What Are You Doing With Your Most Valuable Life Resource?!

Does Success Take Time? It is not just about time; it is how you use your time to achieve Success!

Achieving Success Takes Time

Most people do not know how to utilize their time effectively.

You might seem busy – you might feel like you work all the time – you might feel like you have very little time left at that end of the day. To really see how effective, you are at your time and increase your time management abilities, a simple time audit can be conducted. Once you identify where your time is going, you can eliminate the time wasters and recapture valuable productive time.

What are the 10 Time Wasters Ranked by more than 10,000 Business Executives?

1. Shift priorities.

2. Telephone interruptions.

3. Lack of priorities or objectives.

4. Attempt too much.

5. Drop-in visitors.

6. Ineffective delegation.

7. Cluttered desktop (lose things).

8. Lack of self-discipline.

9. Inability to say “no”.

10. Meetings.

Everyday Effort

We must make a conscious effort every day to control events in our life if we are going to manage our time effectively. There are several areas that must be addressed in your time audit and in your time management.

Plan Your Workday

The secret to effective time management is learning how to plan events so that your high-priority tasks are handled first. Taking time to plan your workday is a discipline that requires commitment and regular attention throughout your day.

Overcome Distractions

The distractions that are within your control (self-imposed distractions) include: Procrastination; selecting tasks with the wrong priorities; Attempting to accomplish more than can be done in a specific time; and Social interruptions. In organizing your day well, you will be able to minimize the impact of distractions.

Time Audit

A time audit is exactly what it means – taking inventory about how you spend your time. This will help you find out where your day “really goes”. To do a time audit, you will need to track and record what you are doing each minute throughout your day. The data you collect from your time audit will help you determine if your activities are consistent with your business objectives and will help you identify major time wasters that are decreasing your daily productivity.

Your time audit can best be set-up by tracking each activity in fifteen-minute time blocks. Record your activities on paper (daily planner) in hourly blocks of time. Every fifteen minutes stop what you are doing and write what you are doing in the fifteen-minute time block. At the end of your day, you can analyze what you did and how much time you spent on each task. Compute your time findings for each task and review your findings honestly. As you do this, you will be surprised on what you can improve in with your activities and output.

Activities and Output

Activities are the things you do during the day. Output is what you achieve. Activities are of no value if you do not have the output you want. The keys to increasing your productivity and achieving your objectives are to determine which of your activities are the most important, and to prioritize those tasks.

The Payoff

The primary purpose of a time audit is to make you aware of how you are spending your time, so you can reprioritize activities to help you achieve your objectives.

Overcome Procrastination

The key to overcoming procrastination is to prioritize your work. After this, focus your efforts on completing your most important tasks before taking time to complete less important tasks or socializing.

Helpful Tips for Overcoming Procrastination

• Use check lists.

• Make a radical change.

• Group similar tasks.

• Do not chase perfection.

• Avoid pressure.

• Finish what you are doing.

• Set deadlines.

• Get the worst over first.

• Start projects as soon as possible.

• Conduct time audits regularly.

• Review your daily and weekly check list a few times per day.

• Think about your reward for your output.

Eliminate Interruptions

Interruptions decrease your output by diverting your attention from high-priority activities to lower-priority activities and by requiring you to mentally “reorganize” your work. The average time it takes for a person to become focused when interrupted is 6 minutes. If you are interrupted 10 times per day, you lost 1 hour getting yourself focused.

Be on Time

By being on time; you set the example for others to do the same. A person being late is a big-time waster.

Plan for Success by Committing to Yourself

Take a few minutes every morning and prioritize your checklist of things to do that day (or even the night before). This is crucial for your success so that you know where you are at and where you are going that day. Visualize yourself as an energized and organized person.

Mind and Life Success Preparation

We do not have tomorrow, because it has not come, and yesterday is gone. We only have the present. What are we doing with our day? What are we thinking about each day? Each day is a building block in what we desire, what we think, what we proclaim, and the actions we take. The building block of today is what creates success for our lives in the future in what we want out of life.

Below are some things to think about and some questions you can ask yourself to help assess yourself each day. As you start your day, spend some time before you do anything else so that you are where you need to be.

• How can the principal of whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, and… think on these things be applied in my thought process every moment each day?

• How can I apply more gratefulness and thankfulness for what I have right now – not what I do not have? Contentment is so important.

• What can I do to prepare the night before to put my heart and mind in the place I want to be for the next morning?

• What am I taking in into my life? There is a statement that says, “Garbage in, garbage out”. This truth applies in all things we do. In other words, what can we watch, read, and listen to each day that will change our lives for the better?

• On the other side of the coin – what can I avoid watching, listening, and reading that will free up my heart, mind, and emotions so that I am healthy?

• What are some things I can tell myself when I wake up that will put me in the right frame of mind? If we do not commit ourselves to controlling what we listen to, think about, and act upon, someone else will do it for us. We must decide, commit, and act to see successful results.

• What is the gauge in my life – my standard and anchor? How do I measure my heart, actions, feelings, what I say, and my results? Without truth, how do we know where we are at and where we are going?

• What are we telling ourselves? What we say comes from our thoughts, which come from what we desire in our heart. What are we desiring and what are we thinking about?

• How can I train my mind to think on those things that will help me to get to where I want to go? In other words, I need to take regular stock on what I read, what I am doing, what I am thinking, and ensure that it lines up with where I want to go.

• How can I use prayer and truth to live my destined and purposed life?

What is the most valuable thing everyone has in life?

Take a minute and think this through!

• Is it money? Is it status? Is it ….?

• It is time!

Each one of us has 24 hours in a day (no more and no less), 365 days per year (most years), and so many years to live. The average person lives between 70 to 80 years (some more and some less).

The gift of time is amazing!

Please read the marble story below so that you can remember the gift of time in your life.

How are You Using Your Life?!

As you read this, think about being in the place of accomplishing your daily, weekly, monthly, annual, and life goals. Think about your time and what that means to you and those around you.

I have that 1,000 marbles left before I am 75, if I should live that long. This would be a great way to motivate yourself to change from what you have always done, to what you have wanted to do. Every time a marble goes from the supply bin to the trash bin, another Saturday has been subtracted from your life. If this gets you to take the action you need to change, then it becomes more pressing as the marbles decrease. Fool the tables and finish out the marbles and start putting them back in.

"One marble at a time"

The older I get, the more I enjoy Saturday mornings. Perhaps it's the quiet solitude that comes with being the first to rise, or maybe it's the unbounded joy of not having to be at work. Either way, the first few hours of a Saturday morning are most enjoyable.

A few weeks ago, I was shuffling toward the basement shack with a steaming cup of coffee in one hand and the morning paper in the other. What began as a typical Saturday morning, turned into one of those lessons that life seems to hand you from time to time. Let me tell you about it.

I turned the dial up into the phone portion of the band on my ham radio to listen to a Saturday morning swap net. Along the way, I came across an older sounding chap, with a tremendous signal and a golden voice. You know the kind; he sounded like he should be in the broadcasting business. He was telling whomever he was talking with something about "a thousand marbles". I was intrigued and stopped to listen to what he had to say. "Well, Tom, it sure sounds like you're busy with your job. I'm sure they pay you well but it's a shame you must be away from home and your family so much. Hard to believe a young fellow should have to work sixty or seventy hours a week to make ends meet. Too bad you missed your daughter's dance recital."

He continued, "Let me tell you something Tom, something that has helped me keep a good perspective on my own priorities." And that's when he began to explain his theory of a "thousand marbles."

"You see, I sat down one day and did a little arithmetic. The average person lives about seventy-five years. I know, some live more and some live less, but on average, folks live about seventy-five years. Now then, I multiplied 75 times 52 and I came up with 3900, which is the number of Saturdays that the average person has in their entire lifetime. Now stick with me Tom, I'm getting to the important part."

"It took me until I was fifty-five years old to think about all this in any detail"; he went on, "and by that time I had lived through over twenty-eight hundred Saturdays. I got to thinking that if I lived to be seventy-five, I only had about a thousand of them left to enjoy."

"So, I went to a toy store and bought every single marble they had. I ended up having to visit three toy stores to round-up 1000 marbles. I took them home and put them inside a large, clear plastic container right here in the shack next to my gear. Every Saturday since then, I have taken one marble out and thrown it away."

"I found that by watching the marbles diminish, I focused more on the really important things in life. There is nothing like watching your time here on this earth run out to help get your priorities straight."

"Now let me tell you one last thing before I sign-off with you and take my lovely wife out for breakfast. This morning, I took the very last marble out of the container. And the one thing we can all use is a little more time."

"It was nice to meet you Tom, I hope you spend more time with your family, and I hope to meet you again here on the band. 75-year-Old Man, this is K9NZQ, clear and going RT, good morning!"

You could have heard a pin drop on the band when this fellow signed off. I guess he gave us all a lot to think about. I had planned to work on the antenna that morning, and then I was going to meet up with a few hams to work on the next club newsletter. Instead, I went upstairs and woke my wife up with a kiss. "C'mon honey, I'm taking you and the kids to breakfast." "What brought this on?" she asked with a smile. "Oh, nothing special, it's just been a long time since we spent a Saturday together with the kids. Hey, can we stop at a toy store while we're out? I need to buy some marbles."

• Work like you don't need the money.

• Love like you've never been hurt.

• Dance like nobody's watching.

Maybe everyone should buy marbles and then ask him or herself how they want to "lose their marbles".

What are You Doing with Your Time, Your Life, and Your Success?

How Can We Serve You?

©Above the Standard

"Increase Profits, Reduce Cost"

Erwin Jack | [email protected] | AboveTheStandard.net

About Above the Standard

Above the Standard has global experience empowering and changing the lives for many executives, leaders, and organizations in more than 100 nations, having increased profits in the tens of billions of dollars, with sustainable outcomes.

Above the Standard is a dedicated and highly motivated leader and executive with more than 30 years global Business, Training, Strategic, Procurement, Finance, and Leadership experience in many different industries, from small to Fortune MNC’s.