Time is not infinite: 12 principles to make the best use of your time

by Paolo Ruggeri

The objective of freeing your time is to enable you to focus and concentrate on your strategic direction and long-term goals i.e. Keep time in your agenda today to do what will make a great difference tomorrow.

Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. This is called the Parkinson principle.

We don’t waste time when we are under pressure because we focus on the real and necessary stuff only. It is human to procrastinate. However, as a Business Owners or Company Managers, you must know which tasks are worth procrastinating for and which require your immediate attention.

write down a complete list of all cycles or ongoing projects that are currently running. This is known as the open cycles list.

the first 5 items or so should be of “futurist strategic nature”. These are the tasks that will make your business or role grow and will get you closer to the overall direction and goal you have set up for your company or yourself.

Being specific will allow you to close the windows in your mind and recover your energy.

Update/review or create a list once a day, week or every 15 days and delete some things from your list every now and then.

Keep five minutes a day to write down the plan of the day, and if possible, do it the night before.

Do tasks that take less than five minutes right away!

When you think you don’t have time it is because, in fact, you're going after someone else's goals.

When you are confused with the big picture, you tend to keep yourself busy with petty things.

Just for you to feel better and productive, you rationalize in your mind that you are very busy and don’t have the time to tackle others issues. You tend to postpone important tasks that take you out of your comfort zone and do unnecessary tasks instead.

Time is not infinite. You have to learn how to dedicate time to the activities that will make a huge difference to your success tomorrow. If you have a small company or a professional business, 25-30% of your time each week should be dedicated to these activities: Research, development and innovation Staff training - Staff motivation Marketing Planning and coordination New alliances Financial Management Reviewing your sales funnel

Your role is to keep seeding, planting and harvesting the ideas, actions or tasks that will make your company grow. Hire people to do the routine work for you. If you are a salesperson or a sales agent at least 25-30% of your time should be dedicated to marketing or looking for new clients.

Some tasks that are not performed today, become a crisis tomorrow

People who are not well-trained will make mistakes, unmotivated people will leave, your family with whom you never spend time will split apart.

First reply to important emails. If you are copied in emails coming from unproductive or unreliable people don’t bother reading them, unless the subject of the email is something you think might be important.

It must clearly explain the issue and have a clear request of what is needed from me. If nothing is needed, the sentence, will be a summary starting with FYI.

If a situation cannot be explained in one sentence, then a telephone call or a meeting is required.

Choose the right people and give them a small manual that explains how the work has to be done step by step (with this, they won’t constantly disturb you).

Try to have a weekly meeting, or a daily briefing on a regular basis to make a work plan together.

Daily brief: Average 15 minutes, discuss a summary of the day before and the current day objective. Weekly meeting: Very operational, max 1 hour. Discuss the tactical and operational actions of the week within the overall monthly objective Monthly meeting: Discuss the previous month results and ratios and the upcoming month objectives along with any long term and important projects; including efficiencies, cost control, sales and more.

Try to always work with the best professionals:

The time to find a different professional arises when he/she brings problems to solve instead of simply saying ‘don’t worry, I’ll take care of it’.

remember to always recruit for attitude and culture, not only for skills.

you might have the tendency to do the work yourself - after all it is quicker and more efficient. However, in the long run, doing so will make you either the bottle neck or the doormat of the company (even if you are the owner)

Sometimes the demotivation is a person, sometimes it is something that happened in your company or personal life that is taking you down in the dumps.