Time Management! Many know that an effective daily time management strategy would positively impact their work productivity, their business success, their physical health, and their personal lives. The truth is though that very few of us start or follow through on even the simplest of time management strategies and end up letting others and time itself manage our lives. Is that you?
There have been hundreds of books and thousands of posts and articles written about time management. Over the last thirty plus years I have read or listened to many of them, looking for new ideas, innovation or training techniques that would benefit myself, my businesses, my coaching and consulting clients and their lives. The fact is that all of the books, seminars, articles, formulas, grids, tools and posts all boil down to four pretty simple success steps for effective time management. So why do we have such a hard time managing time?
Effective Time Management
Effective time management comes down to four basic steps. The challenge is that you have to embrace, implement and completely commit to each step so it becomes part of your life, if you want to achieve success taking back control of your time. You can be taught or develop hundreds of different strategies to implement time management, but in the end they all it boil down to these four steps. They are:
- List It: You need to always keep a written list or multiple lists of goals, objectives, action items or tasks that you need to accomplish daily, weekly, monthly, yearly or just once, in every facet of your life (work, family, personal, and health). This list can be on your computer, a pad of paper or a notebook. If you know that something needs to be done, write it down under the facet “category” of your life it falls under. Also include the date you added it to your list, the date it needs to be accomplished by or the frequency that it needs to be addressed.
- Prioritize: This is where most of us get into trouble. We sit down and take the time to create our primary list of action items, objectives or goals that we need or want to do or accomplish in our lives and immediately become overwhelmed by the magnitude and scope. The fact is that you can not accomplish everything at once and if you try you will end up accomplishing nothing.
This is where you beak your list out into the four facets (work, family, personal and health) and prioritize each items based on what is necessary, what is not and when you want to do it. There are many different strategies, numbering systems, formula’s and grids that you can implement to help you establish a prioritization strategy that works best for you (but I am not going to get into that subject here).The key is that from your long list of “To Do’s, goals, objectives and tasks” should evolve four prioritized lists in order of importance, that impact each facet of your life. It is up to you to define what those categories mean to you or if you need to add or sometimes subtract a category, but I will use four as a baseline.
Focus on the top 1-2 items in each list as the primary goals for that day. Do not bite off more than you can chew. If you have time to work on what is next at the end of the day, Great! - Daily Plan: Once you have identified those primary goals, develop a daily plan of what you are going to work on and how much time you are dedicating to each item for the day. Again, be realistic with yourself and establish balance into your plan so that you are not one dimensional. Whether you use a paper calendar, a DayTimer, Outlook or Google Calendar (as I do), plan out your day to accomplish or work on those primary goals that are going to move you forward. I am not suggesting that you attempt to plan out every waking moment of your day. Spread things out and leave time in between eat, breath and rest. You are going to have some necessary interruptions, so plan for them. The key is to stop letting “time takers” like email, unplanned phone calls, employee questions, customer issues, etc. dictate your time and your productivity. You can not ignore them, but you can take control and begin to manage these “time takers”.
- Commitment and Follow Through: The fourth element is the hardest and where most of us fail. It is the total commitment and follow through to the plan. This is not only holding yourself accountable to develop your daily plan, but also implementing and sticking to it every day. If you plan to check voicemail and email three times a day, then set the times and stick to it. If you planned on spending an hour on a specific project, then close your door and do it. Let people know when you will check your calls and email and when you have planned in time to discuss any issues that may need to be addressed that day. Take control and follow through!
Call To Action
Think about how you normally spend your day. Do you have a plan? Do you end up just reacting and responding to what is dropped in fromt of you? Do you accomplish the things most important to you and the growth and success of your business?
If you accomplished just one action item per week from your business list that increased the profitability, by implementing an effective time management strategy, that would be 52 profit impact accomplishments in a year.
So the question is, are you doing that now? If not, why?
Let me know how you do…
Bill Sifflard - With over thirty years experience as an entrepreneur, an executive, an author and as a business consultant, Bill Sifflard has a long history of experience bringing innovation, efficiency and success to large and small businesses adapting to evolving markets.
As a premiere Sales and Marketing Innovator, Bill is changing how business integrates traditional marketing strategy with the power and potential of the internet utilizing his "Velocity for Success" matrix.
To learn more about Bill and Bssential Small Business Solutions you can visit http://www.bssentials.com and register for his Free eNewsletter or follow all of his blog posts by clicking on the RSS feed button above. 
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