Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance
(There is also a popular uncensored version with 6P’s)
Ask yourself, what is your biggest challenge in managing your time?
Have a think about some of the other things that prevent you controlling your time too.
How often do you do things at the last minute, or say there isn’t enough time in the day?
Time is a precious commodity, so how do we use it best?
Spend 10 minutes at the start of each day to create a plan for what you want to achieve, then review this again at the end of the day. Move unfinished items over to the next day.
Some tips for what to look for:
• Prioritise tasks – don’t just do the things you want to do. Eat the frog – do the things you have been procrastinating about first – they usually take less time than you think and make you feel better!
• If you are starting out in business you’ll need to balance the work you give away, just don’t forget to prioritise getting the paid work done.
• Try using this system to help, organise your tasks into:
1: Important and urgent (E.G: Deadlines)
2: Important but not urgent (e.g. update website)
3: Urgent but not important (noisy e.g. incoming sales call)
4: Not urgent and not important. (These are just the tasks some people use to make them look busy)
• Set aside time for email, admin, business planning, financial checking, marketing goals, ‘How can I do better’ time. Set yourself a routine time for these things.
• Try and work on 1 email at a time.
• If you’re using a digital platform like Outlook, Monday.com, Trello, Todoist, consider rainbow colour coding using Red colours for the important, down to blue colours for the not so, and so on.
• Set a realistic task start time for when you should start the task, to allow enough time to do a great job. Starting at the last minute is procrastination.
• For events and promotions, working back from delivery to inception is the best way.
• Make time for breaks, meals, your family and yourself. Managing our time helps achieve a good life balance.
• Once broken down into tasks, set a time frame to achieve them.
• Remember squeezing one last thing in isn’t always the best use of time. Stick to the plan when you can.
• Importantly, delegate if you can, and learn to say NO to the things that don’t fit your plan.
When it’s time to start your day eliminate distractions such as smart phone, email, news websites. Switch alerts off so you can focus on a task. Emails are a great way to burn time up. You will win back a lot of time in any day if you are disciplined on the times you check your emails.
Of course, planning your day can only be effective if you are working towards a greater plan.
Having a Vision, a Mission, Values and Key Strategies all based around your Major Goals is crucial for success. These are your road map. The best way to get nowhere is to start out without one.
Once you have a plan you can then break these down into 6 months, 3 months, 1 month, and then daily. Make sure you make time to review this regularly too. If you have a team include them. Your team will work on what they want to work on if there is no plan.
Reviewing the plan in this way ensures you don’t get caught with your head down – if you don’t look up you won’t see the disaster train coming right at you.
Planning like this, you’ll know what you need to achieve each day to reach your goals. And with a plan in place, the benefits from your daily time management above kicks in.
Lastly, proper planning of your time helps you sleep at night, keeps your business spark alive, and allows you to enjoy your leisure and your family.