MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR TIME!

Spend your time doing things

that take you to the objectives

that make you happier and more

effective

WITH THANKS TO…

• Many of the principles described are derived from Dr Stephen R Covey’s book “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”

• A truly excellent book, the other six principles are well worth exploring too

• Also Tim Ferriss whose “The 4-Hour Work Week” is a modern business classic

ARE YOU MOVING FORWARDS?

• This will help you if: You never have enough time

You never have time for you

You want more time with people precious to you

You have endless ‘to-do’ lists

You wonder where time went

You can’t make progress towards what you want

CONCEPTS: FOCUS ON THE THINGS THAT MATTER AND MAKE A DIFFERENCE

DEFINITION

• Time management is: A set of principles, practices, skills,

tools, and systems that work together to help you get more value out of your time with the aim of improving the quality of your life

• If you were at your own funeral, what would you want to be remembered

for?

By your partner and family?

By your friends?

In business?

What difference would you have made?

• And then:

What one thing could you do that if done regularly would make a tremendous

positive difference in your personal life?

What one thing in your business or professional life would bring similar results?

• And then:

How do you make the time to do this consistently?

ASK YOURSELF…

TIME MANAGEMENT TRUTHS

• Remember 80% of results come from 20% of

effort and time

What you do is more important than how do you do it (perfectionists take note)

Don’t use busy as an excuse for avoiding uncomfortable ‘important’ actions

Once time has gone, you can’t get it back

Lack of time is often synonymous with lack of clear objectives

FOUR GENERATIONS OF TIME MANAGEMENT

• First generation: Get things done

Notes, checklists, to-do lists

• Second generation Schedule to get things done

Diaries, calendars, appointments

• Third generation: Prioritise and schedule to get things

done

What’s important?

• Fourth generation: Prioritise and schedule to do the

things important to you

Managing yourself, building relationships, getting results

URGENT OR IMPORTANT?

Urgent tends to be reactive – event driven by somebody else

Important tends to be proactive – results driven by you

Don’t confuse ‘busy’ with ‘effective’

URGENT AND IMPORTANT

Significant results that demand urgent attention

Risk of more and more activities until you burn out

Reactive or proactive - who is setting the agenda?

Activities: • Crises • Pressing problems • Deadline driven projects

Activities: • Planning • Recognising new opportunities • Relationship building

Activities: • Trivia, busy work • Time wasters • Some mail and calls

Activities: • Interruptions • Some calls, email, reports • Some meetings

Urgent Not Urgent

Imp

ort

ant

No

t Im

po

rtan

t

URGENT, BUT NOT IMPORTANT

Short term focus, crisis management

Reacting to other people’s agendas

Often feel victimised and out of control

Activities: • Crises • Pressing problems • Deadline driven projects

Activities: • Planning • Recognising new opportunities • Relationship building

Activities: • Trivia, busy work • Time wasters • Some mail and calls

Activities: • Interruptions • Some calls, email, reports • Some meetings

Urgent Not Urgent

Imp

ort

ant

No

t Im

po

rtan

t

NOT URGENT, NOT IMPORTANT

No impacts of any significance

Busy doing things that don’t matter

Dependent on others

Activities: • Crises • Pressing problems • Deadline driven projects

Activities: • Planning • Recognising new opportunities • Relationship building

Activities: • Trivia, busy work • Time wasters • Some mail and calls

Activities: • Interruptions • Some calls, email, reports • Some meetings

Urgent Not Urgent

Imp

ort

ant

No

t Im

po

rtan

t

IMPORTANT, BUT NOT URGENT

You are in control of your time

Characterised by planning, results and relationships

Time spent in this quadrant has maximum impact on things that matter

Activities: • Crises • Pressing problems • Deadline driven projects

Activities: • Planning • Recognising new opportunities • Relationship building

Activities: • Trivia, busy work • Time wasters • Some mail and calls

Activities: • Interruptions • Some calls, email, reports • Some meetings

Urgent Not Urgent

Imp

ort

ant

No

t Im

po

rtan

t

SUMMARY

• The best way to spend your time is in the “important but not urgent” quadrant

• You’re doing the things that matter and are important to you

• Your actions are aligned with your objectives

• You achieve better work-life balance

ACTION PLAN: GET RESULTS BY TURNING THEORY INTO ACTION

THE PROCESS

• Define personal objectives

• Define goals to take you to those objectives

• Schedule time to complete the goals

PERSONAL OBJECTIVES

• What are my major objectives? For myself?

For my partner and family?

In business?

Major ObjectivesDate:

Personal Objectives

Partner and Family Objectives

Business Objectives

OBJECTIVES INTO GOALS

• What goals take me towards my objectives? Each objective will have a series of

goals to complete

These goals become specific actions

Then plan to complete those actions

Major ObjectivesDate:

Personal Objectives

Goal 1

Goal 2

Goal 3

Goal 4

Partner and Family Objectives

Goal 1

Goal 2

Goal 3

Goal 4

Business Objectives

Goal 1

Goal 2

Goal 3

Goal 4

PLAN WEEKLY

• A weekly plan is better than a daily plan: All actions – personal, family and

business – can be systematically planned

Looking at a week rather than a day makes plenty of time to complete important actions

The weekly plan can be adapted daily as required (but don’t lose the important stuff!)

TIME MANAGEMENT TACTICS: MAKE TIME FOR YOU

DELEGATE!

• Without delegation, your achievement is limited to what you personally do

• With delegation, results become limitless

• Step past the traps: Think this way, and you end up doing

everything “By the time I’ve explained it, I could

have done it”

“I could do it better myself”

I don’t have staff (Don’t think org chart, think capability)

Problems often solve themselves if you stop yourself being a bottleneck and empower others

DELEGATE RESULTS NOT TASKS

• Delegating tasks means: Methods focus rather than results

focus

Micro-management

Those completing the task aren’t motivated

• Delegating results means: Specifying what needs to be

accomplished, not how it should be done

Scope for creativity

Results ownership leads to greater motivation

JUST SAY NO

• Learn to respectfully say ‘No’ to urgent activities If I do this, does it move me closer to

my goals?

Who is this urgent for?

Who else could do this?

Are there other ways it could be done?

GET PARKINSON ON YOUR SIDE

• Parkinson’s Law states any task will expand to fill the time available

• Schedule tasks with very short and clear deadlines

INTERRUPTIONS

• To minimise interruptions, tell people how you prefer to communicate.

• In order of preference: Email

Phone

In person

EMAIL

• Email eats time your time responding to other people’s priorities Switch off the audible alarm and auto

send/receive (or if that’s too painful, make it every two hours)

Set an autoreply that says you look at email twice a day – lunchtime and end of day. And do that

Do the same with your BlackBerry

You’ll be amazed how people start to take their problems elsewhere

SCREEN CALLS

• Calls eat time your time responding to other people’s priorities Let calls go to voicemail, unless you

know who it is and what they want

Like email, schedule two windows a day to batch calls when you’ll get back to people

When you do take or make calls, keep them brisk

MEETINGS

• Meetings can eat huge amounts of time Meetings should be held to take

decisions, not define problems

If a meeting doesn’t have clear objectives and an agenda, don’t go

Always define an end time – and leave at that time

Choose less obvious times to meet – e.g. 9.20 not 10.00 (An ‘on the hour’ meeting is assumed to last an hour)

SOUNDS HARD?

• Think you’ll hurt feelings? You won’t – it just needs to be done

courteously and consistently

It’s your job to educate those around you to treat your time (and also theirs) with respect

SUMMARY

• Have clear objectives about what you want

For you

For your family

In business

• Break those objectives into manageable goals

• Schedule the actions that will complete the goals

• Delegate to increase your effectiveness

• Use time management tactics to minimise interruptions

SUMMARY

HELPFUL?

• If you’ve fund this helpful and want to learn more, schedule an hour’s sales coaching with me to help you apply the principles to your situation.

• Go to Sales Coaching at Sales Success and More!

• Mike McCormac founded Sales Success and More to help professional sales people selling high value services achieve more. He has an MBA and his sales background includes over 15 years success selling IT services and outsourcing. Mike works mainly in the UK and Cyprus.

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• Phone +357 99 860725