How Can I Organize my Time?
Time is an irreplaceable resource. Effective use of your time will increase your effectiveness as a leader and an entrepreneur.
Do you look at other people, and admire their focus, effectiveness and drive? Do you wonder how they seem to be so organized and in control, and how they always seem to do the right thing at the right time in the right way?
And do you feel that you work too hard, but even then still struggle to complete your work? Are the things that are important to you drowned in drudgery? And is work eating into the time you want to spend with your family and friends?
Unfortunately, this is very normal. Many people experience these same problems. They feel over-busy, disorganized, stressed and out of control of their lives. And they know there's a better way - if only they could find it.
This is neatly summed up in the Pareto Principle, or the '80:20 Rule'. This argues that typically 80% of unfocussed effort generates only 20% of results. The remaining 80% of results are achieved with only 20% of the effort.
Everyone gets 24 hours in a day yet some people accomplish a lot more then others. Time is just another word for life. Time is your single most precious resource and its one that only you can protect.
By applying the following skills you can optimize your effort to ensure that you concentrate as much of your time and energy as possible on the high payoff tasks. This ensures that you achieve the greatest benefit possible with the limited amount of time available to you.
#1 Concentrate on results, not on being busy
Many people spend their days in a frenzy of activity, but achieve very little because they are not concentrating on the right things. Analyze how you are spending your time with a daily time log. With your time logs come up with a daily schedule that will maximize your effectiveness. Remember that creating processes and procedures for how work is accomplished will allow you to complete that work in a profitable way.
#2 Delegate activities that are not worth your time.
Think about how much you are actually earning per hour to complete all of your work. Calculating how much your time is worth helps you to work out how whether it is worth doing particular jobs. If you have to spend much of your time doing low-yield jobs, you need to delegate! As a business owner you should be focusing your time on high impact, strategic work. Delegate the work that is not worth your time. Create a process for doing this work, train your employees and delegate it.
#3 Create a to do list
A written to do list is a simple technique that can increase your productivity by 20 percent or more. It also has extra benefits of clearing your mind and saving you energy and stress.
Spend 5-10 minutes each day on planning your activities with a daily to do list. Start your day with it. Even better, every evening write a plan for the next day, listing your daily things to do. It is important that you actually write your tasks.
After you've listed all your tasks, review your to do list and decide on the priority of each task. Give higher priority to the tasks that get you closer to your goals.
A proven simple technique is an ABC rating of your priorities. Mark the tasks on your to do list with "A's" if they are critical for your goals and simply must be done that day.
"B's" are less urgent but still important tasks that you should start right after you are done with "A's". "C's" are "nice to do" things that you could do if you have any time left after "A's" and "C's". Those tasks can be safely moved to another day.
If during a day some new unplanned task comes up, don't do anything until you put that new task on your list and rate it by priority. See it written among the other tasks and put it in perspective. The more you let go off the urge to skip that simple step, the more productive you become. When making a to do list, break down your complex tasks into smaller manageable pieces, and focus on one at a time.
#4
Work strategically on your business. The most effective use of you time and life is to work strategically on you business so that you can build it to run without you. If you work to create a business that is a real asset that provides you a net profit for owning it and not just a salary for work in it then you can have all your time to do all the things you have no time to do now. Businesses don’t have to be jobs that don’t pay you enough and take all of your precious time. If you build the necessary processes and procedures your businesses needs to operate you can delegate all of the work! Spend a least one-hour a day working “on” your business, working strategically. Spend this time building the business itself and you will have more time and money then you know what to do with.