Tag Time Management

Making the Most of Your Time

Steve Keating 2 Comments

We should probably get this out of the way up front. We can’t actually manage time. We can manage the events that use up our time. You should also know that no one on the planet has more time than you. We all get 1440 minutes a day. No more, no less.

People who think they are short on time are actually short on priorities. They treat most every “event” in their lives as a top priority not realizing that if everything is the top priority then nothing is. Managing the events that use up your time effectively is crucial for achieving your goals, reducing stress, and maintaining a healthy work-life balance. Here are some practical strategies to help you manage those events more effectively.

  • Set Clear Goals: Start by defining your short-term and long-term goals. Having a clear sense of what you want to achieve will help you prioritize tasks and allocate time accordingly.
  • Prioritize Tasks: Use techniques like the Eisenhower Matrix (urgent vs. important) to identify and prioritize tasks based on their significance and deadlines.
  • Create a prioritized task list: Make a daily or weekly prioritized task list to outline tasks you need to accomplish. Break down larger tasks into smaller, manageable steps.
  • Time Blocking: Allocate specific time blocks for different tasks or activities. This helps you focus on one task at a time and prevents multitasking, which can reduce efficiency.
  • Use a Calendar: Utilize a digital or physical calendar to schedule appointments, meetings, and tasks. Sync it with your devices to stay updated and receive reminders.
  • Set Deadlines: Establish realistic deadlines for tasks to create a sense of urgency and maintain accountability.
  • Eliminate Distractions: Identify and minimize sources of distraction, such as turning off notifications, setting specific times for checking emails and social media, and creating a clutter-free workspace.
  • Batch Similar Tasks: Group similar tasks together and work on them during specific time blocks. This minimizes context switching and improves efficiency.
  • Use the Pomodoro Technique: Work intensely for a set period (e.g., 25 minutes) and then take a short break. Repeat this cycle to maintain focus and prevent burnout.
  • Delegate: If possible, delegate tasks that can be handled by others, freeing up your time for more critical responsibilities.
  • Learn to Say No: Politely decline tasks or commitments that don’t align with your goals or would overburden your schedule.
  • Set Time Limits: Allocate a specific amount of time for each task to avoid spending too much time on less important activities.
  • Review and Reflect: Regularly review your progress, assess what’s working and what isn’t, and adjust your time management strategies accordingly.
  • Use Technology Wisely: Utilize productivity apps, task managers, and tools like calendar reminders to help you stay organized and on track.

Effective time management isn’t as much about time as it is understanding your priorities. It is a skill that takes time to develop. Experiment with different strategies to find what works best for you, and be willing to adapt as your circumstances and goals evolve.

Remember, time is one of your most valuable assets. The more effectively you use it the more of it you’ll seem to have. You will seldom see a very successful person who doesn’t allocate their time well and if you do it’s likely they won’t be very successful for long.

Want more of LeadToday? I’ve changed things up on my Twitter feed for subscribers. I recently began publishing two or three videos each week focusing on an element of Authentic Leadership. I’ll post these videos each Tuesday and Thursday morning. Sometimes a bonus video pops up at other times during the week. They will be about 10 minutes long so we can get into the topic in a more meaningful way. The investment for subscribers in still only $4.99 a month. That’s for at least 80 MINUTES of quality video content on leadership a month.

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Here’s the link to my Twitter… https://twitter.com/leadtoday

Yes, You DO Have Time

Steve Keating 5 Comments

There’s only one thing I don’t have time for. It’s people who tell me that they don’t have time. Everyone has enough time to accomplish all of their priorities. What many people don’t have is priorities. 

The reality is that without priorities time doesn’t matter. When everything is of equal importance then nothing is important. People without true priorities finish up their day and wonder where the time went. People with priorities and goals that align with them know exactly where their time went. It was used precisely where they intended to use it. 

So please don’t tell me you don’t have time. Tell me you can’t manage your time. Tell me you have no ability to prioritize. Tell me you just don’t know what to do next but don’t tell me you don’t have enough time.

Now I’m no time management expert. I don’t actually believe there is such a person. To manage time you would have to be able to stop it, to add to it, or borrow it from someone else. As far as I know, none of that is possible. 

So stop taking time management courses, most of the are just another waste of your time. Instead, start managing the events that use up your time. Managing the events that make up your day becomes much easier when you learn to use one word. It’s a tiny word, it’s a word than many people are offended by. It’s a word that many of us struggle to say, especially when we most need to. 

The word is NO. 

I say no to a hell of a lot of people and even more things. I, just like you, have 1440 minutes in each day. Unlike many of you, I alone decide how they will be used. I know that each day will have time devoted to family. Each day will have time devoted to work. Each day will have time set aside for fun. (Yep, each and every day) 

Some days I set aside time to do nothing. Some people don’t seem to be able to understand that particular concept. They call and ask what I’m doing on Saturday. I say I’m doing nothing. They say great, let’s do this. I reply that I can’t, I’m doing nothing on Saturday. They are very confused. For me, doing nothing is something and it’s pretty great.

I don’t blame them for being confused. One of the greatest stress producing beliefs that too many people have is that you must be doing something every waking minute of the day. Folks, I’m here to tell you that just ain’t so. 

I also have me time. My me time usually starts around 4:00am and ends around 5:00am. It’s only an hour but for me it’s an important hour. I’ll bet it would be for you too. In that hour I write stuff like this post. I do most I my social media efforts in that hour as well. I skim a few newspapers most days in that hour and it’s my time alone. No one is up in the house so I’m not taking time away from my family for me. My co-workers haven’t thought of getting out of bed yet so I’m not affecting them by focusing on me. 

5:00am to 5:30am I look at the days events and divide up my time according to the priorities my goals have set for me. Some days the number one priority might be a lunch with a colleague who needs my help. Other days it might be something I’d really rather not do but I know it must be done. There is even open time on my calendar that I allow other people to fill with their priorities because helping others is a priority for me.

Having a clear set of priorities each day will eliminate much of the day-to-day stress most people experience. Even on the days life throws you a curve and your priorities go out the window you’ll have less stress than others because you’re still in control of your time more days than not. 

So remember, when you start feeling stressed over time it’s likely of your own doing. Or more likely it’s because of what you didn’t do. You didn’t say NO!

Moving Heaven and Earth

Steve Keating Leave a comment

My mom used to say that she would move Heaven and Earth to help “you boys” (that would be me and my brothers) any way she could. I was too young to understand what that meant the first couple hundred times I heard it but I came to understand that it meant our well-being was the most important thing in the world to her.

She would, and frequently did, do everything in her power to protect us, even when that sometimes meant not protecting us at all.

Her priorities were crystal clear. She didn’t have to tell anyone what they were, they were completely visible to anyone who cared to look. Her family mattered above all else. That fact was reflected in everything she said and did. Always.

I share that with you as a set-up to a question I want to ask you…

Can people SEE the priorities in your life or do you have to keep telling them what’s important to you? I ask that because the fact is, people DO see the priorities in your life, you show them every day.

What you say are your priorities may or may not be. But what you do in your life are your real your priorities.

People get frustrated with my response when they tell me “they don’t have enough time in the day.” They get frustrated because I tell them that they absolutely do.

What they don’t have are identifiable priorities. They act as if everything in their life is so important when in actuality it is merely urgent.

The most successful people understand that what is urgent is seldom important and what is important is seldom urgent. People who don’t understand that do urgent things that won’t matter two weeks from now at the expense of truly important things that could be life altering.

When you act according to your priorities you’ll discover that you do have enough time to accomplish everything that is important to you.

If I followed you around for a week I could tell you exactly what your priorities are. In most cases you would disagree with me and argue that your actual priorities are different. But they are not.

I know many people reading this won’t like this but you SAY what you want your priorities to be. You DO what your priorities actually are.

For skilled, disciplined and successful people what they say and what they do are one and the same.

What exactly are your priorities? Not what you say they are but what you would truly move heaven and earth to achieve. Watch yourself and you’ll soon find out. If you don’t like what you see then either change what you say or change what you do. When you align your actions with your words you’ll accomplish more than you ever thought possible…with time left over.

You may not get all those urgent things accomplished but that’s okay because urgent things are only urgent for a short time. You can make a darn good living by focusing on those urgent things. If however you want to make a fulfilling life you’re gonna need to start focusing on the important stuff too.

Do You Have Time for Goals?

Steve Keating 1 Comment

In my last post I wrote about understanding the difference between being busy and being productive. I said that if you didn’t do at least one thing to get closer to a goal each day then you were not productive…not matter how busy you may have felt.

What that means of course is that if you don’t have goals then you can’t be productive. When I say “goals” I mean real goals. Concrete ones, written down with deadlines and plans for achievement.

It’s great to dream and say things like “someday I’ll do this” or “one day I’m doing to.” Except that someday and one day do not appear on a calendar. There is a minor league baseball team in town and the beer vendors all wear shirts that say “free beer tomorrow.” The problem is when tomorrow comes the free beer is still tomorrow.

That’s how it is with unwritten goals as well. The day you’re finally going to pursue them never arrives.

Specificity is key to successfully achieving goals. The more wiggle room you allow yourself the more likely it will be that you wiggle out of them.

Real goals are measurable. “I’m going to lose some weight” is not a goal. It is at best a wish. To make it a goal you must put some weight (pardon the pun) behind it. “I’m going to lose 2 pounds a week for the next 10 weeks” is a goal.

Real goals are actually attainable. There are several reasons that “I’m going to be the first man on the moon” is not an attainable goal. Well, maybe more than several, but the point is if your goal is so far-fetched that you have no chance of achieving it then it is more likely to leave you unmotivated. Plus, ALL the time you spent going after it is a complete waste.

Real goals are realistic. “I’m going to lose those 20 pounds this week” is a wee bit unlikely to happen. In fact it ain’t going to happen so it’s not even a good dream. Real goals must be completely within your control. Setting a goal to have your bosses job in a year is not realistic because too many factors are beyond your control.

First, your bosses job must open up. Second, your company must be looking at internal candidates, the list could go on and on.

A real goal would be one that says “over the course of the next year I’m going to do this, this, this and this in order to be the best possible candidate should my bosses position ever open up.

If all the “this, and this and this are within your control then you have a real goal and a much better chance of achieving it. The time you invest will be well worth the effort…even if you never do get your bosses job.

Real goals need a starting date. Writing down what time on that date you will start is even better. They need a FIRM date by which they will be achieved. The time of day on that date is equally important.

The most successful people have a good cross section of goals. Some are professional goals and some are personal. Their goals align with their values. They have financial goals, family goals, educational goals, career goals, spiritual goals, health goals and goals in any area of their lives they choose to focus on.

If you don’t have formal, real goals then let me ask you this: why do you do what you do?

Do you get up each day and go to work in order to make money to divide up between your creditors with the hope there’s some left over for you? Do you seem to have more bad days than good days? Are you frequently frustrated with what life is repaying you for your efforts? Do you constantly have this feeling that there’s more to life than you’re experiencing?

If you answered yes to even some of those questions then it is likely that you are more busy than you are productive. You’re using your 1440 minutes each day with little to show for it.

You CAN have all you want from life and have time left over to discover even more amazing parts of life. The key to unlocking all that is productively investing your time to pursue real goals.

Stop spending time on things that offer you little return. Invest your time in the pursuit of goals and have the life you truly want to have. 

Why It Always Feels Like You’re Short on Time

Steve Keating 13 Comments

First we should be clear on one thing, just in case you have doubts. No one in the world has more time than you. You get 1440 minutes each day, no more and no less, exactly like everyone else.

The secret to having “more” time is making productive use of those 1440 minutes.

Sometimes we do things because we like doing them. We are not concerned with getting a return on our investment of time. That’s okay, we all do that sometimes. The difference is, the most successful people know they are doing it. They are okay with making the trade of valuable time to do something solely for personal enjoyment.

That’s called relaxation and I’ve been told it’s actually good for you.

Less successful people do that too and that’s not the problem. The problem is that they don’t distinguish between busy and productive. That means all of their 1440 minutes is available for doing whatever they like. They may convince themselves that if they are busy then they are also productive but they are two very different things. It’s also the primary reason they always feel short on time.

Being busy spends time. You may work incredibly hard all day but at the end of the day you have a hard time placing your finger on exactly what you accomplished. You also can’t clearly articulate why what you were trying to do needed to be done. That’s not a very rewarding feeling.

Being productive invests time. You don’t work any harder than the busy person but at the end of the day you can point to exactly what you accomplished. You can see how your efforts from the day got you closer to one of your goals and that’s a very rewarding feeling. It energizes you to be even more productive the next day.

Which brings us to the real key to having more time. That key is goals.

I submit to you that if you don’t do something to get closer to a goal each day, either personal or professional, then you are not productive. No matter how busy you may be.

If you’re busy all the time and still never seem to get much accomplished then it will always feel as if you’re short on time. In fact, since you’re not able to point to anything tangible that you’ve accomplished there will never be enough time. You will never have enough time until you realize that you’re spending your time instead of investing it.

So you NEED goals. I can virtually guarantee that if you’re always feeling short on time that you do not have a formal goal setting process in place. How many things do you do each day that are urgent? How many of those urgent things are actually important? How many of them don’t need to be done at all?

How many things do you do frequently that offer you absolutely no return for the use of your time? Unless you’re consciously doing those things for relaxation (which I would argue is a great return on the use of your time) they don’t need to be done.

So it appears my next post needs to be about setting attainable goals. That will help you get more done and still have time left over to invest in pure, guiltless relaxation.

Now you…and me, know what my next post will focus on.

A Self Leadership Checkup

Steve Keating 17 Comments

Everybody says we need Authentic Leadership right now, perhaps more than ever before. Well it must be true since everybody can’t be wrong. But it seems to me most people talking and writing about leadership these days are missing an important point.

Before you can lead others authentically you must effectively lead yourself.

If you’re an Authentic Leader then you know the people you lead really need you now. That’s because especially in challenging times people need to be led, not managed. But you’re people too. You need leadership as much as anyone. The difference is you may well have to lead yourself.

So let’s do a quick checkup on your self-leadership skills.

You know that your people need some extra inspiration right now. They look to their leaders to provide it. But it’s pretty tough to inspire others if you’re not inspired yourself. In those quiet moments (perhaps few and far between right now) how are you staying inspired? What does your “self-talk” sound like? Are you aggressively looking for positives to keep your mindset where it needs to be.

It’s as easy for a leader’s attitude to go south as it is for anyone else. If you’re going to keep other people’s spirits up them you’ll have to keep yours up first. Find the possibilities in every challenge. Problems are an opportunity to learn and grow. They provide the chance to become better and more nimble.

Coach yourself to see obstacles as growth opportunities. Remember, your people will do what you do far faster than they will do what you say. Model the attitude and mindset that you want your people to possess.

You are the master of your emotions, no one else. If you do not make the conscious choice of a positive attitude every single day then a subconscious choice will be made for you by events and circumstances. It will not be a choice that serves you well.

Positive attitudes do not happen by chance, they happen by choice.

How are you doing with time management? If you’re suddenly finding yourself leading from home you may find that you don’t have the same level of discipline that comes with working in an office environment.

Setting daily goals can help with this. Goals create discipline. Discipline is simply choosing between what you want now and what you want most. Your goals should be what you want most. Holding yourself accountable to do the same amount of work at home that you would do in the office requires that you keep in mind what you want most.

The “work things” that you may be less accountable to accomplish right now are the means to the things you want most. When my daily work goals are achieved I allow myself what I want most. That would be ice cream! If the work isn’t crossed off my list then the ice cream doesn’t cross my lips.

It is important to remember that no one on earth has more time than you do. No matter how pressured you may feel you do not, I repeat, you do not have a shortage of time. What you most likely do have is a lack of prioritization skills.

Pursue those daily goals with the zeal of a crazy person and you’ll discover you have all the time you need to accomplish every one of your goals.

Are you carefully choosing your words? A leader’s words carry more weight. In challenging times they weigh even more. Choose your words to convey the exact message you’re trying to get across. Remember how you say something can be even more important than the something you say. Are you being mindful of your tone? It is likely you’re doing more communication over the phone than normal. People can’t read your body language so they use the tone of your voice to decipher the meaning of what they are hearing.

It is your responsibility to make sure they are hearing what you intend for them to hear.

Leading others begins with leading yourself exceptionally well. These three areas are not the only leadership skills to focus on for exceptional self-leadership but they will get you on the right path to being a leader who is prepared to lead others in turbulent times.

882 Hours to Succeed

Steve Keating 1 Comment

I remember several years ago a player on the Minnesota Timberwolves was quoted as saying that “you can’t really expect someone to give a 100% effort for 48 minutes of each game for all 82 regular season games.” 

 

Well…I kind of expected it. Especially considering he was making around $20 million dollars a year. But I did get his point, it’s hard to go full out all the time. No one can be at peak performance all the time. Too much “stuff” gets in the way. 

 

But here’s the thing, very successful people find a way to keep that “stuff” to a minimum. 

 

If you’re a professional salesperson as of May 28, 2019 you have only 882 selling hours, or what I call “money hours”  remaining this year. 882 hours to make or break your year. Here’s how I got to the 882 number. Depending on your industry, depending on how many vacation days you take, depending on what you consider holidays and depending how many money hours you have in a day your number may vary but not by much. 

 

By my calculations there are approximately 147 selling days left in 2019 as of May 28th. 

 

Money hours are the hours that you can be face-to-face selling to customers and prospects. You can work 12 hour days but if you’re in a business to business selling role then it is unlikely you have more then 6 hours a day to actually be face-to-face with the people who make the purchase decisions for your product or service. Which of the 24 hours you have in a day are your money hours will vary by industry but 6 hours is the limit if you are a highly productive professional. 

 

That gets you to the 882 number. 

 

If you’re reading this during your money hours then you have less!

 

How you use your 882 hours will determine your level of success. A trip to the post office during money hours is incredibly expensive. It matters little who picks up the check for that lunch with your old friend, if that lunch is during your 882 hours it could cost you a small fortune. 

 

I get that dropping the kids off at school and getting that last hug before you start your day is a priceless gift. I just want you to understand it’s cost in terms of money hours if you’re doing it during your 882 hours. It’s a choice I hope you’re blessed enough to be able to make, I also hope it’s a well informed choice for you.

 

If you’re knocking off for the day at noon for an afternoon of golf that’s a choice too. If you happen to win 20 bucks from your golfing buddies you may want to hold off on celebrating. If that round of golf was happening during your 882 money hours it might be the most expensive round of golf you’ll ever play. 

 

As of May 28th there are 5208 hours left in the year but only 882 of them are money hours. That’s less than 20% of your remaining 2019 hours. How will you invest those hours? Will you let “stuff” get in the way of your success? Will you accept the false “fact” that you can’t be at the top of your game for every one of those 882 hours? 


Or will you do what top performing professionals do and develop a plan to maximize your use of those 882 hours? I strongly encourage you to develop your plan as soon as possible and here’s one final suggestion, don’t use money hours to do it.