Time Management – How to Work LESS and DOUBLE the Results You Achieve
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Have you ever looked at your calendar, and panicked because realized you overbooked yourself, and can’t possibly accomplish everything you’ve committed to doing?
I recently had a week where I had multiple Platinum client coaching and follow-up activities to take care of, I was travelling out of town for a couple of days, and I had five different seminars to lead within two days time—with one of those seminars being entirely brand-new content.
I had a whole 4-hour time slot in my calendar to create my slide presentation and handouts, before a 7:30 am seminar scheduled the next morning.
Before some of you suggest I become a better time manager, hear me out.
The truth is I didn’t panic.
You see, I work at a high rate of velocity, and have learned how to accelerate the rate in which I can deliver and create high-quality, high-value content, whether it’s planning activities for a seven-hour coaching retreat, or a new seminar.
To create the same volume (and quality) of work I do, many people invest days, if not weeks, creating their plans, content, and materials. I know this, because one of the things I routinely work on with my Platinum clients is accelerating the pace at which they complete work, so they increase their income more quickly. Universally, there is usually some “reengineering” in the manner in which they get their work done.
What’s the result of getting things done more quickly? You WORK LESS, ACHIEVE FASTER, GREATER RESULTS, which means more cash flows into your pocketbook.
Examples of where you can achieve results could be taking less time to prepare for your coaching clients you serve, creating workshop or teleseminar content faster, or even creating an information product in a fraction of the time, and getting it to market faster.
Most of us entrepreneurs have a habit of working on our projects MUCH longer than we need to. Why do we do this? It’s because of a phenomenon called Parkinson’s Law. Parkinson’s Law, stated in terms of time, says—
“The amount of time in which one has to perform a task is the amount of time it will take to complete that said task.”
Translation: If you need to make a video introduction for your website, you’ll as likely take four weeks to produce, edit, tweak, and post it, when you could have accomplished the task in less than one week. Dragging completion out of this project means you fill time, which is unproductive, and reduces your income potential!
By now, I know you’re convinced you can create results faster, in less time, with less effort, and produce high-quality work, to boot. First, remember work expands to fill the time allotted. Second, you have to consciously and deliberately create focused momentum. Here are four tips how to increase the velocity of how fast you complete tasks:
1. Be accountable to someone.
Whether it’s scheduling a workshop you’ve been meaning to lead for the last year, or signing yourself up for personal coaching, go public with the announcement or commitment. Set a date. Invest in coaching services and finally commit to growing your business, rather than saying to yourself, “I’ll do it when ________.” Put some strong accountability in place so you have to get it done.
2. Set specific time frames.
Be very clear and specific about a time, and date when you must “deliver the goods,” lead the seminar, or invest in you. Also, set aside a specific amount of time to do the work.
My rule of thumb is decide how much time it will take you to complete a task, say 12 hours, and then cut that amount of time in half, to 6 hours. By doing this you’ve just doubled the velocity of getting the task completed!
3. Get focused.
Allow no distractions or interruptions during “creation time.” This means no texting, tweeting, emailing, phoning, surfing the Internet, or straying off task. Get focused, and committed to completing the task in the time you allotted. (This will be easy if you stacked up your calendar with other “To-Do’s” and appointments.)
4. Believe in yourself.
This is probably the most important point of all, which is believing in yourself, that you can accomplish whatever you set your mind to doing—and you will do it brilliantly well.
When pressed with a tight timeframe, don’t panic. Just sit down, and get to the work. When you follow these steps, you can easily double your results while working much less, which will mean a whole lot more cash in your pocketbook!
Action Steps to Accelerate Results:
1. What’s one profitable or income-producing task that’s been on your To-Do list for a while that you’re ready to tackle? Write it down.
2. How can you pro-actively use the four steps I outlined above to achieve the task?
3. Schedule this task on your calendar, and get to it!
