Business
Today we are talking about ideas to apply effective time management principles to help you be even more success. One of the success principles of any successful person is effective time management. In order to create your ideal life and business, you must learn to schedule EVERYTHING (even showers initially, eating, drive time, working out, family time, etc.) and be extremely effective at time management. If you are like me, you think you can get done more than you actually can, so you run out of time to get everything done you put on your list. For me, this isn’t a good feeling, especially if it were to happen day after day. When you begin to calendar your activities, take a look at everything you have to do and how long you think it will take to get each one done and then add “cushion” time to each activity. I haven’t been able to come up with a rule of them for how much extra time should be given to each activity. It is dependent on you and the activity. You may have to explore in the beginning to figure out what works best for you based on how well you estimated the initial time for each activity. If you actually do finish the activity before the time you allotted, you have the gift of time to move on to the next activity. Put everything on your calendar. In time, you will become better at how much time you actually need for each activity. You want to also make sure to include buffer time for something that has a deadline. Say you have to submit a proposal to a prospective client by a certain date. In order to have it done, you determine approximately how much time you think it will take to create the proposal and then add a bit of time to that total. You then give yourself a deadline for completion that is 2 or 3 days before the actual ‘drop dead’ deadline. This means that if you have issues and unforeseen things that occur, you still will complete it by the actual deadline date. This works well when you have to rely on others to help you get something done. If you get it done early, all the better for you and what impression it will make with the prospective client. You may have to go through trial and error on a schedule until you find optimal results. Some people are early birds and will tackle certain tasks first thing, while others will find they are more effective in the afternoon. Just be sure to schedule tasks when they can be achieved with the greatest efficiency and outcome. Calendaring your activities will also allow you to identify similar activities that can be completed together. If you have several activities that are the same type of activity, do them all at the same time. For example, you would do certain types of calls all at the same time, interview potential clients, conduct annual meetings with clients, etc. For lower-payoff activities like administrative duties and email, specify during certain times in the day they will be completed. When you don’t continually have to change ‘hats’ while working on the activities required to achieve your goals, you will save a lot of time and mental energy. What are the highest payoff activities you can do to achieve your goals in the timeframe you have set? You want to make sure you spend more of your time on these activities versus other lower payoff activities. Work on those activities that produce the results you want and not the ones that might be easier to do or more fun or don’t cause you to go outside your comfort zone. You may go so far, while at work, to say that you only take calls from clients during certain times in order to maximize your efficiency. To honor your calendar, ask them if it would be okay to call them back within 24 hours – or ideally schedule a time when you can speak to them so you don’t play phone tag (that is a big waste of time). Color-coding your activities could also help for a “quick-at-a-glance” reminder. The important part of time management is first to put all your activities on the calendar and