Time Management 7

Before planning comes “wishing” and “wanting”. These are vital steps which you need to have in place.

Wishing is the idea, it’s in your head and you need to have a clear picture. Wanting is a feeling associated with the wish, it’s in your heart.

On the basis you know what you want and have connected your head and heart then you are ready for some planning.  By the way, after planning comes “doing” and then “having”.

First, it’s important to understand that what you wish for can seem ambitious and it may seem overwhelming, a bit like eating an elephant?

So, the way you would do that is to do it one piece at a time! It is easier to get started on something that seems daunting by slicing it up into manageable pieces.

There’s a video on YouTube with Will Smith being interviewed and he talks about his Dad knocking down an old wall outside their house and getting him and his brother to re-build it.

It took two years and Will says it taught him to lay on brick at a time. And, to lay each brick as perfectly as a brick could be laid.

Break everything down into smaller steps that you feel comfortable tackling and doing it bit by bit. You will get it all done. Feel good each day when you lay that one-brick and look back and see how far you have come, not just what’s ahead.

It’s vital you prioritise actions.

It’s important to make sure that when you decide to do something, it contributes towards one of your goals or objectives.

Some priorities are more important than others, so number your lists in order of importance. You must ask yourself “if something doesn’t contribute, then why are you doing it?”

Ask yourself “will doing this help me achieve this objective?” by doing this you will do the things that contribute, and other things will be delegated or done later, or even not at all.

This way you are already starting to utilize your time more productively.

Think about your goals in shorter time spans.

What to achieve by the end of the year, by the end of the month, by the end of the week, today?

Write down the aims and prioritize them.  Break down each aim into smaller steps, and prioritize them also. Do this for your monthly and weekly aims. What you are doing is working out a strategic plan. That is the way successful people work.

Start with your personal goals, financial and non-financial.

Link each small task with your most compelling personal goals.

One of the most well known and well respected books on personal development is The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey.

To help you make decisions about the use of your time by deciding whether the activity is important or not, urgent or not. The matrix looks like this:

Deal with these activities in different ways, and their priority will depend on this.

If the work is important and urgent, it needs to be top priority.

A long term project could be important but not urgent, so you can create a timetable for it later ensuring you allow enough time for completion.

If something is urgent but not important, this is because of poor planning.

Remember that just because someone tells you something is urgent doesn’t make it urgent; this is only their opinion. Work it out for yourself for your business.