Can you make your life more efficient? Is it about time?

The bad news is that time moves like a jet plane, the good news is that we are the pilots, but how good are you at steering your course towards your desired destination and reflecting your true priorities? With our so called “present bias” we are motivated more by short term benefits that longer term ones (for example, we are generally poor at saving for our pension). And whilst it is important to reflect on the past and plan for the future it is only ever possible to operate in the here and now.

Many business owners are stretched to the limits, pulled in many directions and work long hours whilst struggling to work out why some of their team are so much more productive than others. It does not have to be that way. With some analysis, prioritisation, planning and measuring it really is possible to get the business working for you rather than the other way around. It all boils down to getting more from less through systems, people and financing but it has to start with an analysis of how you and your team spend their time.

Based upon Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, we can sort our time into four categories before making some decisions about shifting the balance:

• High time pressure and unimportant: responding to unimportant e-mails, time spent in dysfunctional meetin
  gs, reacting to colleagues’ requests that are irrelevant to you and your agenda. For this mode of delusion, we need self awareness to recognise and admit when we are operating in this territory;
• Low time pressure and unimportant: surfing the net, getting drawn into non-work distractions etc. This is wh
  ere we need discipline to move away from this mode of distraction:
• High time pressure and important: where we spend much of our time and many believe that this is where we should be to ensure the day to day running of the business – in demand.
• Low time pressure and important: this is where most people do not spend enough time because it loses out to being in demand. It is here that investing time in systems, people and capability development  allows some business owners to spend much less time in demand. Only by prioritising and planning in the zone of working on the business will productivity and efficiency increase.

The second step is making some decisions based upon the 4D options – what are you going to Do, Defer, Delegate or Dump?

Are you aiming at the wrong target? Is it time for a change?