There is NEVER enough time!

There is NEVER enough time!

WRONG! Anyone who complains about not having enough time is just making excuses. Each of us has the same amount of time as everyone else. The question is, what are you doing with it?

I used to be a person who always felt there was NEVER enough time, but then I realised that what I was doing was procrastinating doing “busy” work, and doing other useless things that didn’t add value to myself, my family, my business, or my clients.

After some self-reflection, some study, and perseverance, I now get my work done in the time I allocate. I also spend better quality time with my family and significantly add more value to my clients, my business, and myself.

So with the realisation and the belief that I had the same amount of time as everyone else, I worked on managing my time more efficiently. Below are some of the things I have done:

Work is for during work hours. So often I see people on the phone with a work ‘thing’ whilst at the park with their kids or some other activity. Come on guys, is it really that urgent to be missing out experience with your kids? Most of the time, it’s not, and can wait until the next day. The same goes with working at home during your family time. It is NOT cool, generally unproductive, and leads to a worse home life. So STOP IT!

Uninterrupted time. This is a big one that a lot of professionals don’t do enough of. You should be blocking out interruptions to get things done. Uninterrupted time is best to be done 60-90 minute blocks. If you have 90 minutes to really get into your work and get things done, you’ll need a short break afterwards (5-10 minutes). If you do this, you will find that you can get a lot done in that time. More than you would think. If clients and customers call you during this time you are ‘with someone’. You are with yourself and it is a very important meeting.

Checking emails. This can be a huge waste of time. If you’re like me, you might receive more than a hundred, or even 200 emails a day. Not uncommon, as it is an easy way for business to communicate and it works quite effectively. This contributes to time wasted, because people are constantly checking their emails all throughout the day and getting distracted by them. Turn off your notification and close your email program. You DO NOT need to read an email the instant it comes to your inbox. E-mail is mail so treat it like mail. Check it only once or twice a day, there is no need to check it more often than that. So turn off those notifications and that email program, get some real work done, or if you’re at home, enjoy your life with your family and friends.

Meetings. The WRONG meetings can be a massive waste of productive time. What is worse about this is that they tend to waste multiple peoples’ productive time simultaneously. Change your business so that you start having the RIGHT meetings and get more productive time back.

Phone Calls. Just because your phone rings doesn’t mean you need to answer it then and there. Answering or taking a call when it comes in can be highly disruptive. Most of the time, the phone call can wait. A key thing that I do is to get the person who receives the phone call (receptionist) find out when is the most appropriate time to call that person back – then an appointment is made. This stops phone tag and the disruption of productive time.

DO THE RIGHT THINGS. This is the most important because there is no point saving and getting all this time back if you do the wrong things with it.

So what are YOU going to do to improve how you use your time?