New Year’s Resolution #6: GET CONTROL OF WHERE YOU ARE SPENDING YOUR TIME. The last Master Mind Call was on the topic of planning and prioritizing where you spend your time for maximum productivity. If you were on this call (and all of you should have either been on the call or listened to the recording by now), you should have, AT A MINIMUM, done two things:
1. Identified what your time is really worth and what percentage of your day is actually devoted to true productive work.
2. Created a definition of what productive (or high leverage) time is for you.
After all, how the heck can you possibly know if you are being productive if you don’t have a definition for what productive time IS?
Many of the members wrote to me after that call to say that it had really struck a nerve with them, and requested that I keep the pressure on you to stay focused and improve your time management skills. Consider this the first reminder. We all know there are more things to do in life than there is time to do it and that is why you have to be tough about where you spend your focus and your time.
You already have ALL of the time that there is—you don’t get any more hours in a day or weeks in a year. The only thing you have is your freedom to chose.
Right now, you are either choosing to waste your time in distraction, or you are choosing to invest it into building a business that is lived on your terms, according to your values, and your needs. Whatever you do, DON’T make excuses or put this commitment off.
Years ago I entered a body building competition and discovered the joy of eating nothing but plain, boiled chicken, rice, and raw vegetables. In a world full of Burger King and Krispy Kreme, you can only image the challenge it was to stay on this diet for 3 full months.
The truth is, I was far from perfect; but the best advice I got was from my trainer who said that whenever I slipped on my diet, don’t try to make up for it in the next meal or the next day. Just get back on the plan and eat the next meal that I was supposed to eat. No more, no less.
Sounds simple but it worked like a charm. Did I fall off the diet bandwagon? Of course. But knowing that I would get right back on kept me on track. Same goes with planning your day and managing your time. Are you going to screw up? Of course. Are you going to digress? I expect it. The ONLY thing you need to do is come back to center, remind yourself of where you should be spending your time, review your priorities, and start over. After a while you’ll notice that you slip up less and less and before you know it, you are 1,000% better about managing your time.
