Time Management Self Improvement

All great achievers, all successful people, are those who have been able to gain control over their time. It has been said that all human beings have been created equal in one respect; each person has been given 24 hours each day.

We need to choose to give our best time to our most challenging situation. It’s not how much we do that matters; its how much we get done. We should choose to watch our time, not our watch. One of the best timesavers is the ability to say no. Not saying no when you should is one of the biggest wastes of time you will ever experience.

Don’t spend a dollar’s worth of time for ten cent’s worth of results.

Make sure to take care of the vulnerable times in your days. These vulnerable times are the first thing in the morning and the last thing at night. I have heard a minister say that what a person is like at midnight when he is all alone reveals that person’s true self.

Never allow yourself to say, “I could be doing big things if I weren’t so busy doing small things!” Take control of your time. The greater control you exercise over your time, the greater freedom you will experience in your life. The psalmist prayed, So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom (Ps. 90:12).

People are always saying, “I’d give anything to be able to…” There is a basic leadership principle that says, “6×1=6.” If you want to write a book, learn to play a musical instrument, become a better tennis player, or do anything else important, then you should devote one hour a day, six days a week, to a project. Sooner than you think, what you desire will become a reality. There are not many things a person cannot accomplish in 312 hours a year!

Remember the future arrives an hour at a time. Gain control of your time, and you will gain control of your life.

- John Mason, from the book An Enemy Called Average (Want to purchase this book? Go to http://www.freshword.com/resources)

John Mason is a national best-selling author, nationally recognized speaker and book coach. You can visit his site at http://www.freshword.com/signup to receive this nugget and ones just like it in your email inbox every week. Very inspiring!

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Ever feel that you spend too much time shoring up the performance of some of your people? More time with one or two than with some of the others.

And doesn’t that just drain you? So think about those employees and how they are draining you and damaging the energy you have. The energy that could well be directed much more productively.

There are people in your business who just seem to be way off where you want them to be. They are behaving as they are and it’s perfectly their right to be the way they are. But not in your business.

If it doesn’t fit what you want, then you have two options (apart from just tolerating it, which I’m sure you don’t want to do):-

1. Make very clear what your expectations are in words of one syllable and write them down. Manage it closely and be prepared for 2.
2. Work out a way to take them from your business (remember - you are doing them a favour, because if they are in an job which is way different than they are, they will be very unhappy underneath).
3. There’s a 3. Recruit a lot more carefully in future.

• What do you observe in your team today?
• Who are the ‘keepers’
• Who are the ‘losers’ (the ones who suck you dry of energy)
• Who are the ‘Oooops, I should never have taken them on in the first place’.

Great learning too!

And just think about what you will do with the time! One of my clients, when asked to note the people who wasted his time in one week found that one person alone accounted for 30% of his time!

Solving that issue, which required a little focused attention, within two weeks had created that space for him. Space that he used to build his business way above target.

Martin Haworth is a Business and Management Coach. He works worldwide,
mainly by phone, with small business owners, managers and corporate leaders. He
has hundreds of hints, tips and ideas at his website,
http://www.coaching-businesses-to-success.com.
(Note to editors. Feel free to use this article, wherever you think it might be of value - it would be good if you could include a live link)

…helping you, to help your people, to help your business grow…

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In the book The Power of Full Engagement, Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz offer a paradigm for time management which focuses on leveraging energy rather than time. Loehr says, “The ultimate measure of our lives is not how much time we spend on the planet, but rather how much energy we invest in the time we have.”1 Based on the authors’ concept of harnessing your energy to be in FULL ENGAGEMENT,2 here are some key strategies to help you to empty your plate and accomplish more:

1) Manage your energy, not your time.
Start paying attention to your body. If you experience afternoon fatigue, consider the source.: Is it your diet? Are you getting only a little sleep? “Pushing through” tasks when your energy is low causes ineffectiveness. When you’re sharp and focused, you can complete the job more quickly.

* When do you have the most energy? Tackle hardest projects at that time.

* When do you have the least? Take breaks. Schedule power naps, workout, or other activities that require less focus.

* Consider what is zapping your energy. Are you doing things that are not in line with your values? Are you procrastinating? Identify the times that you have energy and times that you don’t. What are you doing differently?

2) Downtime is key for your success.
While it would be great to run at 110% all the time, our bodies require food, rest and relaxation. Many successful people recommend one day a week that you do NO WORK, giving you more energy for the other six days of the week. Think of your body as a battery and your day off as the charger. Constantly unplugging it and using it will drain it, and you’ll never get fully charged if you keep unplugging the battery and using it. It takes three times as long to charge a dead battery than it does to keep it charged (and who wants to run out of juice mid-task), so don’t wait until you are dead; charge yourself weekly with downtime.

3) Rituals help to maintain focus.
When we are overwhelmed or overloaded, we operate less efficiently and waste time. The authors of The Power of Full Engagement recommend RITUALS for optimizing energy and time. Rituals set up a recurring time and pattern for needed tasks and behaviors. Coaches commonly suggest establishing 10 daily habits, or rituals, that support what you have to do anyway. However, by linking them together in a set time and pattern, you go on autopilot and accomplish them quickly and easily. Habits or rituals are daily tasks that take a short amount of time and add to your productivity, e.g., making to-do lists, confirming appointments, bill paying, clearing your desk, filing, returning phone calls, checking e-mail, drinking water, eating fruit, etc.

4) Purpose fuels performance.
Know why you are doing what you are doing. We get caught up in doing tasks because we always have done them, think we need to do them or just should do them. “Shoulds” are a performance killer. They never quite reach priority status on our to-do list. Why is the task important? Why do you care that it gets done? Things that we approach in a lackadaisical manner take longer to accomplish; stand to be interrupted; are likely to be put off or left undone; or are completed with loose ends. When you work with purpose, you complete things quickly, stay focused and generate momentum. This will allow you to finish the current objective in less time and go on to accomplish even more.

5) Work in sprints (small bursts of focused energy).
Life is full of interruptions and urgent or unplanned tasks. How do you keep yourself from falling victim to a reactionary cycle of running from one urgent thing to the next, praying for a minute to last longer? Schedule sprint times where you are 100% focused on one thing. I recommend sprints be 30 or 50 minute time blocks. Close the doors, shut off the phone, have a full drink, and clear all distractions for your sprint time. Know exactly what you want to accomplish, and work only on that. You’ll be amazed at how much you can get done, creating momentum and focus, which lends itself to building energy naturally. You will often get more done in this period than you can in an entire day of random interruptions and urgent demands. This is a great time to work on important tasks such as writing, billing, customer service, or things that if they don’t get done will not kill you now, but will need serious time and attention if neglected.

What is important that you need to do? What will you plan to begin doing right now that will allow you to harness your energy and gain more time? Pick one thing you will do today and enjoy the renewed energy and time you gain!

Christy Geiger is a strategic planning coach and the owner of Synergy Strategies, a business and life-coaching company that works with IBOs and professionals to implement their thousands of great ideas in ways that will maximize time, energy and effort! Through solid vision, goal and strategy planning, clients are able to maximize their personal effectiveness and accomplish their mission! Visit http://www.synergystrategies.com

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