8/10/2023-Time Management

Working on your time tracker is a gift to yourself…the revelations will astound you and may hurt too. ("I spent how much time doing THAT this week?").

Usually, the phrase time management makes the mice scurry for the cracks! ("Don’t you start judging how I spend my time!!")

Drop the gloves…open your mind: TM is not a judgment game; it’s a productivity game.

The TOP 10% know the key to maximizing time is based on three principles:
1. Understand where you spend your time.
2. Build a disciplined scheduling system.
3. Set and manage goals.

Everything starts and ends with #3. It doesn’t pay to be a time martyr and complain ‘you have no time’. (Don’t you roll your eyes when hearing others say, "Oh, I’m sooooo busy!"?)

Manage your time against the goals you set.

Today, don’t blame time…for anything!

Yup…no more bad talking "time." (What did time ever do to you that was so scarring?)

Gaining back control of your calendar – and maximizing productivity – means your attitude has to align with what you want from time.

Avoid saying things like, "I didn’t have the time." Or "I ran out of time." Or the worst, "I’m so busy."

Everyone’s busy. Nothing you say will change the fact that there are 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, etc.

Instead of howling about how fast time is going by, revisit your goals and see what time is needed to reach them.

The TOP 10% are pretty darn good at mastering time because they simply keep blinders on in pursuit of their goals. They don’t bother with anything unproductive. That kind of discipline is typically an acquired skill and improves by doing time-tracking exercises.

Of course, you’d rather do many other fun things other than charting where your time went during the week, but uncovering and itemizing the things that derail your productivity is key if you’re going to get a grip on your calendar.

Time tracking reveals how much time you’re spending against UNproductive activities, like "Internal Meetings," "Data Entry," and certainly, "Social Distractions.". Granted, some of these tasks you must do, but understanding how much time you spend against all job functions will help you make decisions about your productivity.

Or, follow your TOP 10% friends and do what they do: ignore everything that gets between you and hitting your goals.

The first step to mastering time is…. oh fougataboutit, there’s no such thing as mastering time.

Everyone struggles with time. What’s worse, time messes with us…and laughs in our face. When we need it to go slow, it goes fast; when we need it to go fast…etc., etc.

Enjoy this little 2-minute vignette between the big boss and his time helper. It will provide absolutely NO help to you, but it might relieve some time stress you’re feeling.