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11 Ways To Maximize Time And Life

My business experience has taught me one true thing: That maximizing your productivity, happiness, peace, or impact can best be accomplished if you clearly understand the 11 Rules of Time to help Grow Your Business.

I have previously written about Time Mangement here and on other Platforms, Check out the video on the linked page

“If you want to make good use of your time, you’ve got to know what’s most important and then give it all you’ve got.” ~ Lee Iacocca

1. Own Your Goals

Being more efficient with your time is irrelevant if you don’t know how you want to spend it. In managing time, the compass is more important than the clock. Know where you want to go and spend your time on the things that get you there.
Many people spend energy trying to be more efficient without first doing what’s important: setting goals. It’s like being lost on your way to a new city. Driving faster doesn’t help if you are going in the wrong direction. Figure out what direction to go in and head that way.
Once you’ve prepared it, your list of goals will reveal what is important to you.

2. Effectively Spending Your time

It is always good to know how you’re spending your time right now. You can track this by setting a timer to go off every 15 minutes; whenever it sounds, write down exactly what you are doing. Alternatively, divide your day into 15-minute blocks and record each activity you do.
Once you have your time logs, examine them.
How do they compare to your goals?
Are you spending time on where your priorities are?

3. Writing It All Down

This sounds too simple, but it really is the basis of all time-management systems. Your to-do list can be electronic, on fancy paper, bound in a notebook or loose-leaf. The key is to have everything you want to accomplish on one list. My to-do list might have a one-line item on it, such as “write an annual report,” which refers me to a much larger file or even a file box on that item. I have used 8 1/2 x 11 Spiral-bound notebooks for almost 60 years. Shirley always asks if I am ever going to “Write That Book”

4. Prioritizing

Once you have the list, determine which are the important items. Mark these with a highlighter, a red pen, or in any other way that makes them stand out.
I sometimes find my to-do list is too big. Every item on the list calls out “pay attention to me!”, even though most of them weren’t highlighted as important. In these cases, I take a blank sheet of paper and cover my to-do list and write down only the three or four most important items. Those are the ones to focus on.

5. Control procrastination

I use a number of tricks to break any lingering tendencies to procrastinate. For instance, I happen to like having a hard copy of my digital to-do list. I reprint it every few days as new items are added and completed ones dropped. It is at these times that I look for the items that I’ve marked as a high priority, but which are just not getting done. People often say I have great self-control. In truth, though, much of it is environment control. I control my environment to eliminate things that I might use to procrastinate. Take games off your computer, for example, sell your TV, and get rid of the busywork jobs that you use to avoid the important tasks.

 At the beginning of every day, I do the one task that is causing me the most stress, and that I haven’t been getting done. Sometimes I just give it a quarter of an hour — based on the theory that I can stand just about anything for 15 minutes. Frequently it is this short thrust that breaks me through.

 To create extra motivation to complete a task, I strengthen the reasons why it should be done. Similarly, many people reward themselves for completing a job.

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6. Organize

Organization and time management are linked. I find that I get important things done when I have all the tools I need to perform the job.

The opposite of organization — chaos, clutter, disorganization — generally leads to busy work. If your desk is piled high, every piece of paper says “look at me.” You can end up doing a lot of work without ever getting to the important stuff.

7. Delegating

One way to expand your time is to get others to help you with it. The key to delegation is to hand off any tasks that someone else can do significantly faster or more easily than you can.

If you’re protesting that you don’t have anyone working directly for you to whom you can delegate tasks, no problem. Consider delegating to a peer, a superior, a supplier, or even a customer. Treat delegation like networking: who in your network would be best for the job?

After delegation, remember to thank the person or persons appropriately. You might think people would resent being delegated to, but exactly the opposite is true. People like to be asked, especially if it is to do something that they’re good at.

8. Master efficiency tricks

The best trick I have found is “The Power of While.” What can you do while you drive? While you walk? While you clean? While you watch TV? I am a huge Audio Instruction Advocate and frequently listen to Audios while I am doing something else.

9. Say NO More Often

Saying “No” can be the most powerful time tool you can master. When someone asks you to do something, ask yourself how important this is. Does it help you achieve your goals? Is this a task you would be better at than most people? Don’t always look for reasons to get out of things, but be strategic about what you take on.

This doesn’t mean that I always say no when asked to help out. But if I do say no, I am always polite and tactful and try to suggest someone else who would do the job well.

10. Take care of yourself

It isn’t possible to be “on” all the time. Take the time you need to look after yourself — body and soul — so that you can reach peak efficiency when you need to. Have a list of things you like to do. Find out what activities energize you, and spend more time doing them. This will give you the power and energy to be more productive when you return to work. Maintain a Healthy diet, take time to eat three meals a day and Supplement with quality products.

11. Focus

Committing 100% focus and concentration on one task at a time can be very powerful. Eliminate distractions. Focus on the task. When you’re properly organized and prepared when your energy and power are high, you can often complete a task in 20% of the time it would take when you’re distracted or open to interruption. Listen to past episodes of The Focus Society of Overachievers

Finally, a word of advice.

If after reading this far you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed, I suggest you go back to Rule 1 and add peace (contentment) to your list of goals. Time management is not about adding stress; it is about giving you the time to be the person you really want to be.

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Chuck Bartok

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