I is urgent and important so takes priority.  
• Quad II is Important but not urgent. This is where you will hopefully spend most of your time. 
• Quad III is urgent but not important. You may decide to drop some of these. 
• Quad IV is neither urgent nor important.  You will likely want to drop as many of these as possible.

By thinking of what you need to get done in these four categories, you will spend more time on what really builds your business and waste less time on unproductive tasks.

Time and money: how will you spend them?