How we can put more hours into our days.

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1. Delegating. As we review our priorities as we did a few weeks ago, we see there are certain things we should spend more time on and certain things we should spend less time on. It is all a matter of managing our priorities. It is also a matter of playing to our strengths or acting on our natural giftedness.

Two thoughts: one, you should be doing the things that will make you successful. You should hire out or delegate anything that does not fit into that goal of taking your life and work to the next level. For example: If you are a person who makes money as an accountant, you should spend your time doing accounting. For this you might make $75 an hour. You should not spend your time doing filing. Hire someone for $15 an hour to do the filing. Let?s assume there would be two hours of such things in an accountant?s office.
That means you make $150 but spend $30, which is $120 a day and $600 a week. That is $31,200 a year!

Secondly, delegating allows you to work in the areas you are strongest. This will help you finish more quickly, with more quality and in a much better mood than if you are spending time working on things you are not very good at. Spending time on your weaknesses creates discouragement and causes you to be less efficient. Instead: delegate it! You will find a lot more time for the good things in life when you do.

2. Skill improvement. Every time you improve your skills in something you are saving time. If you learn to read faster, you can get that report read in shorter time (and hopefully with better retention). If you learn to type better, the reports are written faster and with fewer mistakes. If you learn to communicate more clearly, your meetings will finish sooner. You get the point: If you can do things better, you will also do them more quickly ? or you will be able to do more in the same period of time. Either way you come out a winner!

3. Single-tasking and multi-tasking. Be clear on this. There is a time to single-task and a time to multi-task. There are certain tasks that can be done while you do something else and others you should devote your full attention solely to what you are doing.

Good times to multi-task: When you can do one thing passively and one thing with focus. Case in hand, many people on the east coast will ride the train into the cities to get to work. During their travel time (passive) they can also work on reports or get their reading done (focus) for the day. With wireless technology ever increasing, many people do all of their email during their commute to and from work.

Good times to single-task: Anytime you need to focus. There are times that you will just need to be ruthless about distractions. First of all, you will find that you get the work done sooner. Secondly, you will find that the work is done better. Anything that requires detail is a good time to single-task. And as the old saying goes, "Haste makes waste." And in our case here, not focusing will end up costing you more time--thus being inefficient--in the long run. So pre-determine those tasks that require single focus and then do it!

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4. Improved focus. Focus is a matter of discipline. It is the ability and willingness to let everything else fall away while you set your mind solely on the matter at hand. It is an incredible way to gain more time. So many hours are lost in the work world to employees (and owners!) who never force themselves to focus. Instead they come and go from their work, letting their minds wander and allow themselves to be pulled from one task to another. You know the guy: there he is working at what he needs to accomplish and then he remembers that he hasn?t called his mother lately. So he does. Then he needs a drink of water so he goes to the water cooler. There he sees the sales manager and they shoot the breeze about golf last weekend. Twenty minutes later he goes back in his office and decides that it's time for an early lunch? On and on until the end of the day when he says, ?I didn?t get a thing done today!? Focus!

Learn how to set aside distractions and put all of your energy, thought and work into accomplishing the goal. That is focus. Do not let anything take you away from it. As you focus, you will see that you accomplish more in less time and with better results.

5. Working ?smarter? rather than longer. You should make it your goal to work fewer hours by working more efficiently.

Anyone can establish their work in such a way that they can walk out of the office at a pre-determined time and go home to eat dinner with their family. I do not know a person alive who couldn?t work more efficiently and thus work shorter periods of time if they worked smarter. What constitutes smarter? Here is the short list: be directed by goals, ruthless against distractions, work from a prioritized task list, be focused and disciplined, delegate, and budget the time you have to get what you need done, done.

6. Applying time management skills. Think about the hundreds of millions of dollars ? maybe even billions of dollars ? that have been spent on time management seminars. Whole companies that generate 50 million dollars a year have been built just on time management tools, products and seminars.
And yet most people are very inefficient with their time.
Why is this? Because of one simple problem--they do not apply the truths they learn. The key is application.

There are ways to gain hours in your day. There are ways to become more efficient. You can manage and use your time to become everything that you desire to be and have everything you desire to have.

We are drawing to a close now with our month on time management. As I have mentioned before, time is our most precious asset. Every day is a new day--yesterday is gone, so do everything within your power to make each day the best it can be so you can live out of your values and priorities.

Yours in Success,

Franca Ibuzo

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