Effective Time and Life Management Strategies
The Secret of Achieving More in Less Time.
This book will teach you the easy and simple strategies you will use to free up at least 2 hours of your time for your most important outcomes. You will be able to increase performance, take control of your career, and achieve more in less time!
Nkem Mpamah
Founder and CEO
Cognition Global Concepts
Copyright 2011 Nkem Mpamah
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Books written by Nkem Mpamah can be obtained
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Table of Contents
1. The Secret of Getting More Time
4. Art of Achieving More in Less Time
Major Time Wasters & How to Curtail Them
5. Principles of Time & Life Management
6. How To Achieve More In Less Time
Develop and Focus on Your Desire
Create A MAP Around Your Deepest Desire
Deal With Possible Obstacles in The Way
7. Organizational Skills for SMEs
Communicating More Effectively
10. Delegation and Outsourcing
Personal Digital Assistant ( PDA )
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There are too many distractions in today’s world of business that few people manage their time effectively. Cell phones, PDA’s, email, RSS News feeds, the Internet, webinars, software updates, the telephone, conference calling, and online bill pay, all created to make our work more productive, can make time much less manageable if not used wisely.
As people get lots of activities crammed into their lives in an attempt to accomplish more; scheduling, managing, and prioritizing tasks has become even more complicated.
There is a broad difference between quantity and quality when it comes to managing the use of our time. Few Small business entrepreneurs give little attention to managing their own time compared to watching the activity of their employee’s time.
Imagine the feeling at the end of the day, knowing you accomplished everything you set out to do and made the best use of your time.
Imagine having a plan for each day that actually worked!
One thing is common with humans and that is the fact that everyone has intentions of what he wants to do, be or have. But here's the thing; people fail, not because they do not have intentions. Majority of people fail because they do not carry out the intentions they have of them to achieve their dreams, goals and aspirations.
The main reason for this lack of success is the lack of mastery of Effective Time and Life Management Strategies.
This book is packaged to teach you the timeless principles and strategies you will use to achieve more in less time when applied.
Effective Time and Life Management Strategies will teach you the techniques that will help you free up time for to achieve your most important outcomes, increase performance, take control of your career, and achieve more in less time!
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Chapter One
The Secret of Getting More Time
Every day, I hear people say “I wish I had more time”. They run through from task to task and event to event at light speed, trying to find ways to accomplish more.
Few people seem to accomplish far more than others in their lifetime. Benjamin Franklin was a successful author, politician, scientist, philosopher, printer, inventor, activist, and diplomat. His accomplishments are astounding. He was a scientist known for his theories and discoveries and gained the recognition of fellow scientists and intellectuals. He was a political writer and activist, and served as a diplomat during the American Revolution. He was a newspaper editor, self published author. Post-Master General, and started the first American library. His credits go on and on.
Benjamin Franklin is even credited for the statement; ‘Time is money.’ How did he find the time to accomplish all that when many people complained of “I don’t have enough time”?
Time is the greatest resource you will have to accomplish everything in life. Whether you want to eat, play, sleep or carry out major projects; you need time. According to Michael Fortino, an expert in time management; an average person spends 7 years in the bathroom, 6 years eating, 5 years waiting in queue, 4 years cleaning homes, 3 years in meetings, 1 year searching for things, 8 months opening junk mails, 6 months waiting at red lights, 120 hours brushing teeth, 4 minutes per day conversing with spouse, and 30 seconds per day conversing with children.
Time impacts on everything we do both in career, business and profession. Time affects moms and dads, infants and adults and the importance of time and life management is to create effectiveness in the ability of people to cut down the number of time they waste in carrying out unimportant tasks.
Effective use of time will help you focus more on the things that matter most you. But sometimes, you discover that your effort to manage your priorities around your time is challenged by several conflicting time wasting activities.
Successful people maximize their time through planning. In just two hours of planning, you could free additional three to four hours of prime time every week.
Effective Time and Life Management is about behavioral change; learning how to spend more time acting instead of reacting. This is the core of this book; to help you become better organized and more productive, through efficient use of your time.
Both individuals and organizations are involved in time and life management crisis. The fact that most organizations and institutions do not have a time management program in place suggests that they do not feel that this is an issue that needs to be addressed.
However, nothing affects the ability of an organization to function and be productive more than the ability of its employees to use organizational skills in order to save time during the business day. Companies must take action in order to encourage their employees to become more skilled in organization and time management. Even if you are an extremely organized person, all of your efforts will be wasted if your employees and the people you are leading are not picking up where you leave off. There are several things you can do as a leader, entrepreneur, parent or manager to encourage your team become more efficient managers of time.
First, think of your team’s time as an asset. It is a tangible asset that is worth a great deal of money and must be dealt with accordingly. Your job is to mange this incredibly valuable asset. You cannot assume that your team or employee know how to regulate their use of time on their own. As a business owner or manager, it is your job to use the 40 hours per week an employee gives you in the most efficient manner possible.
Next, when you are hiring new employees, make sure to evaluate their time and life management skills. This is particularly important when the job position being filled requires self-regulation. You want to hire self-motivated self-starters with good self-discipline. Ask appropriate questions such as “How good are you at setting deadlines and meeting them?” When cross-referencing previous employers, request information about the employee’s time management skills and capacity.
All of your employees should be working at their fullest capability. In the face of recent economic downturn over the years, down-sizing and retrenchment exercises haves led to the elimination of many assistant positions, forcing managers and executives to do their own clerical and secretarial tasks. If you were the one performing these tasks on such a regular basis and it becomes obvious that it would be more cost-effective to hire an hourly rated employee, to do the job in your place, it is worth doing so.
When members of your team demonstrate above average time management skills, reinforce their actions. In other words, reward them for good behavior. Behavior that is noticed and pleasantly remembered is much more likely to be repeated. In addition, other employees will follow their example.
If you are a good time manager and have good organizational skills, share them with those around you. Teach your team how to manage their time. You might begin by asking your them to bring paper and pen to your next meeting in order to take notes. This way they can transfer your ideas into their own to-do lists. Begin each meeting by reviewing the achievement from previous meetings.
Lastly, emphasize how important good time and life management is to the success of your team’s organization’s objective. You could include time management tips in your newsletter or websites. If your company does not have a newsletter, present these tips at staff meetings. Provide time management training opportunities for your employees. Purchase books and CD’s on the subject and make them available for use. Conduct on-site organization seminars. Provide employees with personal organizers, whether manual or electronic. Making time and life management strategies visible at the work place will remind and help employees develop the necessary skills and embrace the culture of the subject.
As humans, we all need to constantly evaluate our time to understand where we are investing them. We must be able to take necessary steps to implement these strategies to overcome time wasting habits. Implementation of too many strategies at one time can result in spending more time in organizing than working; or becoming overwhelmed and just returning to square one of crisis management.
Every day, people are besieged with arrays of time wasting activities both at home, schools or work places. Majority of the people suffer from acute indecision, interruptions, unnecessary errors, crisis management, poor organization, micro-managing, and inability to delegate. In business, some organizations suffer from lack of policies, procedures, and standards to follow; and every one of these lacks, one way or the other results in inefficient time management.
Time Saving Strategies
Now, let’s take a look at some time saving strategies and how you can implement them to work for you. The key to efficient time and life management is for you to create a balance so you would not become a slave to any of the seven areas of life i.e.; health, family, financial, intellectual, social, professional and spiritual.
Although you will not spend equal amount of your time on each of these areas; however, if you neglect any of them, you will jeopardize your success in all of them.
Write Things Down
The starting point is to write things down – whether in a Day Planner or a Palm Pilot. The actual process of writing down a task helps you more easily remember that you need to accomplish it. You are also able to see the big picture and evaluate where the new task fits in with others you already have been assigned.
Writing down your tasks helps you to plan each day’s work and then stick to your plan. If you do not have a written down plan of action, you will be easily distracted and therefore less productive. You will spend your work-day responding to others; their requests and crisis situations, rather than completing your own tasks.
Prioritize
When you are planning your day’s work, prioritize. Schedule your highest priority tasks and attack them first. Your ‘To-Do List’ includes important tasks and others that are not as important and can wait. Make sure you do not spend all your time working on tasks that really aren’t as important just because they are smaller and easier to complete.
Approach your work in their order of priority based on your scale of importance. It is usually tempting to procrastinate especially on the assumption that “I can do it tomorrow”. If you are tempted to put an item off, break down the task into smaller manageable pieces and get the smallest part done fast.
According to Dr. Donald E. Wetmore, the average person gets 50 interruptions a day that take about five minutes a piece. This means that we spend over four hours each day dealing with unplanned events. Sorting through the deluge of paper that crosses our desk in a single day can be exhausting.
Handle Each Task Once.
Between e-mail printouts, telephone messages, mails, memos, advertisements, and faxes; your work area can quickly become overwhelming. Try to stick to the rule of handling each item only once. If you don’t need it, trash it. If you can’t handle it in a few minutes, consider delegating it. If it is your responsibility and will take time to address, schedule it on your calendar and put it away.
Get into a routine.
Good routines can increase energy and save time, while mindless routines can curb creativity. Make sure any routines you use are serving a purpose other than just to fill up time. Plan times to accomplish certain tasks every day. Repetitive tasks, such as answering email or completing paper work, can be scheduled to be completed during a certain time period each day. This will allow you to devote your full attention to these tasks once a day, instead of partially addressing them several times a day. Set a start and stop time for all major tasks during your day and abide by the routine.
Don’t Take on Too Many Tasks at a Time
Make sure you do not take on more tasks than you can handle at any given time. You may want to impress your boss, but it can be a mistake to say yes to too many things. You can only accomplish a finite amount of work during the day and taking on more than this will result in that part of your life becoming imbalanced. Always weigh the reasonableness of taking work home. Every time you take work home to complete, some areas of your personal life suffers.
Do not put extra effort into tasks that are not worth it. Some tasks will require your full attention only if it is important for you to complete it. However, there are others that just have to get done. Don’t let perfectionism get in the way of completing less important tasks quickly so that you have more time to devote to those projects that really deserve more time.
Take a Look at Your Personal Attitude to Time
Now that we have looked at the big picture, let’s take a look at your own personal work environment and how organizing it can save you time. Look at your desk. How tidy is your desk? Is it cluttered?
Your desk is your work station. You should have only eight to nine items of work tools on your work surface at any one time. Items used on a daily basis should be kept within reach, but those that are used every other day or less frequently can be relegated to nearby drawers. Items that you may only need weekly or monthly can be stored in a supply closet.
Filing must be done on a regular basis. It is okay to keep a file that you need to use within the next two days, but anything else should be returned as soon as possible. You are wasting time looking for files when you allow them to stack up in your work area and, in turn, others are unable to access them at all. Set discard dates for all your paper and computer files. These dates may be regulated by law depending on what type of industry you are working in. So make sure you check if there are any laws regulating file retention in your industry.
Make a spot on your desk just for incoming items. Label it and make others aware of it. You might even wish to put an inbox on the wall outside your door if your environment permits. This will further reduce interruptions to your busy day.
Keep a master calendar which lists deadlines for all the projects you are currently working on. You don’t have to remember everything. Writing down deadlines and appointments not only frees your mind to deal with other problems, it gives you a visual image of what your days and weeks look like. Keeping everything in one place allows you to refer to them easily.
Finally, improving your telephone skills can improve your productivity. When you have to leave a message, make sure to speak slowly and clearly. Give your number at the beginning and the end of the message. Even when you are leaving a message for a repeat customer, do not assume that they already have your number. If you have an unusual name, spell it.
Adopting this strategy will greatly increase your chances of getting a response to your message. Since you make business phone calls to procure some sort of information that are necessary for completion of a task, it is vital that your calls be returned.
Your Time = Your Worth
What is the value of your time? Seems like a simple answer. But if you are using how much money you make as your yardstick and dividing it by a unit measure of time, say an hour, you could be dramatically undervaluing your time and your personal worth. And remember, what you think of you, is what others buy.
In order to evaluate how you are using your time, make a list of everything you did today.
Now place a value on each activity. If you answered the telephone, and normally pay someone to do this, use that value. If you made a management decision, place a value on the time it took and multiply that by the worth of a person with such experience and knowledge, you would have to be paying in that position to make that same decision.
Now practice it on a clean A4 paper with four columns headed as ‘Activity’, ‘Time Spent’, ‘Times Value’, and ‘Total’. Under activity, write out what you do that takes your time, state the number of hours or minutes it takes in ‘Time Spent’ column, state the $Rate in ‘Times Value’ and the total $Value in ‘Total’ column.
Do not place value on anything non productive. Try doing it the last few days. You may need more rows. Now how much are you presently worth every day?
Compare this to how much you are actually making. Are you utilizing your time and skills to their full dollar potential?
Now figure out your optimum hourly value, from the highest hour or most productive position. Multiply this by the total number of hours you evaluated. What is the difference between your optimum value and present worth?
Instead of placing a value on your time, try valuing each task you perform.
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Chapter Two
Plan Your Time
One of the known secrete weapons used by successful leaders, entrepreneurs, sports men and women is effective planning. Planning your time helps you beat work overload, increases your effectiveness and helps you achieve more results than your peers. In this Chapter, I will show you some of the simple practical ways you can achieve success in your work or business through effective planning of your time.
Schedule Your Planning Time
Make a weekly planning appointment with yourself. A great time for this appointment in a typical work week is at the end of the week. Fridays are great. This will give you the opportunity to plan the coming week. You will leave for the weekend with a feeling of confidence and arrive Monday morning with direction.
Planning for time takes intense concentration for most small business entrepreneurs because some of them are not used to effective time and life management practices. They are constantly fired up by a barrage of interruptions, while trying to stay in flight and navigating their craft. They have dozens of projects to execute, fires to extinguish, and new ideas to implement; all in their minds.
Planning your time helps to compress your week long activities into a focused template, chart or calendar. Laying out such a strategic blueprint of activity can at first be painful and seem non productive. But the rewards of persistent planning with the skills as outlined can be dramatic.
Master The Three Phases of Time
In order to manage your schedule effectively, you need to first categorize your time into its proper phase. These are not activity-based phases rather the types of time available to you.
For example; prime time, secondary time and tertiary time.
Prime Time
Prime time is the time you have to be the most effective. This is the time in which you have to perform whatever it is you do that produces your livelihood. If you work from 9 to 5, that is your prime time.
Secondary Time
This is the time you have between prime time and tertiary time. Secondary time is often chosen to be spent as prime time or tertiary time.
Tertiary Time
This is the time you spend in replenishment like eating, exercising, sleeping, relaxing, and bathing, etc. Tertiary time is often the most spent time, and is necessary to support prime and secondary time.
The principle of the Three Phases of Time is based on a productive lifestyle. While these three phases of time have definite dividing lines, some overlap and occur sporadically. For instance, a business lunch could be both prime time and tertiary time.
Optimum Use of Time (OUT)
OUT is the time spent towards reaching our purpose in the best possible way. This use of time differs for as many purposes and goals people have; so OUT varies for everyone.
The first and important thing every human should do is to determine what his own Optimum Use of Time is and when (the best activities) to apply it. For example, a salesman’s OUT is the time he spent in front of his prospects. A salesman that is selling to businesses would probably have a prime time between 9:00a.m to 5:00p.m, Monday through Friday. To be effective, he should be in front of business decision makers every minute of his prime time. Obviously with travel, planning, scheduling, checking on product deliveries, and following up with customers; spending every second selling to prospects is not feasible. But this salesman could maximize his OUT by:
• Doing as many OUT Support Activities as possible outside of prime time hours, such as entering orders, planning, and scheduling after 5PM.
• Scheduling appointments in a desirable geographic sequence.
• Taking advantage of any free time to work simultaneously, for example; placing calls while traveling by train, flight or taxi.
You should endeavour to spend as much time as possible of your prime time in your OUT. In order to define your personal OUT make a list of everything you do that directly helps you reach your goals (productive time). Then make a second list of OUT support activities. In our example, planning, setting appointments, filling orders, or re-arranging cabinets etc.