Tips to help you achieve more by managing your time better

1. MAKE THE MOST
OF YOUR TIME!
Spend your time doing things
that take you to the objectives
that make you happier and more
effective

2. WITH THANKS TO…
• Many of the principles described
are derived from Dr Stephen R
Covey’s book “The Seven Habits
of Highly Effective People”
• A truly excellent book, the other
six principles are well worth
exploring too
• Also Tim Ferriss whose “The 4-
Hour Work Week” is a modern
business classic

3. ARE YOU MOVING FORWARDS?
• This will help you if:
 You never have enough time
 You never have time for you
 You want more time with people
precious to you
 You have endless ‘to-do’ lists
 You wonder where time went
 You can’t make progress towards
what you want

4. CONCEPTS:
FOCUS ON THE
THINGS THAT
MATTER AND MAKE
A DIFFERENCE

5. DEFINITION
• Time management is:
 A set of principles, practices, skills,
tools, and systems that work
together to help you get more value
out of your time with the aim of
improving the quality of your life

6. ASK YOURSELF…
• If you were at your own funeral, what would you want to be remembered
for?
 By your partner and family?
 By your friends?
 In business?
 What difference would you have made?
• And then:
 What one thing could you do that if done regularly would make a tremendous
positive difference in your personal life?
 What one thing in your business or professional life would bring similar results?
• And then:
 How do you make the time to do this consistently?

7. TIME MANAGEMENT TRUTHS
• Remember
 80% of results come from 20% of
effort and time
 What you do is more important than
how do you do it (perfectionists take
note)
 Don’t use busy as an excuse for
avoiding uncomfortable ‘important’
actions
 Once time has gone, you can’t get it
back
 Lack of time is often synonymous
with lack of clear objectives

8. FOUR GENERATIONS OF TIME MANAGEMENT
• First generation:
 Get things done
 Notes, checklists, to-do lists
• Second generation
 Schedule to get things done
 Diaries, calendars, appointments
• Third generation:
 Prioritise and schedule to get things
done
 What’s important?
• Fourth generation:
 Prioritise and schedule to do the
things important to you
 Managing yourself, building
relationships, getting results

9. URGENT OR IMPORTANT?
 Urgent tends to be reactive – event driven by somebody else
 Important tends to be proactive – results driven by you
 Don’t confuse ‘busy’ with ‘effective’

10. URGENT AND IMPORTANT
 Significant results that demand urgent attention
 Risk of more and more activities until you burn out
 Reactive or proactive - who is setting the agenda?
Urgent Not Urgent
Activities: Activities:
Important
• Crises • Planning
• Pressing problems • Recognising new opportunities
• Deadline driven projects • Relationship building
Not Important
Activities: Activities:
• Interruptions • Trivia, busy work
• Some calls, email, reports • Time wasters
• Some meetings • Some mail and calls

11. URGENT, BUT NOT IMPORTANT
 Short term focus, crisis management
 Reacting to other people’s agendas
 Often feel victimised and out of control
Urgent Not Urgent
Activities: Activities:
Important
• Crises • Planning
• Pressing problems • Recognising new opportunities
• Deadline driven projects • Relationship building
Not Important
Activities: Activities:
• Interruptions • Trivia, busy work
• Some calls, email, reports • Time wasters
• Some meetings • Some mail and calls

12. NOT URGENT, NOT IMPORTANT
 No impacts of any significance
 Busy doing things that don’t matter
 Dependent on others
Urgent Not Urgent
Activities: Activities:
Important
• Crises • Planning
• Pressing problems • Recognising new opportunities
• Deadline driven projects • Relationship building
Not Important
Activities: Activities:
• Interruptions • Trivia, busy work
• Some calls, email, reports • Time wasters
• Some meetings • Some mail and calls

13. IMPORTANT, BUT NOT URGENT
 You are in control of your time
 Characterised by planning, results and relationships
 Time spent in this quadrant has maximum impact on things that matter
Urgent Not Urgent
Activities: Activities:
Important
• Crises • Planning
• Pressing problems • Recognising new opportunities
• Deadline driven projects • Relationship building
Not Important
Activities: Activities:
• Interruptions • Trivia, busy work
• Some calls, email, reports • Time wasters
• Some meetings • Some mail and calls

14. SUMMARY
• The best way to spend your time
is in the “important but not
urgent” quadrant
• You’re doing the things that
matter and are important to you
• Your actions are aligned with your
objectives
• You achieve better work-life
balance

15. ACTION PLAN:
GET RESULTS BY
TURNING THEORY
INTO ACTION

16. THE PROCESS
• Define personal objectives
• Define goals to take you to those
objectives
• Schedule time to complete the
goals

17. PERSONAL OBJECTIVES
Major Objectives
• What are my major objectives? Date:
 For myself? Personal Objectives
 For my partner and family?
 In business?
Partner and Family Objectives
Business Objectives

18. OBJECTIVES INTO GOALS
• What goals take me towards my
objectives? Major Objectives
Date:
 Each objective will have a series of Personal Objectives
goals to complete Goal 1
 These goals become specific actions Goal 2
Goal 3
 Then plan to complete those actions Goal 4
Partner and Family Objectives
Goal 1
Goal 2
Goal 3
Goal 4
Business Objectives
Goal 1
Goal 2
Goal 3
Goal 4

19. PLAN WEEKLY
• A weekly plan is better than a
daily plan:
 All actions – personal, family and
business – can be systematically
planned
 Looking at a week rather than a day
makes plenty of time to complete
important actions
 The weekly plan can be adapted daily
as required (but don’t lose the
important stuff!)

20. TIME
MANAGEMENT
TACTICS:
MAKE TIME FOR
YOU

21. DELEGATE!
• Without delegation, your
achievement is limited to what
you personally do
• With delegation, results become
limitless
• Step past the traps:
 Think this way, and you end up doing
everything
 “By the time I’ve explained it, I could
have done it”
 “I could do it better myself”
 I don’t have staff (Don’t think org
chart, think capability)
 Problems often solve themselves if
you stop yourself being a bottleneck
and empower others

22. DELEGATE RESULTS NOT TASKS
• Delegating tasks means:
 Methods focus rather than results
focus
 Micro-management
 Those completing the task aren’t
motivated
• Delegating results means:
 Specifying what needs to be
accomplished, not how it should be
done
 Scope for creativity
 Results ownership leads to greater
motivation

23. JUST SAY NO
• Learn to respectfully say ‘No’ to
urgent activities
 If I do this, does it move me closer to
my goals?
 Who is this urgent for?
 Who else could do this?
 Are there other ways it could be
done?

24. GET PARKINSON ON YOUR SIDE
• Parkinson’s Law states any task
will expand to fill the time
available
• Schedule tasks with very short
and clear deadlines

25. INTERRUPTIONS
• To minimise interruptions, tell
people how you prefer to
communicate.
• In order of preference:
 Email
 Phone
 In person

26. EMAIL
• Email eats time your time
responding to other people’s
priorities
 Switch off the audible alarm and auto
send/receive (or if that’s too painful,
make it every two hours)
 Set an autoreply that says you look at
email twice a day – lunchtime and
end of day. And do that
 Do the same with your BlackBerry
 You’ll be amazed how people start to
take their problems elsewhere

27. SCREEN CALLS
• Calls eat time your time
responding to other people’s
priorities
 Let calls go to voicemail, unless you
know who it is and what they want
 Like email, schedule two windows a
day to batch calls when you’ll get
back to people
 When you do take or make calls, keep
them brisk

28. MEETINGS
• Meetings can eat huge amounts
of time
 Meetings should be held to take
decisions, not define problems
 If a meeting doesn’t have clear
objectives and an agenda, don’t go
 Always define an end time – and
leave at that time
 Choose less obvious times to meet –
e.g. 9.20 not 10.00 (An ‘on the hour’
meeting is assumed to last an hour)

29. SOUNDS HARD?
• Think you’ll hurt feelings?
 You won’t – it just needs to be done
courteously and consistently
 It’s your job to educate those around
you to treat your time (and also
theirs) with respect

30. SUMMARY

31. SUMMARY
• Have clear objectives about what you want
 For you
 For your family
 In business
• Break those objectives into manageable goals
• Schedule the actions that will complete the goals
• Delegate to increase your effectiveness
• Use time management tactics to minimise interruptions

32. HELPFUL?
• If you’ve fund this helpful and • Mike McCormac founded Sales
want to learn more, schedule an Success and More to help
hour’s sales coaching with me to professional sales people selling
help you apply the principles to high value services achieve more.
your situation. He has an MBA and his sales
• Go to Sales Coaching at Sales background includes over 15
Success and More! years success selling IT services
and outsourcing. Mike works
mainly in the UK and Cyprus.
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