Successful, rich people will spend money to save time because they realise that time is our lives most valuable asset. Once we spend time we can never get it back!

People who simply spend their life's wanting and wishing to be rich and successful will continue to spend time to save money, whilst blaming everything else including the economy as to why their business or they are not as successful as they think they should be or want to be...

Your prosperity and success are directly related to you philosophy, not to the economy, and nor to any other external excuse like 'there is just not enough time in the day.' 'I am rushed off my feet' I don't have time to work on my business' etc, etc. Winners believe time is on their side.

So how wisely do you spend your time and how much do you value it? 

In our econimic society we all realise the value of money and we would never consciously waste money, why then would you waste precious time doing the jobs of employees who have left thinking we are saving money instead of hiring someone else to allow you to use your precious time to get more sales (worth far more than a wage) or build the business? Even worse wasting the time of your team who have to pull up the slack for someone who is not performing because of course you don't have the time to record a disciplinary action against them, and are fearful about the 'perceived' time and hassle of unfair dismissal hearings, (only a hassle if you have not performed due diligence in recording disciplines and failed improvement goals in the first place). The most popular time wasting scenario I run into is of the business owner or leader continually reacting to team or operational issues that they know the team should be resoving themselves. This is usually because you have disempowered your team through your aggressive management style... Or you have a passive management style of not holding them accountable every time to their defined responsibilities... Or you lack in motivation and leadership skills to bring the best out in them and empower them to make their own decisions... Or you simply just don't trust them... (Newflash.. you hired them!).

The very worst use of your time is to do things that someone else in your organisation should and could be doing or to do things well in your own job that don't really need to be done immediately, if at all.

If you have ever returned home from work and realised that your day has been extremely busy but you never really accomplished anything... it's generally because of the poor decision you made during that day around the use your time, and perhaps in relation to one of the fore mentioned scenarios.

So how do we turn this around?...Let's start by stating that Time Management is a Paradox; you cannot mange time because time is fixed.... What you can do is manage yourself and the activities you do within the time available.

The basic premises to Managing Your Time:

1.    Accept that you cannot possibly do everything that you think you should, could or might do!

2.    Time Management is about MAKING DECISIONS - so we need a good decision making process.

3.    It's about getting more things done rather than doing more things yourself.

4.    The driving force behind managing your time is to set goals. The greatest waste of time in our lives is only having a vague idea, or even no idea of what it is we are supposed to accomplish, (applies to you and your team)

 5.    Time blocks are far more efficient than To Do Lists

 6.    Procrastination is the thief of time!

The four skills required to use your time wisely:

·         Analysis

·         Planning (Set Goals)

·         Delegation

·         Self Management

The Process for successful time management:

What to do

Understand (measure) how you and your teams are spending your time (down to the very minute).

Spend your time doing what is key to the success of your business.

Work on tasks that can only be done effectively by you.

Use the 4 "D's" -- Do it.... Delegate it....Defer it....or Dump it.

When to do

Plan your time/ organise your work schedule so that you are never working the issues that fall into the two "Not Important" categories in the chart below.

How to do (organise)

Create a "template" schedule for each time period - month/week/day - which allocates time periods for specific types of tasks. Ex: travel to customers, return/place phone calls; do quiet work, organize paperwork, read. Tool - Time blocking chart

How to do (discipline)

 The Pareto Principle (the 80/20 rule) states that 20% of your activities will account for 80% of the value of your activities. This means that, if you have a ten tasks to do, two of those taks will be worth more than the other eight tasks altogether. So concentrate on those activities that contribute the greatest value: stop procrastinating and prioritise. The best way to prioritise is to determine the potential consequences of doing something or not doing something in relation to your revenue stream or goals.

Why to do

Understand the difference between that which is Urgent and that which is Important. If you are working on something that is 'urgent and important' then you are usually working to someone else's goals, usually your customers or your fire fighting or you are dealing with an HR issue. This we may classify this as daily operations and should as a rule consume 80% of your working week. When you are working on a task that is 'not urgent but important', (The ZONE) you are usually working on your own goals, which is strategic planning and development of your business, it's culture, your team, your marketing, etc. and should as a rule consume 20% of your working week. You should avoid working on tasks during normal office hours that are 'urgent but not important', which include some phone calls, some reports, interruptions, emails from customers that you can reply to in the evening or tomorrow. You should completely avoid working on tasks or activities that are 'not urgent and not important', delegate them or defer them.

The more time you spend working in the 'not urgent but important' zone, which also includes family leisure and exercise time, the less you will need to spend as a business leader in the 'urgent and important', (reactive) zone.

We have a seven step process at Action to help you master your time, why not come along to one of our Time Management Workshop this year or arrange an internal workshop for your team.

Lsit of 2011 Business Development Workshops

TIME IS NOW!

Bonus Insomniac Cure: Before you leave work for the eveneing always plan the top 3 things you need to accomplish the next day, and execute on them first