All people have a lot to do during their day. The problem arises when you need to do more things or just things, and you don’t have the time.
Time, as energy is, is a finite entity. You have, as everybody else, the same amount of time in order to do your life, incredible! You have just 168 hours to bring about this miracle and most of them should be spent on administration, maintenance, accounting, etc. tasks that will permit you to continue or work in the manner you like.
To do that un an effective – and efficient – manner you need first to learn how to deal with the interruptions!
Interruptions are a constant in whatever you try to achieve, and you need to make sure that you will have the time to do whatever needs to be done, or focus on the things that make a difference for you and your family.
And this is not so easy to discern! It! You need to employ the best strategies to help you focus on the things that will actually bring you the results you want in your life and work. And along the strategies you might want to use, or you can employ in the field of your work, you need to change the way you are thinking about how do you need to implement staff and what you expect from your actions.
You need to change your mindset and shift your thought and action patterns in a more effective manner of thinking and working. You need a new set of thought rules to help you cope with all these that threaten your time, effort, results, and energy!
There are many things you can do to this end, but I can suggest a few strategies to help you make things better! Here are those:
- Prioritisation and Triage. One of the first things you need to do is to clear up your thoughts and find what you have to do during the day (ought). You need to review the things you NEED to do, the things you OUGHT to do, and the things you MUST do in order to move to the next level. You need to filter these tasks, keeping in mind your limitations and the deadlines you need to observe and make a list with the things you have the time or energy to do during the day. From this list you need to move out the things you cannot do (perhaps because you need input or the contribution from a third person) or the things you can automate or delegate and triage and prioritise the rest ones putting them in the queue for completion.
- The No Strategy. The first thing you should do is to stop over commit yourself and assume things that would bring you no results or the ROI you expected! You need to start saying NO to the things that do not add up to your own particular formula of living and working well. You need to focus more on the things that bring the results you envisioned rather than spend your time in activities that would serve the purposes and cause of third-parties. And if you have to do so, you need to make sure that you will be compensated in a way that matters to you. In any case you need to STOP over committing in no – priority tasks.
- The Schedule time with Yourself Strategy. You need to gain your time margins, by become more effective during the day. You can achieve that if you reserve time for the things you need to follow up or achieve, by scheduling time-slots for the task at hand and put it on the calendar. It is the same as scheduling an appointment with a client or an associate, but this time is a time reserved and allocated for doing one specific thing during the day.
- The 80/20 Strategy. You need to follow up the Pareto principle and focus on the 20% of tasks that bring the 80% of results. You need to focus on the things that matter most and on the things bring results to you. To do so you need to start using the 4 pillars of effectiveness and productivity: the Delete – Automate – Delegate – Outsource principles. In order to do what matters most to you, you need to develop margins to help you reflect upon and design the proper responses to the challenges of your personal and professional life. You need to learn how to delete the things that are not aligned to your goals or create clutter, automate whatever you can, delegate the things that will be performed best by other people and outsource things you do to a third party.
Think about it! What would you do in order to maximize your results in your personal and professional life?
