Improving Your Management Skills Is Key To Your Success

One thing that constantly amazes us is how quickly each year passes. The days, weeks, and months seem to roll into one, and before you know it, 8 months have passed. You’re left wondering ‘where did the time go?’

Now that’s okay as long as you plan accordingly. However, most people spend more time planning their holidays than planning their time. If you plan – you get more done, much more done. If you fail to plan and set goals, it’s surprising how little you’ll accomplish.

All the high achievers and successful people in this world identify planning and goal-setting as major contributors to their success.

Why? Because in addition to giving them a clear roadmap, it also helps them plan their daily/weekly/monthly schedules, and with effective management of time it enables them to get more work done in a week than most other people get done in a month.

What we’d like to talk about are a few tips on getting stuff done. Lots of stuff done. People are often amazed at how much work we get through on a daily basis. There is, of course, a significant link to goal-setting but it also has to be linked to effective time management.

That’s something that isn’t often associated with growing a business, but effective management of your time is a very potent weapon (and, conversely, poor management of time can be a real business growth inhibitor).

The good news is that it’s not that difficult to massively improve your output if you follow our simple ‘5 Key Time Management Tips For High Performers’. Like everything we discuss with you, none of these things are difficult or earth-shattering, but they do make a significant difference as long as you start using them!

So here are our key Time Management Tips…

Planning

Plan each month and then each week and then each day based on your goals. The key here is to establish what you need to do each month to accomplish your goals. Then break these tasks down to weekly and then daily tasks. You must always prioritize these ‘goal-orientated tasks’ above ‘general tasks’.

You’re probably thinking—this will take a lot of thought and time to plan out. You’re right. It does. That’s why so few people do it. That’s why so few people succeed in life. Do not underestimate the power of carrying out this first step—it is the key to your success.

Work During Your High-Performance Times

You’ll get much more done in times when your body is alert and active. For many, this time is 6am-1pm and 8pm-11pm (but you’ll know when you’re at your best). The worst times are generally after eating! It’s during these high-performance times you should carry out your ‘Goal-Orientated Tasks’.

This one step alone will improve your output significantly—so make sure you only allocate this time to the important tasks! Use the less productive times for ‘general tasks’ and meetings.

For example, only write your media pieces (ads, letters, newsletters, etc.) during productive times.

Here’s why…

• Since our minds are more active and fresh we can get more done.
• Concentrating on the task at hand is much easier.
• Our creative juices are flowing when our minds are more active and alert.

Block Out Your High-Performance Times

Next, make sure you block out your high-performance times and under no circumstances let other things get in the way.

Again, this is key to your success. Treat your high-performance times as compulsory appointments (in other words, you can’t cancel them). If you have a secretary or PA, make sure they understand these ‘appointments’ are never to be broken and replaced with anything else.

Resist All Distractions

During your high-performance times turn off your mobile, take your office phone off the hook, and don’t open your email program. Even one interruption can set you back an extra 15-30 minutes, not including the time of the interruption.

This does take a high level of discipline. In the early days, you will find the temptation of leaving your phone or email program hard to resist but, we promise you, this will slash your effectiveness by at least 50%. Once you force yourself to reduce your distractions to zero, you’ll find it very liberating!

Tell Staff (And Family)

You must explain to staff and family that unless it’s an emergency you are not to be disturbed during your high-performance times. By adhering to these 5 key time management tips, we guarantee you’ll get so much more done.

This translates to greater income and more success—especially if you keep following our business growth advice and simple-to-apply strategies. The important thing is to discipline yourself. If it was easy to do these things, everyone would be doing them.

The fact is, most people lack real discipline. And getting a high volume of stuff done requires real discipline. You can do it if you put your mind to it. But you have to carry out ALL these tips. And once you’ve mastered these time management techniques, coupled with savvy marketing, you will maintain continuous success.