BLT (5th July): Time management – how do you do it and stay disciplined?

Time management – how to do it and how to stay disciplined?

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There are numerous theories and techniques surrounding time management, in fact so much so that you could spend a long time thinking about it rather than actually doing anything!

So, let’s cut to the chase, with this simple mnemonic suggested during our latest BLT meeting – the 5 D’s.

The 5 D’s

Do it

• Turn distractions into rewards: e.g. an avid BLT video-gamer schedules half an hour of online gaming into his lunchtime as a reward for accomplishing the morning’s tasks.
• Minimise interruptions: suggestions included switching phones to silent, not having any social media platforms running in the background, and hanging a ‘Do not Disturb’ sign on the door (although anybody with children will know that this can act more as an invitation than a deterrent!)
• Automate tasks: if you’re IT-savvy, direct your emails through a CRM system which can prioritise clients…if you’re not, just use rules and folders in your email system to keep things tidy!
• Work in the ‘flow’: e.g. when you’re feeling creative (it happens!) write more than 1 blog at once, save them to drafts, give yourself a platform to work from rather than starting from scratch each time.

Delegate it

“It is far more lucrative and fun to leverage your strengths instead of attempting to fix all the chinks in your armor.”

-Tim Ferris

The £80k ‘hump’: an interesting piece of research cited by a BLT member suggested £80k turnover was the level at which many UK small businesses became ‘stuck’, largely because the owners ran out of ‘capacity’ around this time and couldn’t do every thing themselves.
The 4-hour workweek: we looked at this book a few weeks back (by Tim Ferris) which is a staunch advocate of delegation to free up your more productive/lucrative time…or to just give you your life back.

Defer it

Diarise: I think this depends upon what sort of person you are; more process-driven people tend good at doing this and sticking to it, whereas other more ‘creative’ types tend not to be…I should know!
Colour-code your diary: try to fit tasks into time slots to prevent you from jumping around from one thing to another. For example:
- Blue: Revenue-generating activities (sales calls, meetings)
- Black: Strategic (might lead to future revenue-generating work; e.g. networking)
- Red: Admin (HR, Accounting, Legal..etc)

Diminish it

“Pareto’s Law can be summarized as follows: 80% of the outputs result from 20% of the inputs.”

-Tim Ferris

What is your most productive 20%? This goes hand-in-hand with the delegation principal; if you can work out what this ‘productive 20%’ is, then you can try to adjust your working day to prioritise these activities.

Delete it

To Do lists become stale – if you’ve carried items over from your ‘To Do’ lists for days or weeks on end, either delegate them or dump them as they’re never going to get done without some help.

Conclusion

I hope there are a couple of useful pointers here, or at least reminders – we tend to know when we’re being inefficient time-wise, it’s doing something about it that’s the trick.

Remember, wherever possible: