we spend 15 or 20 minutes trying to get our heads around where we were when we left off.
SOLUTION #2: ‘TAKE 5’ BETWEEN PROJECTS. Before moving on to a new task, take a few minutes to write down what’s left to be done. You will become amazingly more productive by trading the 5 minutes now for the 20 minutes later. You should do this at the end of each day, too – reminding yourself of what you’ll need to do tomorrow.
ISSUE #3: Our daily lives include a lot of recurring activities. Think about how you start your day. My guess is that that you follow a “get ready for work” routine that repeats itself more mornings than not. Once at work, you’ve got to issue instruc- tions to installers, check-in customers, organize the day’s paperwork, follow-up any pending deals, and much more. What to work on first, and second, and third? Even though these are activities that we perform on a daily or weekly basis, many of us waste time every day wondering what to work on next!
3)
Arrive on time! I recommend my clients schedule a couple hours every
week (e.g. two hours Tuesday morning, or two hours Friday afternoon). It should be a close-the-door, turn-off-the-phone, in- violable space to address the important, strategic, “future of your business” issues that cry out to be worked on.
ISSUE #5: Now, you might ask how a 24-hour project com- pletes in a single two-hour weekly session. It doesn’t. If everything goes right (rare), it completes in 12 two-hour ses- sions, over a period of weeks. More likely, some other important priorities will pop up along
the way. Fine. Give them the important time they, too, deserve. Just keep working things. Stick to your once-per-week ap- pointment schedule. (Even better – schedule yourself for two hours twice per week!) Keep giving each project some impor- tant time. Like that big install you’re working on – you know, the one that’s stretching out for days & weeks – these, too, will get
Instead of newly arrived e-mails intruding on whatever else you’re doing, and completely disrupting your momentum, check your e-mail only when you’re not in the middle of something important. ”
done.
SOLUTION #3: CREATE DAILY AND WEEKLY REGIMENS FOR RE- CURRING ACTIVITIES. You might get bills entered on Tuesdays and Fridays, follow- up with customers on Mondays and Thursdays and make bank deposits daily. Minimize “what next?” wondering. Do these same things on the same day/same time, week after week. Your most important recurring activity is working on the fu- ture of your business. Employees are there to work on today’s problems. You, the owner, need to take time every week to work on tomorrow’s opportunities.
ISSUE #4: I’m a big fan of scheduling tasks, instead of put- ting them on a to-do list. But not all tasks can be accomplished in an hour or two. The really important, future-changing work you need to do will likely be a project. Projects might take 4 hours or 12 or even 24 to complete. This kind of time never makes itself available, and even with planning it’s pretty difficult for most of us to carve out 24 hours in a given week. This might be the most valuable thing you could do to take control of your organization’s future.
SOLUTION #4: CREATE WEEKLY “IMPORTANT TIME” APPOINT- MENTS WITH YOURSELF. You make the time to meet with clients. Make the time to meet with yourself. The exact same technique works for both: 1) 2)
appointment.
SOLUTION #5: PRIORITIZE INITIATIVES BY VALUING THEIR OUT- COMES.
Instead of becoming paralyzed by an impossibly large num- ber of things you should do, use an occasional important time appointment to evaluate your priorities. This should be the first “project” you work on during your
weekly “important time” sessions. Start with a clear head and a clean sheet of paper. Focus on this year and next. What are you trying to accomplish? What would you like things to be like in a couple years? What are your goals? Make a list, and then give each item on the list a dollar val- ue. This should represent what you think it would be worth to achieve each goal. Make your most valuable goal #1, etc. Now, think about the various projects, initiatives, and new practices you’d like to implement. Write down each project or initiative. Do any of these projects connect with your #1 goal? If so, that becomes your #1 priority for strategic, important things to be working on. If not, you need to identify an initiative that will accomplish the #1 goal. In this manner, you connect your projects and initiatives to
Create an appointment and put it on your calendar. Don’t allow any other event to de-rail or interrupt the
important goals, and easily establish your priorities for your weekly appointments. Rich or poor, big company or small, everybody gets the same amount of time each day. But only you can take control of what you do with yours. ■
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