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Posts Tagged ‘time management’
Time Is A Limited Resource, Use It Wisely Tuesday, February 8th, 2011
The most common thing that I hear from business owners is that they don’t have time. There is no time to work on systems for their business. No time for marketing their business. Time is indeed precious. It’s just amazing how easily we waste time and don’t use the resource to their advantage.
I would love to tell you that I use every minute of business time wisely. I too am susceptible to wasting time. The sad thing is that we know we are wasting time and feel powerless to stop it. I have worked a lot on narrowing the time waste gap. Here are some things that I know work.
Have Vision- Knowing where you want to go makes knowing how you are going to spend your time that much clearer. Vision is the foundation for a lot of things in your business especially time management.
Lay out specific objectives for your business. When you have a specific set of key objectives for your business, you now have a road map for how you can best spend your time and what will make your business successful. This is also a great tool for employee management as well to ensure that they know what ultimately makes them and the company successful.
Get a time management system. There is a not a one-size-fits-all solution for time management but you need to find a system that plays to your strengths and that you can follow. What works for me may not work for you. There are tons of great time management systems out there; Getting Things Done, Franklin Covey just to name a couple. Pick a system and then make it your mission to execute it. Time management is a behavior issue and changing behaviors isn’t easy.
How are you going to make sure you spend focused time on your business? Is your business closer to its goals today than it was yesterday? Having vision, objectives and a system in place will allow you to better track your progress and give you a much clearer picture of how you and your team are performing.
How To Assess If You Are Busy Or Productive Tuesday, January 11th, 2011
We spent our last My Business World coaching call talking about planning efficiently and effectively. We don’t just get tripped up because we don’t plan. In fact I don’t think planning is our #1 issue. What good is planning after all if you don’t execute.
This is where time management comes in. Business owners can find things to do for days but how do you know if you are spending your time wisely?
There are two pieces to this formula that you can look at to help you assess your time management.
The first exercise is to do an activity inventory. Take five-ten and write down every single thing you have going on personally and professionally. Don’t over-think this and literally write everything down.
Now step back and look at it. Are there things in that list that need to be moved off of your plate?
Here’s one way that you can help decide.
Think about an ideal situation where you are only doing the work where you bring the most value to the table. What does that look like on a per hour basis? Is it $100/hour? Is it $500/hour?
Now go back to your list and ask yourself if there are activities that you can give to someone on your team or that you can hire out that would cost you less than the dollar per hour value that you ideally bring to the table.
This means most likely cutting out some paperwork or maintenance activities etc.
This sounds simplistic in its’ approach but the reality is you are probably wasting a lot of time working on activities that bring no real value to your business and that keep you plenty busy but ultimately keep you from being productive.
Spend some time this week to assess your activities. What are you spending the majority of your time on? What are the time wasters for you? What are you doing that you hate? Look at these activities and look for ways to get them off your plate and move you closer to your most productive year in your business yet.