2/20/2025-Time management, schmanagement

It’s unhealthy (and lame) to regularly announce, "I’m so busy, I’m so swamped." It’s an admission you’re losing the battle to control your calendar. It’s high time you regain control of time.

"Don’t you start judging how I spend my time!!"

Relax.

TM is not a judgment game…it’s a productivity game. And it’s a game you can win easily with a few easy steps:
1. Actively manage your calendar and utilize all its features.

2. Integrate your goals into your calendar and align your time spent against those goals.

3. Say no to demands and distractions that prevent goal progress.

Avoid being a time martyr and complaining that you have no time by controlling the clock …not letting it control you.

Create a personal time tracker that quantifies where you spent your time this past week.

List every time category in the A column of a sheet with names like "prospecting," "client meetings," "internal meetings," "proposal building," etc.

Next, review your calendar from the week and insert your time spent in the B column.

What does the data tell you? What can you cut? Which activity do you need to increase?

Don’t let the data scare you; the facts will steer you toward higher productivity.

What better day than today to examine how you spend your time?

The conditions are perfect: you’re exhausted and have seventy-nine things to do before 6 pm when you promised your sib you’d go shopping for clown suits for your nephew’s 7th birthday party.

Properly managing your time includes repositioning your attitude on how you feel about your time spent. If you feel productive, you’ll enjoy your time working more. Likewise, you’ll feel more fulfilled with your work if you perform tasks aligned with your goals.

Time-tracking exercises present the ultimate question: what will you change to improve your productivity?

One thing is sure: staying the course and changing nothing means more inefficient and, perhaps, disillusionment with your role and work. This is your chance to turn that around, but you must do the work.

Wouldn’t it be great to arrive 20 minutes early to meet your sib later this afternoon instead of 20 minutes late? Where are those 40 minutes going to come from?

Time management models and theories are bountiful. That’s a good thing because what might work for you might not work for other sellers on your team.

If you don’t have time to watch this TED Talk featuring Hitesh Choudhary – then you need to watch this TED Talk. (Read that again if you must.)

Controversy warning: Hitesh boldly proclaims that time is unmanageable. Do you buy that?