“Being busy is a form of laziness – lazy thinking and indiscriminate action.” – Tim Ferriss
You’re committed to developing expertise in a given field, or at least you’re starting to think about some topics you’d love to be known for. Now you must get really good at managing your time. This is a core skill as you climb your Mountain and often means the difference between success and failure. In today’s digital age of never-ending distraction, it is critical to become good at scheduling and managing your time. Think of your ability to manage time as the fulcrum by which you move yourself to ascend your Mountain.
Time management isn’t something to just think about and discard. It affects every aspect of your life because time management is really life management. It is critical that leaders know how to manage their time effectively. In order to climb and reach your Mountaintop, you must be conscious of how you spend most of your time. What are your habits? What are your daily actions?
Let’s hear from more geniuses and experts on what they have to say about time management.
Five Practical Tips to Get More Done in Less Time
The goal of managing your time well is to be able to have fun and spend time doing things you enjoy. The result of effectively managing time is to get rid of the feeling of being continually bogged down, stressed, and overwhelmed. We all know that feeling too well.
Have you ever struggled to start, continue, or finish a looming project? I know I have, and I know the feeling of being incomplete because of it. Here are five tips to reinvent the way you approach time management that will have you feeling better and more fulfilled than you did before:
Start Small
When faced with a ridiculously large task or project, don’t think of all the work you have to do. Instead, think in fifteen-minute segments. If fifteen minutes seems like too much given your fast- paced, demanding, and hectic day-to-day life, try working on it for five minutes or even two or three minutes at a time.
You’re probably wondering what good will the small dent of five minutes of work do for a large project. Several things. First, there is such a thing as a momentum principle where five minutes can easily turn into ten minutes, and ten into twenty, etc. Second, even if you only have five to ten minutes total to work on a given task in a day, some work is always better than no work. For example, I’m working on another book right now (this book you are presently reading) and at the end of a long, busy day, when I work on my book for a few minutes before going to sleep I always feel ten times better than if I didn’t work on it at all. I may only have written one page, but that’s one more page of the book that’s complete. And for the evenings when I’m simply too tired to work on the book, I make it a point to wake up a little earlier than usual to continue making progress toward the goal.
Third, where the evolution of time management comes in, it’s about how you feel rather than what you get done. If you work on something for five minutes, feel happy, and know you are making progress, who cares if you are done with it yet or not! Of course, the goal is to get it done as productively and effectively as possible, but you don’t have to put your happiness off to some vague destination of completeness in the future. You can be happy right now just knowing that you have made some progress. Think to yourself, little by little, I’m generating momentum. I’m making progress. More so than robotic task-completion, what life is really about is having fun and enjoying each day as it comes.
Stop Over-Delegating
Many of the time management books out there will emphasize the importance of delegating. And to a large extent, I don’t disagree with that because there is undoubtedly enormous power and value in delegating tasks to other people. With that said, however, in today’s society the scale is tipped too much towards delegation and too far away from taking action.
Have you ever come across someone who I like to call a whiteboard hero? These are the kinds of people who love to talk about projects, delegating tasks left and right, spending hours drawing diagrams and figures on the whiteboard, but they never actually get anything done. If all someone is going to do is write on the whiteboard, they are wasting people’s time. Don’t misunderstand: there is value in meetings, taking notes, and discussing tasks. In fact, there is value in using a whiteboard when someone is effectively facilitating a meeting or learning session. I’m just saying – not in a derogatory way, but in a simple statement of fact and truth – there are people out there who would prefer to endlessly write on a whiteboard than to ever take action. If you’re the CEO of your company, then yes, you’ve 100% earned the privilege to facilitate and delegate. But 99% of us aren’t CEOs and 99% of us should have at least some stake in helping do the work that completes a project.
When faced with a task, ask yourself: is this something you are better off doing yourself? Would you save yourself time by not delegating it and instead just zeroing in and knocking it off? Is it one of your strengths that you are uniquely qualified to focus on and achieve? If not, then, by all means, delegate the task if that’s an option, but take time to consider the possibility that it’s something you’re better off completing yourself.
Favor Simplicity
I was recently chatting on Skype with my friend Rick Woods, The Functional Organizer. He is a professional organizer as well as a professional speaker, author, and consultant. Here are Rick’s insights as he talks about the power of simplicity:
Create a master to-do list to write down all of your goals, tasks, projects, and aspirations. Then create a short daily to-do list pulled from the master to-do list. Keep it simple and have the short daily to-do list have just a couple of things on it. If you get two important things done every day, that’s ten important things done a week, which equates to somewhere around 500 important things done in a year – accounting for vacations and holidays. When it comes to meetings, I’ve found that big meetings are bad and small meetings are good. And when you have small meetings, keep them short.
Rick speaks on time management, and his insights are brilliant. Here are some other extremely powerful tips from Rick:
- If you have a bad start to your day, it doesn’t mean you can’t have a great ending to your day.
- Get conscious about who you are spending your time with and make it a point to surround yourself with the right people (a big part of reaching your Mountaintop is to get around the right people, as John Lee Dumas told us earlier in the chapter; you could be doing everything right, but if you are around the wrong people they will bring you down).
- Work on always getting just a little bit better. Try new things and see if you can make small improvements each day. The tendency is to want to change everything at once, but that’s overwhelming. It’s those small, daily, and consistent changes that lead to real, lasting shifts in your life. Yes, there are times when you need to make massive leaps forward, but consistency and daily action is key.
- Build momentum by checking things off of your to-do list. Rather than feeling bad about not getting everything done, feel good about getting those one or two things done that really matter.
- Check your email in 3-hour increments. Rather than mindlessly checking it all day every day, try reducing your email time to three times per day, and then from there down to once per day.
Chatting with Rick on Skype several times over a period of a year, I was amazed by his superb knowledge. See what I mean about getting around the right people? Whenever I was done talking to Rick, I always felt better than I had previously, with more motivation and focus toward getting what matters most complete. He is a top-notch time manager, and he is so centered, peaceful, and calm.
“Don’t rush through tasks, as you might miss some things,” Rick said. “Enjoy each activity and make it an end unto itself. This will also allow you to develop the skill of concentration, which is learnable.
“The key is to get your content flowing and to get into the flow state of mind,” Rick stated. “Don’t wait until the time feels just right. Instead, start today and watch as kernels of insight come out of what you are doing. The beauty of momentum is that even if you’re busy, you’ll find the time to get things done. You’ll still squeeze it into those 15-minute segments. Also, don’t look at the time. Clock-watching will take your focus off of what you’re doing. The best days and jobs are the ones where you are not looking at the time at all because you are letting time naturally pass while you do your thing.
“If possible, take social media notifications off of your phone. It’s perfectly alright to check social media, as many of us do, but don’t do it all day. Check it consciously at certain time periods each day and stay in control of your social media habits.
“Lastly, be loose with your goals,” Rick said. “If you 100% know what you want, by all means, go after it with full speed. But also, don’t tie yourself to a goal if it’s not what you really want to do.”
This was incredibly liberating to hear because I realized that yes, many of my goals are 100% set in stone, but many of my goals are evolving. For example, I’m a big traveler and even though not all people in the world see the relevance of travel to what I do as a speaker, it’s a big part of me and not something I’m going to give up doing just because someone doesn’t see the point of it. To me, travel is life! The perspective, the friendship, the eye-opening experiences from my world travels are all priceless, and I will continue to travel until the day I die.
Helping managers and CEOs become better authentic leaders is still my number one focus. With that said, speaking requires frequent travel; I also often use weekends to jet off to a new city or location. I love using my free time to travel. When you have multiple goals and passions, there are win-win solutions.
A lot of people like to turn life into black and white, but that’s not the way it works. Who says I can’t travel and be a speaker? In fact, many speakers do just that! I know many people who also have an innate love for travel. Don’t let other people place limits on you. As Randy Gage says, “don’t ever let someone else’s limiting beliefs become yours.” Create your own reality and seek win-win solutions to your biggest challenges. While it’s not my main focus, I’ve done guest blogging for 1000traveltips.com, and I speak at travel conferences, sharing my budget travel expertise with the world. I recently spoke at the Travel Adventure Show in Philadelphia and it was a wonderful experience. I met a lot of new people and I did it on a weekend so it didn’t take away from my main focus. There’s nothing wrong with this because it doesn’t detract from other areas of my business. The truth is, these side endeavors add great enrichment and pleasure to my life.
Rick’s insights are powerful, and he’s a master of his craft. I don’t know about you, but I’m going to follow his advice! I can’t emphasize enough that reaching your Mountaintop is reaching YOUR version of success and doing what you want to do, regardless of what others think, say, or do. As Joel Osteen, a speaker, bestselling author, and inspirational preacher says, “others have every right to share with you their opinion – and you have every right not to listen to that opinion.”
I am drilling this point home with you because when you put this book down and go back to living your life, the world will once again inundate you with all sorts of “should’s” and “have to’s”. You definitely don’t want to cancel all of your commitments suddenly, but over time you can take back control of your life. Remember what Jenny Drescher taught us? Get rid of the “should’s” and start focusing on what you want to do.
Live your own life and stop letting others dictate to you what you should and shouldn’t do.
These are amazing insights from Rick, aren’t they? Notice Rick’s tips have a common theme: simplicity. Create space in your life. Get rid of the clutter. Donate books you’ve read and don’t need anymore. Say no to activities and obligations that don’t serve your greater purpose. The extra space you create in your life by being true to yourself will allow you to make a magnificent impact on the world.
Do What Matters
My 53-year-old aunt was in the hospital undergoing life-threatening surgery (sadly, she’s passed away now – I was very close with her) and my mom had to take care of my cousin, my aunt’s son. I was asked, last-minute, to spend time with my little brother who is a freshman in high school because my dad went to the hospital to be with my aunt, his sister. My little brother is a smart kid and would have been fine on his own, but my parents wanted me to drive down from my apartment to be with him because it was an extremely difficult time for our family and they didn’t want my little brother to be left alone.
For that afternoon and evening, I had a number of important things planned. I was looking forward to attending a networking event that some key players in my industry were attending. In addition, I had several overdue errands to run and an important upcoming speech to prepare for. I had even just blocked out some time to work on writing my next book. Listen, I know no one ever wants bad news, and I don’t want to sound distracted because I’m a friendly and understanding person, but this was a particularly difficult night to have this come up.
Thankfully, I had my values and priorities in order, and I knew that my little brother came first. So I drove down from my apartment to Newtown, Connecticut, picked him up, and spontaneously took him to a New York Rangers hockey game at Madison Square Garden. While taking the metro-north train down into the city from Connecticut, I realized something important:
It’s essential to have your values and priorities in place because time management is more than getting everything done as quickly as possible – what it’s really about is doing what matters.
It ended up being a great night, and I’m absolutely 100% sure my late aunt would have been proud of us for having fun, enjoying the moment, and taking our minds off of the stress (something she always taught us to do). I know she’s smiling from somewhere as I write this.
Reward Yourself
I’m a bit tired. But more than feeling tired, I’m also feeling burned out. Writing this chapter was the last thing I felt like doing. But you know what? I wrote it anyway. I realized that I didn’t want to put this off any longer. I also understood that, as my friend Chip Janiszewski, of Happiness and Success GPS, said to me over breakfast one morning, “the present moment is all you ever really have.” In a very realistic and practical way, the present moment is all that exists in life. Chip is a smart and successful speaker and trainer. What he says makes sense.
“Sameville, as I like to call it,” Chip said, “is where most people live. It’s choosing to let other opinions and society influence you. My number one focus when coaching, communicating, and working with others is a message of awareness. You can choose to be happy, to grab a positive mindset, and do whatever you want with your life.”
What Chip is saying here is that if an external focus dictates your life, you’ll never find the time to work on your purpose effectively. Look at the big picture view of your life and remember that properly managing your time is really managing your life, priorities, and true goals. This includes being your own best friend and knowing when to take a break or vacation.
Train yourself to be disciplined – it’s a learnable skill. When you are disciplined and do what you told yourself you would do, reward yourself. Whether that reward is watching a movie or TV show, eating a delicious meal, grabbing ice cream, laying down on the couch, or even traveling somewhere new, you will feel great about yourself on the way to your destination.
When in doubt, listen to San Francisco 49ers wide receiver legend Jerry Rice’s words of wisdom. I shared this quote in the second chapter, and it’s so powerful I’ll share it again: “Today I will do what others won’t, so tomorrow I can accomplish what others can’t.” This does NOT mean to do everything suddenly and burn yourself out. What it means is to establish a consistent, daily schedule and routine to make periodic, incremental progress, so that tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year you can do things that you can only dream about today.
This is an excerpt from Chapter 7 of the award-winning book, Reach Your Mountaintop: 10 Keys to Finding the Hidden Opportunity in Your Setbacks, Flipping What You’ve Heard on Its Head, and Achieving Legendary Goals.
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