Most entrepreneurs have a difficult time understanding exactly how to stop wasting time. When you’re self-employed, it’s easy to take a “short break” to surf the internet, check email, return a call, talk to a peer who stops by your office, or read blogs, but those “short breaks” can easily turn into hours of wasted time each day. This includes unnecessary chats with colleagues, long lunches, or non-focused or misguided meetings that do not accomplish goals and resolve issues.
The success of your business venture depends on your ability to buckle down and learn how to stay laser focused. Let’s talk about three essential steps to help you stop wasting time, stay focused, and have productive work days, so you can be on the path of achieving your goals.
1. Always Prioritize
Complete tasks by their level of priority. If completing a specific task won’t raise your bottom line, you need to delegate it, or delay it if you can’t delegate it. If it raises your bottom line minimally, don’t put it at the top of your list - do it later or delegate it. While this is certainly the most difficult step in learning how to stop wasting time and understanding how to stay focused, it is one of the most effective. Divide your prioritized To-Do List into four sections: “Do it now,” “Do it later,” and a “Delegate it, or Drop it altogether.” Place your daily tasks in the corresponding section.
· Do it Now = high-impact producing tasks
· Do it Later = low-impact producing tasks
· Delegate it = indirect impact/indirect income producing tasks
· Drop it – YEAH! It wasn’t that important anyway or the direction has changed.
See, learning how to stop wasting time isn’t so difficult once you prioritize your tasks. Now, let’s clarify what exactly qualifies as a high impact producing task. Following up with a potential client is a high impact producing task. Building your client base is a high impact producing task. Marketing your business is a high impact producing task.
On the other hand, spending 20 minutes on Twitter, Facebook or any other social networking website certainly classifies as a low impact task, in many cases but not all. Social networking tasks, while impactful in that it increases your online relationship with potential clients should always be delegated to an assistant. If you use them as a marketing strategy for your business, budget a certain amount of time for them each day; two to ten minutes sounds sufficient to update your community on the happenings of your business. Ideally, an assistant can do most of these marketing related tasks. If you truly want to understand how to stay focused throughout the day, you’ll have to minimize the mind-sucking tasks like tweeting, reading blogs and chatting.
When thinking about activities that you or anyone in your firm does, you want to continually be asking yourself, Can what I do be automated in part or in full? With the way technology changes, you might have activities that can be automated today that couldn’t be automated in the past. Teach your team to ask that question of themselves when they are thinking about the activities they have to do every day.
2. Get Organized
Effective organization is the best asset to an entrepreneur who is trying to realize how to stop wasting time. Organization allows you to identify unnecessary tasks and helps you get a firsthand look at what it means to truly understand how to stay focused.
Answer this question, How much time do you think you waste each day? Do you get sucked into doing emails, surfing the internet, watching cool YouTube videos, or reading jokes someone sent you, getting interrupted by staff, clients, or friends, associates, etc.? Think about this for a minute – how much time do you think you waste each day? Remember it all adds up. Five minutes here, 10 minutes there, and 30 minutes on something fun yet not productive.
When I asked people how much time do they think they waste in a day, many of them said approx. 2 hours per day. So, we will use this as our example. You can easily do the math for yourself depending on the number you came up with for how much time you think you waste each day.
Here’s an example of someone who said they ‘waste’ 2 hours per day.
2 hours per day
= 10 hours per week
= 1 week per month
= 12 weeks per year
Divide by 4 and you get a whopping 3 months per year that is spent in non-productive time.
Now, let’s not dwell on the non-productive time that we waste. Let’s see what that time is worth to us in revenue per year if we utilize that 2 hours per day on high pay-off activities.
What do you make per month on an average? $5,000, $7,000, $10,000, $15,000, $20,000
Multiply that number by 3 (months wasted if you said 2 hours per day) and that is how much more money you could make a year if you just focused your time more on high pay-off activities.
$5,000 x 3 = $15,000 more per year
$7,000 x 3 = $21,000
$10,000 x 3 = $30,000
$15,000 x 3 = $45,000
$20,000 x 3 = $60,000
Even if you start by being more effective and not letting time wasters and distractions get in your way for 30 minutes per day, you will make even more money and have the option to take more time to do what you want to do. How can you apply this concept in your life so you can achieve more of your goals?
Creating a schedule and sticking to it is the most effective way to organize your work life, while learning how to stop wasting time and recognizing how to stay focused. Create a schedule with the necessary work tasks based on your prioritized To-Do List (e.g. call prospects, follow-up on pending projects with team, personal reply to red-flagged emails, meeting with business partners, preparing sales presentations, etc.).
Let me share a simple example of what an effective, yet realistic time blocked schedule might look like:
· 5:45am = Exercise (exercise when it is the best time for you to exercise)
· 6:30am = Get ready for work
· 7:00am = Breakfast
· 7:30am = Drive to office
· 8:00am = Talk with Assistant regarding any outstanding items, and prepare for the day
· 8:30am = Follow up with prospective clients
· 11:30am = Check Email
· 12:00pm = Lunch break (with client, prospect, strategic alliance, center of influence)
· 1:00pm = Work on client projects, getting referrals, client acquisition activities
· 4:00pm = Review marketing plan effectiveness
· 4:30pm = Touch base with assistant
· 5:00pm = Check email
· 5:45pm = Review calendar and activities for the next day and complete any prep work
· 6:00pm = Finish up for the day
As an entrepreneur, you need to put in full-time hours to realize a full-time income. If your business is a part-time venture for now, because you already have a full-time job, it’s even more important that you master how to stop wasting time and learn how to stay focused. With a full plate, it’s vital that you organize a schedule that aligns with your situation. If this is your full-time business venture, put in at least 40-50 hours each week. If it’s your part-time business venture, put in at least 15-20 hours each week.
Did you know that some of the most productive people in the world swear by time blocking? Ever heard of Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Michael Hyatt, or Cal Newport? Yep – all time-blockers. They’re squeezing every drop of productivity from their days, and so can you.
For more on time blocking, check out an article I wrote by going to https://bit.ly/Time_Blocking.
Consider using a time log to occasionally monitor what you do with your time every day for a week or two. You might be amazed at how you actually spend your time versus how you think you spend your time. To download a sample time log, go to http://www.accountabilitycoach.com/time-log/. Simple instructions come with this exercise to help you fill it out.
3. Delegate! Delegate! Delegate!
If you’re truly serious about learning how to stay focused, consider delegating low-priority or non-income driving tasks to a VA (virtual assistant). A VA works remotely and often comes at a fraction of the cost of a traditional employee. Tasks, such as updating Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, sending email inquiries, scheduling appointments with clients and prospects, doing research, marketing activities, and responding to blog comments are among the tasks that should be delegated to a VA. You may be a bit skeptical of spending money for someone to perform non-income driving tasks, but I can assure you, in order to build your business, an assistant or VA is an essential part of helping you staying focused on your highest payoff activities so you can achieve your goals. The goal is for you to do only what you can do and delegate everything else.
To download my Free Delegation Exercise to help you identify even more activities to delegate, go to http://www.accountabilitycoach.com/delegation-list-sample/.
Here are 3 Action Steps to Help You Implement what We Just Talked About
1. Start using the 4-D process with your To-Do schedule. Every task should be designated as A) Do it Now, B) Do it Later, C) Delegate it or D) Delete it. Everything. If you delegate it and/or delete it, it should no longer be on your list. Focus on the high-payoff tasks only.
2. Get organized. Use a daily calendar to keep yourself on track and focused. Each night, your Prioritized To-Do list should be put into a schedule for the next day (and any appropriate future date) - and follow your calendar time blocks. This includes everything - such as eating lunch, taking a shower, and drive time, etc.
3. Get even better at delegating. Learn to loosen the reins a bit and let go of the “I must control everything” attitude. This will get easier when you have solid team members or an assistant you can rely upon. Can what you do be automated, in part or in full?
For more help with growing your business and accelerating your results, reach out to me today and schedule your complimentary consultation.
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Author many books, including, Excuses Don’t Count; Results Rule, Live Life with No Regrets, No Excuses, and the Work Life Balance Emergency Kit, The Roadmap To Success with Stephen Covey and Ken Blanchard, and more.