Get more out of your minutes each day! Read through the tips below and circle the ones you are attracted
to. Begin with those. As they become part of your routine, come back and re-read the sheet and look for
additional tips that may be more challenging but helpful. Pick one of those to implement. Practice it for a
month or two and then add another.
Strengthen your time management muscle! ENJOY the process!
- Acknowledge that time cannot be managed; only our own behaviours and attitudes toward time can be managed.
- Decide clearly what you want. Set a goal and focus to help prioritize your time.
- Know your behavioural style and maximize the times when you work best.
- Take at least one day off a week to get rejuvenated.
- Have one calendar for all appointments, more than one causes confusion and double scheduling.
- Use reminders on your devices to help you remember important things.
- Turn off the sound of notifications to keep you from being unnecessarily interrupted.
- Use www.hootsuite.com to update your social network sites in one place.
- Use www.evercontact.com to automatically update your contacts.
- Stick to a schedule (control incoming calls & interruptions).
- Schedule “Open” time to give you discretionary time to deal with the unexpected. (i.e. from 11-12 and 4-5 plan blocks of time to address “urgent” needs)
- Schedule time for breaks; don’t let them be the ‘one minute’ interruption to a flowing project as you actually lose up to 15 minutes in lost momentum and focused energy.
- Schedule tasks on your calendar for a particular time/date slot. This enhances your commitment and creates structure to help you get things done.
- Schedule 3 types of days: Best Results, Preparation and Rest & Relaxation
(see Jack Canfield’s book The Success Principles) On “Best Results” days spend 80% of your time working on activities that have the greatest impact on generating revenue and sales. This could be creating new products, delivering your service (i.e. coaching), making sales calls etc. On preparation days you do the activities that will help you prep for the best results days. On rest days are just that, don’t do anything related to your work (even checking emails) for at least 24 hours. Do the things that re-energize you. - Write the top 3 things to do each day and focus on that (in PM for next day or first thing in AM).
- Power Hour / Frog Time (see book from Brian Tracy Eat that Frog). Get the hardest or least enjoyable task on your list done first in the day.
- Commit to two hours of high priority activity time each day (i.e. 1 AM power hour, 1 PM power hour etc.).
- Block time for “projects”. A wise mentor once said, “If you set aside 2 hours to do a task it will probably take you 2 hours. If you don’t set a specific time to do the task, it will probably take you all day.”
- Focus uninterrupted on a single task (getting 25% more from your time because you loose 25% when multitasking).
- Do the toughest thing you have to do first. It will stifle procrastination, give immediate feeling of success and allow you to be highly productive the rest of the day.
- During “Focus” time turn off e-mail, voice mail, close the door, and other interruptions.
- Note re-occurring items and put them in your re-occurring calendar (like outlook) with a reminder.
- Plan weekly schedule (weekly plan). This avoids reactionary cycles and duplicating efforts.
- Take 10 minutes first thing to plan your day’s activities & priorities (daily plan). (This can be a part of your power hour)
- Touch it once. If it is in your hand put it where it goes, file it, trash it… don’t just move things around.
- FINISH tasks before going on to the next thing (Let your phone go to voicemail).
- Write it down. Purge your to-do lists from your mind so you can free up mental space to work vs. remember.
- Set times each day to check e-mail vs. crawling back to it every chance you get.
- Estimate the time your TO DO’s will take. Know what are 10 minute projects, so when you only have a few minutes you can pickup a mini project vs. waste time.
- Remember Stephen Covey’s 4 quadrants of planning the urgent vs. the important (7 Habits of Highly Effective People)
- Under promise and over deliver.
- Create an ‘accountability net’ by enrolling others to hold you accountable for commitments by periodically checking in with you to nudge you on status, momentum, and completion.
- High performance is grounded in skilfully managing your energy; so focus more on managing your energy instead of worrying about having enough time to do everything on your list.
- Compartmentalize your projects – Home/Work/Community/Other
- Write down a list of things to STOP doing. What would happen if you just didn’t do it?
- Do YOU need to do this thing – whatever it is? Could someone else do it?
- It might take more time initially to teach someone else what you know, but in the long run, it helps them become more self-sufficient & you are free to do other things.
- Create an integrated, mobile and personalized system.
- Find a “home” within the system (PDA, computer or paper) for the core four – to do’s, appointments, notes and contacts
- Have the same system and labels for your hard folders (in the desk), soft folders (on computer) and e-mail folders to help you quickly access your documents.
- Clean out your e-mail inbox every day
- Exercise daily
- Control your unwanted e-mail and use something like spamarrest.com
- Answer all e-mail and phone calls within 24 hours
- Set up a texting system so you can send messages to your team personally and efficiently.
- Clear your desk off each night so you start with a clean slate each AM (this is proven to be effective even for the person who swears by their “piles”)
- Create “homes” for things. It will help to avoid things getting lost and will support you in quick decision making and sorting. Label your homes (i.e. paper stacker should have trays labeled, etc.)
- Hire a coach (contact Christy@synergystrategies.com to schedule sample session.
- Use the timer on your device to regulate amount of time spent on a project…race the clock!
- KISS – keep it simple. If it gets too heavy and too complex you are not going to do it. All of these tips are not meant for one person.
Pick the ones that work for you. We are all unique individuals. Design what will help you get the most of your time.
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