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Time Wasters

 

Your Top Time Wasters

Time is money.  As owners of our own business or professionals with revenue & expense responsibilities, how we manage our time (or not) means money in our pockets (or not).  If we’re wasting time things don’t get done; and if things don’t get done, business doesn’t happen.  If business doesn’t happen, we don’t make any money.  For all of the upsides that come with being your own boss, this isn’t one of them. In fact, this is a big down sides of owning your own business. You don’t feel like working today? It costs you.

The less time we waste, the less money we waste; or rephrased – the less time we waste, the more productive we are; the more productive we are the more money we make.  

So, what would you say are your biggest time wasters? Answer these two questions:

#1) What things outside of your control get in the way of your productivity?

#2) What things within your control get in the way of your productivity?

Pace Productivity, a Canadian company asked these same 2 questions in a survey of 690 entrepreneurs and employees across North America.

The first question was designed to find out what factors hindered productivity that were outside of the respondents’ control. The second question was designed to find out how people take responsibility (or not) for wasting their own time.

Question #1 received more responses than #2 however; every person surveyed was asked both questions.  It appears people submitted more than one response to the first question, which was not the case with the second. In fact the most common response to the second question was no response at all. 

Could it be that blaming something or someone else is easier to do than accepting personal responsibility for yourself? See how your “time wasters” rate stack up to the survey.

Survey Summary:

#1) What things outside of your control get in the way of your productivity?

  • Paperwork/Administrative tasks                                               135
  • Customer service/complaints                                                   115
  • Phone calls/interruptions                                                         101
  • Computer problems                                                                  86
  • No support/other departments’ inefficiency                                  58

#2) What things within your control get in the way of your productivity?

  • No response / nothing                                                                91
  • Paperwork / administrative tasks                                                71   
  • Interruptions by phone or in person                                            52
  • Time management                                                                    44
  • No focus-doing-too many things-no prioritizing                            40

Here are a few tips to reclaim some control over your day:

  1. Be aware and accountable for your time; ask yourself “How is this moving my business forward? Is this the most productive use of my time?”
  2. Learn to say “Not right now, I’m busy”.  People who stop in to say hi, who call on the phone to ask that “urgent” question won’t dry up and melt away if you don’t speak with them until later in the day.  Don’t pick up the phone every time it rings.  Have a block of time where you do not answer the phone.  When someone stops by, smile and tell them you’ll be happy to call them at ____ o’clock, but right now you’re busy.”  You are, right?
  3. Limit checking your e-mail to twice a day – not every time you hear the “ding-you’ve got mail” signal.  This is a tough one, but one that will make a huge difference in what you can get done in a day.  It did for me.  I had the habit of stopping whatever I was doing whenever I heard the ding or saw the little box float up at the bottom of the screen that announce a new message.  One message would lead to another, to another, etc.  Before long, checking that one message turned into a half-hour or more project.  Don’t do it.
  4. Start each day tackling your least favorite task and get it over with.  Just do it.  It will not go away – it will only move from bad to worse and from really need to do to on fire. Who knows what else you’ll have on your plate with the flames start to blaze?
  5. End each day with a look at your calendar to review of the next day’s schedule. Don’t turn out the light until you are comfortable you are prepared.

Taking these kinds of steps is changing your behavior which is not usually easy or fast. But try one of these tips for a week and see if it doesn’t help streamline your day and help increase what you can get done in a day. Keep at it for 2 more weeks and it should get to feel like your normal routine.  When it does, tackle a second tip.  See how it goes for you after a week and then stick with it for 2 more ...and so on. 

But your real challenge is to get started and stick with it.  Persevere. No one said success was going to be easy.  If it were, everyone would be a billionaire.  I can guide, encourage and motivate you; books can tell you what to do and why; but in the end, no one can do it for you.   …and remember - Be BOLD; Take Action and Make It Happen!