Tag Event Management

Don’t Run Out of Time

Steve Keating 7 Comments

I have to admit that I have little patience for people who tell me that they “don’t have time.” The fact is no one in the world has more time than they do. We all have exactly the same amount of time, 1440 minutes a day. No more, no less.

 

You will never have more time than you do today. You can’t “make time” and you can’t “save time.” Stop worrying about how much time you don’t have and start using the time you do have more efficiently. 

 

For starters you must understand the difference between being busy and being productive. While “busy” people can get tired they often don’t get done. Productive people always seem to have a plan to follow and a goal to achieve. They get stuff done! 

 

Here’s a simple repeatable process that many of those highly productive people use to stay on track.

 

Determine what to do: Ask yourself, “does this need to be done and if I do it what goal or objective does it get me closer to? If you can’t state with a high degree of specificity why something needs to be done then it may be busywork. Don’t do it!

 

Schedule time to do it: Do you control your calendar or does it control you? Only put things on your calendar that will lead to your goals and objectives being achieved. Once it makes it to your calendar, it must be done. The simple fact is that the most productive people have more discipline in this area than less productive people.

 

Focus: Use time management tools like block time and appointment bracketing to make sure you’re using your time well. Do not allow other people to interrupt you. Do not interrupt yourself with email or social media that can wait. And don’t kid yourself into believing that it can’t wait.

 

Stay hyper aware: Things change! As your priorities shift don’t be afraid to adjust and adapt, be sure to keep your goals and objectives in mind. Because something was vital at some point in the past does not mean that it is still vital today. Reevaluating your priorities from time to time is one of the most productive activities you can do.

 

Always be improving: Constantly be looking for ways to maximize your efficiency; never do anything because it’s always been done that way. Look for a better way. That said, never invest a minute trying to improve something that doesn’t need to be done in the first place. Shaving ten minutes from a thirty minute project that doesn’t need to be done is still wasting twenty minutes and don’t tell yourself otherwise. 

 

Don’t overestimate your capacity: Successful people don’t say they will do more than they know they can do. If you know it will overload you and cause you to lose focus then don’t commit to doing it. It is perfectly acceptable, in fact it is necessary, to say no to things that don’t get you closer to your goals and objectives. 

 

If you find yourself running out of time at the end of a day then something must change. Highly productive people would tell you that nothing can change if you don’t change first. 


So will you?

Money Hours

Steve Keating 3 Comments

“Time Management” is a bit of a misnomer since time most certainly cannot be managed. We all have exactly the same amount of time in a day. We get 1440 minutes in a day whether we use them or not. Nobody gets more, nobody gets less. 

Successful people don’t actually manage that time better but they do manage the events that use that time better, often much better. They prioritize the events doing the most important ones first. They set aside time during a day to work uninterrupted on an important event or events to make certain that the event is completed within a given 1440 minute period, what most of us call a day.

It’s important to understand that when I say “event” what I actually mean is all the “stuff” that you do during a normal day. A phone call is an event, making a decision is an event, answering email is an event, lunch is an event, driving to and from work is an event. Whatever activities or tasks you do in a day should be considered an event and prioritized according to what’s actually important to you. 

Most people, and yes that is a generalization but the research is overwhelming, most people do their best work and make their best decisions early in the first half of those 1440 minutes. If an event is important to you or particularly challenging then consider doing it early in the day. Truth be told, many of the hardest things I do and my biggest decisions of the day are completed before most people’s alarm clock goes off.

Without getting real deep into using your time more effectively let me share a concept that I think will help you immensely. It’s the concept I call “money hours.” 

The concept comes from my years as a full-time salesperson when using my time effectively could be the difference between a successful year and a year far less than successful. (By the way, that’s true whether you’re in sales or not.) 

A salesperson’s 1440 minute period is loaded with various tasks that must be completed on a timely basis in order to be successful. The problem is most salespeople like some of those tasks a lot more than others. So they do the things they like more often than they do the things they don’t. I think that’s called “being human.”

The most important thing a salesperson can do is be face-to-face with a customer. There are a limited number of minutes within their 1440 minutes when that’s possible. If your customer is only in their office from 7:00am to 3:00pm then those eight hours are your “money hours.” If you’re doing anything other the being face-to-face with a customer during those hours than you’re not being as productive as you could be. 

I know there are other important things as well, getting those quotes out, responding to phone calls, answering emails, and of course those exciting call reports are all important. The question that successful people are constantly asking themselves however is “what’s most important?” 

Even if you’re not is sales the odds are overwhelming that you have some sort of “money hours” within your own 1440 minute period. You almost certainly have things to do that are more important than others, things that the require the help of other people that can only be done at certain times of the day, those are your money hours. 

If you don’t have any of these limitations then it’s important to know which of those 1440 minutes you are performing at your peak. That portion of your 1440 minutes make up your money hours and it’s in those minutes that you should be making your biggest decisions and undertaking your most challenging tasks. 

While we all get 1440 minutes everyday it’s vital to understand that those 1440 minutes are not equal. Some are far more important than others. When you use your money hours more effectively you’ll see a big difference in your productivity, even if you’re not so effective at using the rest of your day.