There is no such thing as time management; we all have the same amount of time and all you can do is to manage yourself and what you do in the twenty four hours available to you. Not even Richard Branson has twenty six.
You will achieve nothing unless you have a commitment to achieve clearly defined goals. You will achieve nothing unless you have made that commitment a burning desire. Ask yourself why on January the first many people make a goal to lose weight and within a few days they are back on the chocolate bars!
Goals
You must set your goals, both business and personal; then develop a burning desire. The next step is acquire the knowledge you need; plan and just keep doing it. Do not give up no matter how long it takes and how little you progress seem to be making in working towards your goals? You will get there; no question. Practice makes perfect. It is important that you develop consistency. A little every day and you will get there. It is just like eating an elephant. You kill the elephant, metaphorically of course, cut it up into bite size pieces and then freeze down the pieces. You cook and eat a few pieces daily and you will soon have eaten the whole animal.
I could write a book on goals but for now make sure your goals will stretch you, that they are time dated and that you have short term medium term and long term goals.
Burning Desire
You owe it to your loved ones to succeed: to do so you will need to develop a burning desire.
If you review all your achievements in life that is large and small, educational, social, professional and relationships you will notice a common thread. Nothing has been achieved without the desire to achieve that goal.
To pull you through all the negatives and difficulties you need desire and the greater the desire the easier it becomes. You need a burning desire; you must want it so badly that it hurts.
You must feed that desire by affirmations and reviewing daily your progress towards your goals. Thumb through your dream folder, have a white board with all the goals shown and do everything that keeps you working towards your goals.
Work life balance
In business you can work all hours. Yes, I know; but everybody has the same 24 hours. How does Richard Branson find time to have the necessary rest and recuperation? By delegation and making sure there is a work life balance.
If you do not get a balance in your life you will find that the law of diminishing returns kicks in.
On the other hand when you return from a break you will be surprised at the amount of work you can get done having been fully refreshed.
In planning the first items you should enter into your diary are the necessary holidays and family time.
True success is happiness and you will not find that without balancing finance, love, learning and health.
Planning
When you go on holiday you plan everything; the destination, the travel to include transport to and from the airport, spending money etc. but for something more important, your business, you turn up for work and let the day rule you. You end up being a rudderless ship.
It took me many years before I put into practice what I had read and listened to on discs. Now at the end of the previous day I list everything I need to do the following day. That includes the content of the appropriate hanging file. When I start the following day I highlight and number the most important five entries. Those that will have the most impact on my business.
I keep doing that throughout the day continually reprioritising the entries and adding as necessary as events happen but only if they are important.
The tasks still open at the end of the day are transferred to the following day. I used to worry if there were entries over at the end of the day; now I do not need to worry as all the important entries will have been cleared and those that are transferred to the list for the next day will be relatively unimportant.
Daily planning will achieve a lot but will not be as effective unless it is part of an overall plan. That is both your business life and personal aspirations.
Every business should have a business plan and that should be revised and
If you do not achieve all you planned do not beat yourself up. Just work systematically towards your goals. By using lists you will have done all the important tasks and those that you did not get to can be attended to the following day.
Distractions:
You must not answer every telephone call at the time it comes in. Your staff can take a message and only alert you if they feel the call is important. You can and always should return a call when you want to and in order of importance. It is unacceptable not to return calls.
You must not access your E mails all day. Remember in the days of traditional post it would be days before you received the letter. Email only gives it the importance of urgency. By downloading emails which are not on you "to do" list you probably have to leave something that is more urgent.
You must not subject yourself to telesales. You know when you are going to buy! Let your staff handle these calls.
Meetings
Keep meetings to a minimum; try to handle communication by email and the telephone which are more time effective.Make sure you have an agenda. Keep them short or at the very least at the start announce how long you have allocated. After the meeting prepare minutes with the follow up action noted with the person responsible for that action named. During the meeting only speak when necessary. Listen more than you speak. Try not to travel to attend meetings. That is time wasted; hold the meeting in your office and use Skype.
80: 20 rule
The famous Parato principle should be followed for everything in life but most certainly as far as clients in the service industries. 20% of the customers are responsible for 80% of the invoiced value.
Choose who you deal with; do not deal with wasters. You know what I mean. There are those clients and associates who demand a disproportionate amount of your time and effort for a very small return.
Telephone
As already explained you should control when you take incoming calls. For outgoing calls, especially sales calls, it is best to allocate a specific time on your plan for the day and make as many calls one after the other as you can. You will find that makes that task more effective. The first few calls may not be very successful but you become more proficient and get better results the more calls you make.
Have you ever found the telephone to weigh a ton?
We all know how hard it is to pick up the telephone but it is easier if you project forward and see what one simple telephone call will generate in income later. If you relate that to the time taken by a single telephone call you would probably change your mind and not find it so difficult when you work out the arithmetic. The return per call could eventually be worth say 500. With that knowledge the call becomes so much easier to make. What is your fear that makes it hard to make those calls?
Pads
How often have you thought of something or recalled something you had been trying to remember and said I will remember that. How much did you in fact remember?
I have a small pad of paper in my vehicles, by my bed and I also carry a small electronic recorder. I do not forget as much as I used to but regretfully I still forget some matters.
Ideas are precious! That thought might be the light bulb moment that will make all the difference. Do not miss it!
Paper and pen can be an inconvenient method and so I carry an electronic pocket recorder and the combination of both should ensure you miss nothing of great importance.
Urgent versus important
When planning your day prioritise the tasks. Make sure you complete all the important tasks and that you are not distracted by the urgent ones. Urgent tasks assume importance simply because they seem to demand immediate action.
Assess the importance and urgency and do what is ultimately important in order of urgency. Plan to avoid crises; they are stressful and take you away from what is important.
Control your diary
When self-employed it is easy to work too many hours. Often you feel you have to work but you do not have to; you must have a work life balance. Control your diary by blocking out both family and relaxation time such as exercise or for your hobby.
Holidays are also very important.
You will find that when you return to work you will soon catch up as your performance will have benefited from the rest.
Cycling
Business is very similar. You work hard to gain momentum and then the danger is that you sit back and put less effort in. The difference is business is so much more important and you must always be "cycling" hard.
Always be marketing
Most people only have a marketing strategy when setting up in business. From then on most people only market spasmodically to say the least. You must have a strategy and continue to market continuously.
Aim to be the best, for example for the image of your business use a professional designer.
I will be ever grateful to Nigel Botterill; he says you should spend your time working on keeping and getting new clients. Without clients you have no business. He spends the first hour plus doing just that. I go into the office at 6.30, breakfast and then work on my marketing until the staff arrive and that becomes impossible. That has probably been one of the most important ideas I have learned.
Next
Never give up; move on; next. Clearly do not carry on with something unprofitable. Find out the cause, correct it and carry on. Just do not give up. Remain persistent and consistent.
Delegation
You will have to relearn your approach and realise that you do not have to do everything; we tend to feel that we have to do it because nobody else can do it as well.
Leadership is important but true leadership is delegating the task and getting it done by the appropriate person; in terms of cash by the lowest paid team member.
I read this great book by Ken Blanchard The One Minute Manager meets the Monkey. This is not only a time saver but clearly the best for the business.
Paperless
One of the best decisions I made some seven years ago was to go paperless. It was a fantastic decision. You need to adopt a document management system to know all the benefits.
If you are working through a list and you either start a task or you pick up paper do not stop or put the paper down; complete the task. If not you will have to waste time when returning to the uncompleted task.
1 to 31 files
I was always taught that success comes from being tidy and methodical. I have seen desks knee deep in paper. Funny but they often know exactly where to find a particular piece.
The system that I use I learned from Peter Thomson's Achievers Edge. I have 35 files 31 numbered 1 through to 31 and 4 for the quarters. When I handle paper I action it but if it is needed to be kept for some reason, often because it will be needed later it is put in the appropriate file. Those not time dated are kept in the appropriate quarter. When planning a day I go to the appropriate file and add as appropriate to the list for that day.
Carpenters' rule
One final point; you can lose so much time if you make mistakes and have to spend valuable time correcting the errors. This can be avoided by applying the "carpenters' rule: measure twice and cut once.
Find time to smell the roses or watch the birds
If you rush around doing and doing without a proper plan you will not achieve as much as if you remain calm and have some time for yourself.
When controlling your diary do add entries for personal time such as breaks and holidays. Some people feel they must work almost nonstop but you will find that if you programme in breaks and holidays you soon catch up on your return. You come back refreshed and can work more effectively. Also it is surprising what thoughts you will have whilst relaxing; so always have a pocket recorder with you.
Another good habit is at least once a month take yourself off and have a quiet drink, not alcoholic, and just sit there with a pen and paper. With no distractions, just review, plan and you will be surprised at what you will come up with. When you look back you will be amazed at the results these sessions lead to.
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