If there’s one thing entrepreneurs uniformly hate, it’s wasting time. Starting and growing a business takes head-down, get-it-done dedication and efficiency. But even the best of us can struggle in the day-to-day world with all of the little things that can sabotage our efforts to spend time effectively on the things that matter most, in our businesses and personal lives as well.
And when economic conditions are challenging, it’s all the more important to get the time-management thing right. Your good organization and time-management skills are essential to the success of your business.
• Use the 80/20 rule. About 20 percent of the things you spend time on produce 80 percent of your results. To maximize your productivity, identify the 20 percent activities and prioritize them. Look at how you currently spend time. How many things on your to-do list get checked off? Identify what you’d like your 80 percent – your results – to look like. Now you can reorder your priorities for best results.
• Discover the power of priority. Every entrepreneur makes dozens or more choices daily about what to focus on first. Most tend to put out the fires first, and then move to more productive endeavors. If you want to tap into your productivity’s full capacity, however, you need to balance being a firefighter and being a builder. List all tasks you face, from big to mundane.
• Divide (and conquer) documents. To make sure you don’t drown in a sea of e-mails, spec sheets, spreadsheets, and more – either hard copies or electronic — you must decide quickly what to do with each one. You have four basic options: act on it, file it for later, delegate it or toss it. Make it your goal to touch (or click on) each document only once before putting it into one of these categories. The boldest move you can make is to be honest with yourself about what you can and will make time for – and then having the courage to pitch everything else.
• Make your desk a no parking zone. A desk isn’t storage space, it’s work space, so treat it that way. The more pictures, notes, boxes, tools and so on you have on your desk, the greater your odds of being distracted. Be brutal. Remove everything that isn’t necessary. If you haven’t touched something in a year and it doesn’t have sentimental value, get rid of it. A clear workspace promotes a clear mind.
• Ask specific questions. When you ask a vague question the answer is likely to come back just as vague. Specificity cuts confusion and extraneous detail. Communicate precisely why you need to know the answer, and what its purpose is. •
Daniel Kehrer can be reached at
editor@business.com.
Rhode Island's Market Has Changed. Developers, Builders, Investors and Sellers Must Change With It.
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