Time Management Self Improvement

* If you were paying you to prioritise emails over coaching your team, would you feel you were getting a good return on your investment?

* If you were paying you to waste time on trivia rather than planning your next quarters sales plan - would you think you were getting good value for money?

* If you were paying you to sit in numerous unproductive meetings would you feel that was a worthwhile contribution?

I suspect that the answer to those questions is no and yet, in effect, that’s exactly what you are doing. By choosing to adopt poor time management habits and poorly prioritise what’s important you are in effect creating a poor return on investment for your self your organisation or you own business.

No go One Step Further and ask your self
“If I was paying me by the hour, day or on specific results what would I pay myself?”

It might be $30/hour, $800/week or $150000/year depending on your skill, knowledge and experience and in what role or business you are in. Let’s say for example you are a manager earning $80000/year. Let’s assume you work 250 x 8 hour days a year, which means you are earning the equivalent of $40/hour

* For every hour you spend trawling through your emails the cost is $40

* For every

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If I had a dollar or even better a pound for every time I’d heard a business leader say this I’d be very rich.

I’m too busy is used in so many contexts

* I’m too busy - I don’t want to
* I’m too busy - I’m overwhelmed
* I’m too busy - Go Away
* I’m too busy - I’m confused
* I’m too busy - And you’re not!

If we break that sentence down and look at each part, we can then look at ways of helping you be less busy.

I’M too busy - with the emphasis on the I, the inference is that the centre of the busyness is you. The implication is that you need to be because you are the only person that can do all of the work that is causing you to feel busy.

I’m TOO busy - with the emphasis on the TOO, the inference is that your busyness level is more than you can cope with. It implies that you have to cope with more work than is comfortable for you.

I’m too BUSY - with the emphasis on the BUSY, the inference is that you have lots to do but that it might not be useful or productive work or work that you feel you should be doing.

So let’s assume that’s the case and the work you currently have that is causing you to be too busy, is largely made up of work you feel you shouldn’t be doing, i.e. it is work that is not specifically contributing to your goals and targets.

So what’s the answer?

Here is a process for you to try to Get Creative, Get Focused and Get Control

1. List all of the tasks, activities or pieces of work you currently have “to do”

2. Give each task a priority 1-5 (1 being high 5 being low) based on their relevance to your specific goals or targets

3. Give each ask a MUST, SHOULD COULD rating

a. Must - you are accountable and responsible for its completion

b. Should - You are accountable but not necessarily responsible i.e. you must make it happen but someone else could do it

c. Could - You are neither accountable or responsible

4. For each must

a. set a deadline for completion and schedule it in you diary/PDA now

5. For each should

a. make a list of who else could do it and why it might be more appropriate for them to do it
b. prioritise this list

6. For each could

a. decide to do it and schedule it
b. delegate it and schedule time to hand the work over
c. discard it completely

“The key is not to prioritise what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities” Stephen R. Covey

Just because you assume you’re too busy doesn’t mean that you are.

You have a choice not to do something and you can choose to make different decisions about what work you do and what work you don’t. If you work for someone else help them to help you by having regular discussions about you workload and what work is a Must, Should and Could for you - don’t just accept everything that comes your way.

Take control and get creative about how you think about and how you manage your workload. Your level of busyness is down to you.

©2005 Beverley Hamilton

Beverley Hamilton works with independent business consultants to help them grow a profitable consultancy and still have time for their life.
You can get my Free Ecourse Discover the 5 Most Common Incorrect Assumptions Independent Business Consultants Make and a complimentary subscription to Quickstart, the newsletter specifically for consultants. Go to One Step Further for more instantly accessible resources. Your future Your choice

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If you find yourself saying that, one of the reasons might be that you have no priorities or system of prioritisation. You spend time fire fighting.

* You spend time worrying about all that you need to get done and not necessarily doing anything well.

* You spend time doing things indirectly or nothing to do with your “main” role.

* You spend time doing this day in and day out and expecting the problem to resolve itself.

Well guess what, it won’t unless you adopt a different mindset which result in different action.

State the obvious why don’t you, I hear you say. Well actually yes I will because it is obvious.

The reasons most people (and I will generalise) get stuck in a fire fighting cycle are two fold. Firstly, they actually enjoy the adrenalin rush of busyness and activity, so long as it doesn’t go to extremes and secondly they don’t stop and make time to prioritise for their business, themselves and those around them.

So what can you do to affect your daily/weekly routine? Here are 3 tips to take you One Step Further towards having a system that helps you prioritise.

Daily Priorities - From random to reasoned

Tip 1 - at the start of each morning this week set aside 5-10 minutes to decide on tasks that you must, should and could get done for that day. How you decide that is up to you. The rule is that there must NEVER be a must do task left at the end of the day. That must be your measure of how important the must dos are!

Tip 2 - after you have decided your must, should and could do lists for the day ask yourself 2 questions.

* Do all the tasks have to be done by me?

* What are the consequences of task x, y or z not getting done today?

Tip 3 - The answers you get to the questions in Tip 2 may then provide you with other solutions. Delegate it, defer it or dump it. The 3D approach is also useful when going through your email or paperwork and can help you deal with each item only once.

“We are what we repeatedly do, excellence then is not an act, but a habit.” Aristotle

If these tips work for you on a daily basis, perhaps you could start from a monthly or weekly perspective? Let me know how it works for you.

© Beverley Hamilton 2005

Beverley Hamilton works with independent business consultants to help them grow a profitable consultancy and still have time for their life.
You can get my Free Ecourse Discover the 5 Most Common Incorrect Assumptions Independent Business Consultants Make and a complimentary subscription to Quickstart, the newsletter specifically for consultants. Go to One Step Further for more instantly accessible resources. Your future Your choice

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