Most executives and managers believe they don’t have enough time. Yet we live in a century where the rise of technology has created efficiencies in our productivity which has helped reduce the amount of time and effort it takes to do many of our tasks and jobs; giving us more time.
So why do you still complain that you don’t have any time?
We’ve all been granted a 24-hour day. Why do the highly efficient seem to get more out of their day than others, yet both started and ended with the same amount of hours – Why?
Do We Have Enough Time – Is Not the Issue
The real issue is how we choose to invest our time. The issue is not whether we manage our time. The real issue is how we manage our lives.
Effective leaders don’t spend time, they invest time. There is an important distinction.
Often you hear the performance experts teach on “Time Management”. However, there is no such thing as time management.
No matter how wealthy or wise you are, time cannot be managed.
Time cannot be bought, sold, stopped, saved or carried over into the next day.
The wealthiest individual cannot buy one single second more to add to his day, nor can the wisest individual bank it in a vault and use it some day.
People often say, “I will make more time…” I often respond with, “If you have the formula to make more time, please share it with me.” You cannot make more time and neither can you manage it.
Effective leaders don’t manage time, they manage their priorities.
‘Priority Management’ is the secret to best business practice and is an effective tool that yields the highest return on productivity with less output. As an executive, it is vital to understand the art of priority management as a tool for business efficiency. In business you have financial systems, sales systems and operational systems, why don’t you have a system to monitor priorities?
Incorporate Priority Management Practices into Your Daily Agenda to Create an Effective Priority Management System.
If you want to gain more productivity out of each day, I suggest that you follow these Priority Management Practices to create a Priority Management System that works for you:
1. Embrace an Empowering Mindset
Any hesitancy regarding direction of your goals is a stress inducer and a time waster.
You may be thinking what does this point have to do with priority management. Let me briefly explain. Making your success personal is the first and most important step to productivity. Worry is the biggest time waster. Worrying is the most unproductive and futile activity. The average person thinks about 20, 000 thoughts a day. Unfortunately, 70%–80% of those thoughts are negative. This means if you are an executive, you are spending a lot of time thinking unproductively. These deleterious thoughts stop you from accomplishing what you want to because it creates fear, doubt, indecisiveness and immobility of action. Any hesitancy regarding direction of your goals is a stress inducer and a time waster. (See my next article for more information…)
2. Start Your Day the Night Before
Effective leaders create their game plan before, never during the game.
Effective leaders create their game plan before, never during the game. Your day starts the night before. Delineate your priorities the night before for the following day. Pay close attention to the ‘who’s and what’s’ that I call ‘time thieves’ – these stop you from reaching your goals. If you are derailed, get back on track and move forward with precision focus. Keep track on how you invest your time throughout the day.
3. Let Your Agenda Run Your Day
Let your agenda run your day, not the problems or emergencies of other people.
Let your agenda run your day, not other people’s problems or emergencies. Your agenda is like two identical suitcases. Why is it that one person can pack more into it than the other? The answer is simple. It is what you decide to pack in. Have you ever been on a business trip and packed an item into your suitcase and travelled across the globe to realise you did not need it. This is effort with zero or little return.
The Number One Priority in Business Today Is Eliminating Distractions and Interruptions.
