Schedule your priorities – in advance!

When working with an audience today, an attendee said, “I keep prioritizing my schedule, yet new items keep showing up. What can I do to make it easier to squeeze the new items into my days?”

This is a typical concern for nearly everyone. If this is a concern for you, my suggestion is this:

Rather than continuing to prioritize your schedules, begin to schedule your priorities (in advance). Weekly schedules are best because you can then be certain that your weekly schedules include personal and professional priorities.

When you schedule priorities in advance (weekly), you’re making commitments to your known priorities by setting aside time to accomplish them. Thus, when new items appear, you can more easily determine the importance of the new items, compared to the importance of the priorities you have scheduled.

If the new items that show up are important to you, schedule them around your already scheduled priorities. If they aren’t as important as the priorities you have scheduled, you can more easily say “no” to them – or perhaps schedule them for a later time — because they conflict with the priorities you’ve already scheduled on your calendar.

Plan tomorrow today!

According to a study by the American Psychological Association, 48% of Americans can’t sleep at night and they lie in bed worrying about all the things they have to do. I’m not a physician or a psychologist, but if you’re in the 48% group, I do have a suggestion.

Rather than go to bed with a head full of worries, make a list of the action steps you’re going to take tomorrow to accomplish the priorities that will help you have a successful day. When you make your list, you’ll then be visualizing the actions you’ll take to achieve your goals, rather than worrying about not accomplishing them.

A good plan for tomorrow can be created in 10 minutes or less. That ten-minute time investment will help you see ways to accomplish your goals and just might help you fall asleep more easily. And – just as important — when you wake up, you’ll not only be more refreshed, you’ll know what steps you’re going to take to move yourself forward.

Set time limits for social networking!

I can’t help smiling because the February 17 issue of MacLife Magazine has a quick and simple article showing Mac users “how to block time wasting sites during their day so they can get their work done.” It actually shows Mac users “how to block time-wasting sites between the hours of 9-11:30 a.m. and 1-4 on the weekdays and yet still have access after work hours and on the weekends”. If you’re a Mac user, you’ll find the article at: http://www.maclife.com

Whether you’re a Mac user or not, the thing that makes me smile is the fact that many business people are just starting to realize how much time they lose when they switch from the work they need to accomplish to social networking sites such as Facebook, YouTube, etc. Otherwise, the editors of MacLife wouldn’t write about this.

I agree with the editors at MacLife. I’m not saying it’s necessary to block social networking sites, but those sites do have a tempting lure about themselves (I know because I enjoy them too). Even so, we all have work that needs to be accomplished during work hours and, consequently, it’s important to set time limits for yourself whenever you go to a social networking site whether you’re on the job or not.

Without setting a time limit, you’re apt to be seduced to stay at the social networking site longer and longer and thereby not get your work priorities accomplished.

Take an inventory of where your time goes!

I’ve already mentioned (and endorsed) Dr. Edward M. Hallowell’s book, “CrazyBusy,” Here’s another paragraph from his book that’s worth noting:

“Think for a moment about how much time you give away without meaning to: to the television or radio commercial you are putting up with until you get back to the show; to the “friend” you don’t really like; to the e-mail you don’t need to read; to the shopping you don’t need to do; to the memory of the bad thing that was done to you years ago; to the hundredth time you’ve worried about the same matter that’s out of your control; to the nails you can’t stop biting. The more you give attention away, the less you have left for what you need. Attention isn’t infinite, nor is the energy required to focus it.”

Does this paragraph make sense to you? It sure does to me. In fact, I have clients and friends who want help with their time, yet I notice them spending the bulk of their days on social networking sites, while they tell me and other people that they don’t have time for their businesses and for themselves. Not only that, you’ll recall that Barry commented after my last post that we need to “stop and smell the roses.”

Suggestion: If you want more time for you and your business, think about the past week and take a serious inventory of where you invested your time. If you were pouring your time into items that aren’t getting you where you want to go, eliminate those items from the current week and schedule your true priorities so you focus on them and not on the items that steal your time.

Look at time as an investment

When consulting with a client this morning, he said, “Chuc, you keep talking about time as if it’s an investment. Why do you do that?”

My response is that you only have four things you can invest every single day: time, money, energy, and creativity. All four of these are important, yet if you only invest money, you won’t have much of a life. If you only invest your energy, you’re going to get worn out. And, if you only invest your creativity, you’ll keep creating and never get anything done.

When you think of time as an investment, you’ll realize it’s your most precious asset. And when invested in your priorities, time is the one commodity that will help you get a return on the other three and thereby make all your Minutes Count.

Does this ring true to you? Leave your thoughts and comments below. I’d love to hear from you.

Schedule specific times for communications!

A client just gave me the December 08 issue of Family Circle Magazine, which has an article, titled, “Getting the Message.” According to the article, Nielsen Mobile reports the average teenager sends or receives 1,742 text messages a month.

Just think: That’s almost 60 messages a day for teenagers between 13 and 17 years old. What about you? How many e-mails, voice mails, and text messages are you dealing with?

No matter what your answer is, it’s important to set specific times to handle these communications or else you’ll be letting yourself get interrupted again and again to the point that you can’t focus on key priorities.