1. COMPLETE A BUSINESS AUDIT EACH MONTH
Take a look at your business and make a note of your top priorities for each day/week/month. Make a decision on where you want to focus your energy and then look at everything else you have been doing and decide what to do with it.
2. DON’T SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF
Work out what areas you add the most value to the business and make a decision that at least 80 per cent of your time will be spent on these activities.
3. DELEGATE
Let go of the reins and delegate your work more often. Whatever task you do from now on ask yourself “Should I really be doing this?” and “Can someone else do this instead?”
4. OUTSOURCE
You and your staff do not need to do everything you know! Nike doesn’t actually make shoes! Could you outsource some of your tasks and operation to a third party outsider?
5. PERSONAL ORGANIZATION
Make proper use of TO DO lists and your diary – make using them a habit. Can you automate any tasks like getting email on your mobile phone?
6. PROCESS IMPROVEMENT
By simplifying your business and your processes you can make it a lot easier to run and this in turn will lead to saving you a lot of time.
7. IMPROVE YOUR COMMUNICATION SKILLS
You will get the most out of your staff and save yourself a lot of time in the process if you can communicate what you want in a clear, concise manner. Assertiveness skills will also allow you to say “NO” in the right way to requests and will allow you to manage the frequent interruptions that you get on a daily basis.
8. FOCUS ON STRATEGY
Know where you are heading and why you want to get there. This will keep you focused on what is important. Continually revisit your strategy to make sure you keep on track and away from all of the distractions.
9. IMPORTANT AND URGENT TASKS ARE NOT THE SAME
As soon as you can make this distinction you will be able to categorize your tasks accordingly and know what to do with each one.
10. KEEP ON IT!
Keep analyzing where you are spending your time on a monthly basis and make adjustments to what you should be doing and how you are doing it. We all stray off track from time to time so don’t beat yourself up about it, just take stock and move forward.
Now that you know what your particular time stealers are, how do you arrest them? In most cases, people have to come to terms with the fact that they cannot do everything but that they can do what is most important. Planning and goal setting is of the utmost importance.
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