Every working person, no matter what industry or career you have can benefit by implementing some simple steps into our daily routine. According to Andrew Cass, any professional can perform at peak efficiency and be ultra-productive with this simple plan.
This plan consists of you mastering 5 steps:
1.) Breaking Free From The Time Management Myth
To start out with, we cannot manage time. We CAN manage ourselves. Time is and always will be, ticking by second by second, and we have to make changes ourselves to be more productive. If you fall into the trap of believing that time itself can be managed, you are already in trouble.
2.) You Must Schedule Time For Education and Training
To stay on the cutting edge in whatever you do, you must stay up to date with the latest and greatest info. Call it training, education, or whatever, you need to be constantly learning and growing to stay on top of your game. If you don't schedule a time slot in your calendar either daily, or weekly, or monthly to attend a class, workshop, or online webinar - then you are unorganized.
3.) The Vampire That Sucks Your Time Like No Other
Distractions. We ALL have them and they come in all forms. email, texting, phone calls, children, spouses, friends, assistants, internet - here's a big one - social media. When you arbitrarily allow them into your working world you are being unproductive, and your time mangement suffers.
I schedule the first 4 work hours of my day as my productive time where I am not distrubed, period. No email, my phone is off, I don't check facebook, I am zeroed in and focused like no other. I take a short break at the top of each hour to stretch, get a drink, and grab a couple minutes of fresh air. Then I'm back at whatever my task is, whether it be writing, marketing, or advertising. Then after all my tasks are completed for that day, I have a scheduled time for these time suckers.
4.) The Importance of Your Environment
It needs to be conducive for creativity and focus. Since I work from home, I've heard that no million dollar thought ever came when the kids were running around the room. I have a quiet area that is my space to get my work done. If I need to be creative, perhaps I'll get out and go work at the lake or local park.
5.) How to Place a Dollar Value on Your Time
Pick your income goal for the next 12 months. For an example let's use the number $200,000. There are approx. 250 work days per year give or take, and 8 work hours per day. 250 x 8 = 2,000 hours. $200,000 divided by $2000 = $100 per hour.
Conventional wisdom will tell you that this math is correct. But conventional wisdom is wrong when it comes to time management. See out of the 8 hours you work each day, you are really only productive, doing income producing activities, in 3 of those 8 hours. The other 5 hours you are getting ready to make the money or putting things in place to be productive. But 3 hours or your day you are doing the activities that earn you your income.
So 250 days x 3 hours per day = 750 hours per year. $200,000 divided by 750 = $267 per hour.
$267 per hour! Now next time you get distracted on facebook, allow meaningless phone calls to interrupt you, or spent an hour on email that could have been avoided, remember this formula, you'll never feel the same about spending that hour again.
