Get twice as much done in half the time and take an extra day off a week with effective time management.

Time is your biggest issue – there’s never enough of it. Why? Well, usually it’s not that you’re doing too much work. You’re doing too much of the wrong kind of work and because of that, right now it’s difficult for you to see how to do more of the right kind of work and even know what the right kind of work is.

We’re going to examine how you use your time each day and what you can do to maximize your productivity.

First of all, there really is no such thing as time management. Time is not your problem. Attention is your problem. Achievement follows attention. Managing your attention will make the best use of your time and, in turn, the best use of you.

Productivity doesn’t depend on how much time you have. Everyone has the same amount of time – 24 hours a day/seven days a week. You can’t manage time any more than you can manage the weather. Time passes at its own rate and it’s the same for everyone. So why do successful people seem to get so much more out of the same amount of time that everyone else has?

Productivity does not depend on the time available to you. It has to do with your attention. What you choose to do. Your mindset. Your attitude towards work and time and some productive habits which eliminate the busy-ness and replace it with accomplishment. You’ll find that you may do the same amount of work, but by doing different work differently, you’ll get more done. More importantly, you’ll get the right things done.

In dealing with time, we have to define what work is. Work is any activity directed toward achievement of a business purpose. You probably won’t find this definition in the dictionary, but it has the virtue of being results oriented. Achievement of a business purpose.

When you look at what work is and what resources are needed to get the work done, you have a starting point for improving the work and becoming more productive. The elements of work is a checklist. If you want to improve your productivity, and the productivity of others, you look at these elements and find ways to change them, or manipulate them, to get the right work done, to get more of it done and to get it done in the best and most cost effective way.

The first element of work is the task, or tasks. These are jobs, projects, or systems. They’re all ways of doing work and they can all be broken down into tasks. So, a task is an activity that produces a result. It’s the actual work you, or someone else, performs. Your work is simply a series of tasks. A task can be anything from a trivial, one second task to a major, complex, multi-year project. Major tasks and projects can always be broken down into a collection of smaller tasks. When you do your business systems designing, you build a system from a series of interconnected tasks. So your job is a collection of tasks. A project is a series of tasks so you might say that the task is the basic building block of work, at least from a managerial point of view.

I was once told that a T/ask is something you ask someone to accomplish by a certain Time, giving you the T for time. T and ask in task. This is a nice tool to remind you what a task is because a task has to be done by someone within a certain amount of time. Saying to someone, “Could you do that report for me?” is asking them to do something, but it’s open ended. Saying instead, “Could you complete that report for me and have it to me by nine o’clock on Friday?” now makes it a task. It has someone assigned to it, there’s an action, and there’s a time for it to be done in.

Tasks are one of the elements of work. Another element is systems.

Most people do not take a systematic approach to managing themselves and the way they do the work. They simply follow whatever habits they’ve built up over a life time. Some of those habits are effective and some are not. The key to being more productive is to work intentionally and systematically, not randomly, and to build effective, system-based habits.

People are another key element. Work in a business always involves people. Managers, peers, subordinates, advisors, suppliers, lenders, and of course, the all-important customer. The interactions you have with these people can contribute to your productivity and you can deal with them in ways that minimize their consumption of your time and effort.

Tools and materials is an obvious element of work. You need them to do many kinds of work. You might not think of them that way, but this includes in and out boxes, telephones, computers, pencils, paper, tools, etc. They’re all tools that can contribute in an important way to the way you do your work, as well as your own tools of trade. The age of computers has added a growing list of tools to increase your productivity. Many of them are effective and some are just trendy toys. You need to decide what works for you.

Information in business is a necessary element. You can’t work without information. There’s no shortage of information in today’s world, but there’s often a shortage of the right information, or information in the most useful form.

Another element – your environment. That is, the surroundings in which you do your work. Your space, the way it’s set out, conditions, noise, smells, the activities of surrounding people or equipment, safety, etc. Your environment can have an enormous impact on your ability to do work.

Access is also an important element. If you were supervising an assembly line, or a project, you have to be there. You can’t do it unless you’re located on site. You need information. You need some form of communication channel, whether that be paper and pen, electronic, or interpersonal. If your work requires interaction with customers or workers, you have to communicate with them in some fashion, whether it’s in person, or by text. However it is, there’s communication and there’s access. And access means physical presence and location is important for getting the work done and some form of communication that allows you to do the work. So access also means being able to get the information, the materials, the equipment, the services, etc., whatever is necessary to get the work done. And, of course, there’s you – the heart of the matter. The single most important element in your work is you.

We could easily manipulate the other components of work when you identify them as we have here. It’s just simply a matter of applying the principles of systemization. Your productivity, your effectiveness, your ability to get more of the right things done and maintain your sanity. Doing so all starts with your mindset.

Tune in next week when I will get into the details of the productive mindset.

Until next time…

P.S. Learn more about working ON your business–talk to the coach!
Click here to connect with me!