We often throw around the phrase "time managment" as if it were true when in reality, we don't "manage time". We all have the same number of hours in a day; every day. No amount of managing can change that fact. What we actually manage are the choices we make about what we will do with the time we've been given.
Let's do some math here for a minute. There are 168 hours in a week. When we subtract sleep and our day of rest, we're left with about 80 hours a week (give or take a couple). Divide 80 hours by 6 days and we have roughly 13-14 hours per day. Still sounds like lots of time, eh?
Now let's subtract meals, exercise, travel time, socializing (& any other activity that you feel you need to do).....most of us will be left with 7-10 hours per day available for productive work.
Does this still sound like lots of time to you? Let's start breaking down the work day into activities required to support your business. Things like: Reading & Responding to Email, Reviewing Educational Liturature, Marketing & Community Building, Research & Sourcing Materials; can easily eat up half of your day. Now we can see how a 7-10 hour work day actually equals 2-4 hours of productive time for creating, selling, proposing and generally working on your "to do list".
How many high priority tasks on your "to do list" will require several hours of your attention? Are you deluding yourself (as we all do periodically) into believing that you can do it all? Does that lead to disappointment? Are you in denial about this reality?
Let's try a different list of "D's".......
1) Delete tasks that don't fit your big picture goals
2) Diminish & streamline routine tasks (ie: only check emails twice daily)
3) Delegate tasks that don't have to be done by you (can usually be done by others for less)
4) Delay tasks that are not high priority (prioritize your list)
Your mission/homeowrk:
1) For 1 week, log every activity you do along with time spent
2) Analyze, review and categorize using the D's above
You will be surprised at how quickly this can change your business and your life.
No comments:
Post a Comment