That leads to what I call the 50 Choices Dilemma – a situation where all of the leaders I coach find themselves in more than they would like. Very briefly it looks like this: You have 50 things to do on your to-do list. Don’t get me wrong, for many of us that would be a pretty good day. I am going to offer you 2 very common choices, and ask: Which one are you going to choose?

One more caveat – you only get to choose one of these options, and you never get to deal with the other. Here are your options:

- You can either choose to do the number 1, 2 and 3 priorities on your list, but you never touch the other 47; or…

- You can take care of priorities number 4 to 50, but you never get to touch number 1, 2 and 3.

Every competent leader and top professional knows what the answer should be.  But when I ask this question, extending one hand to represent each choice, everybody hesitates, instinctively starts to lean a little toward the hand holding the 47, and thinks: “Forty-seven things off my to-do list?  What a great day. How could I do that?”

We all know the best answer is to take care of the top three priorities. So why do we hesitate – or even think about choosing priorities 4 through 47? We all know common sense says: Take care of number 1, 2 and 3. The rest are secondary, are subsidiary, and we will be dealing with them ONLY AFTER the most critical ones are taken care of. But often we look at our rush of things to do, and we just attack our list.

The greatest failure comes from not even knowing what priorities 1, 2, and 3 even are.  It is hard to choose the most effective option when that choice is not even clear.  Always knowing what your top priorities are is essential for every leader, manager, and effective professional.

In fact, if you want to make your team and organization more effective, make sure everybody knows what priorities 1, 2, and 3 are. With that knowledge firmly communicated, everything will be far more successful and effective, and your performance and your results will go way up as well.

Knowing and choosing to act on priorities 1, 2 and 3 is decision making at the most effective, common-sense level.   However, it is too rarely common practice.  One of my primary messages to everyone who cares about outstanding performance and results is:  When common sense becomes common practice, amazing results become commonplace.

Until next time, Steve Lishansky for Optimize International

PS:  Click here to learn what it takes to Become an Indispensable Partner™.  At the end of the video you also have the opportunity to ask your questions and get answers directly from me.

Costs Impact Profits

Somewhere in the middle are staff costs – including your own. Salaries are often fixed in the short term, and variable in the long term. How do you view these costs in the overall mix of your business? What costs are pure overhead? And what costs are related to products and services?

Value Impacts Profits

Now switch your thinking from costs to value. The two key questions are: 1) What is the value of an hour? And 2) What is the cost of an hour? This analysis is quite enlightening and it’s not as simple as it may first appear.

In small business we all play many roles with widely diverging values. Do the value analysis first for yourself and your time. Then do it for the top people on your team. Determine what is your highest value activity. What do you need to do to perform at your top value?

 Run the Numbers for Profits

Calculate how many hours a week you are now performing at your top value. Note your reaction and any changes you’d like to make. Then move on to your team. There is a direct relationship between your team performing at top value and increased profitability in your small business.

Creating your best profit solutions is my highest priority.

Donna Marie Thompson, PhD
Creating your best profit solutions is my highest priority.
http://www.expertprofitsolutions.com

Remember – Just say no to the status quo!™

The most powerful key is to understand what is most important to them – the people you are dealing with, whether they are your clients or your team.  Nothing clarifies a situation, a project, a goal, an issue, or the success of an organization more than understanding and focusing on What Is Most Important to the individuals, teams and clients you are dealing with.

If you want to focus your thinking on what would create the greatest performance, the best results, and the most impact you can deliver for your organization or your people, understanding “what is most important to them” will move you further faster than any other point of focus.  When you are able to articulate and get others tuned to what is most important, you produce meaningful direction, focus and impact that offers the greatest value possible as a leader and in delivering value to your clients.

What is most important is always what is most important!  Your fastest path to success is when you, your clients and your team understanding what is of greatest value, meaning, impact, and importance.  Otherwise, you are going to commit a tremendous amount of resources, energy, and activity that will not generate highly meaningful, valuable results.  Moving into action before you have an agreement on what’s most important is a guaranteed path to wasted effort, and potentially a dismal downward spiral.

Failure to clarify and agree on what is most important is a guaranteed path to massive effort with extremely limited return. Too many organizations today are struggling with a lack of clarity, understanding, and focus. Understanding what is most important is the fastest way to eliminate this huge obstacle to success.

Knowing what is most important is a critical conversation that you need to have with your team, with your organization and with your clients. Always get agreement about what is most important before you move to action.  That is one of the most powerful engines of leadership, effective communication, and client satisfaction.  By answering that ultimate question, you can be a powerful force for greater clarity, focus, and impact!

Until next time, Steve Lishansky for Optimize International

Click here to learn what it takes to Become an Indispensable Partner™

Experiment with walking around once every 30 minutes throughout the day. Set a timer to remind you!  It will stimulate your blood flow and lead to a burst of hyper oxygenation in the brain, increasing energy and attentiveness. A walk will give your overworked brain “muscle” a minute to rejuvenate. Walk around the block. Go out to lunch. Take advantage of better weather, and spend your lunchtime in a near by park, having lunch out of a paper bag. Walk into a nearby place of worship and meditate. Consider walking during your meetings!

#2 Get Organized

Your first reaction is shouting back at me: “Boring!” By organizing for a few minutes a couple of times a day, you will get a much needed break from staring at your computer screen, and you will have to get up and move around, thus exercise and clearing your head from your tasks at hand. You will get energized and refreshed and that will get you more productive. You will also save MUCH needed time searching for lost or misplaced documents, files and pieces of information.

If you were to TRACK how much time you lost on searching for things due to disorganization, you’d be shocked to find out the straight line to lost revenue. The Business Section of the ‘Wall Street Journal’ recently reported: “The average U.S. executive wastes SIX WEEKS PER YEAR searching for missing information on messy desks and in files. Every lost piece of paper costs a business $120. In fact, fifteen percent of all paper handled in businesses is lost and thirty percent of all employees’ time is spent trying to find lost documents.”

Something to think about, right?

Until next time,

Thomas Antonopoulos, Blogger for OfficeTime

PS: Get your no-cost trial the desktop version of our Time Tracking Solution at OfficeTime.net

PPS: How do you use OfficeTime? Let us know – or share your own best time management tips – and get featured in our blog!

Small business owners are working more hours, even 7 days a week, leaving them less and less time for rest and relaxation. How much, in actual dollars, do owners value an extra hour of time per day? Surprisingly almost over a quarter of small business owners, unscientifically surveyed, placed that value to over $500 per hour! From a burn out perspective, owners cannot keep up working 70, 80 or even 90 hours every week.

Over half of small business owners consider “not having enough time to get everything done” as the #1 difficulty in running their business. It is a huge statement that business owners think the difficulty of finding time is higher than making the business profitable, staying ahead of the competition and managing the employees all together!

Making a small business profitable is an ongoing goal with no time limit, but wearing many hats and filling employee roles everyday is damaging to the small business owner’s control of goals and profits. From waiting to receive information to inefficient coordination; from having to deal with a bulging e-mail inboxes and breaking down barriers which halt collaboration, small business owners are endlessly impacted around their time. Let’s not forget the latest addition in the long list of destructors: texting!

There is a different way to approach this thirst to “have more time,” and the answer is not complicated and highly attainable. The international speaker and best selling author as well as the Sustainable Transformation coach, Sally Anderson is promoting this simple, yet attainable and sustainable approach. Small business owners usually operate in the world of “want” and not the realm of “commit”. Admittedly, the world of “want” has led them nowhere. Living in the “I want more time” world will just continue to be a terrible waste of energy and the reason of an enormous stress.

This is simply a call to action: If you want your wish to come true, start operating in “commit” and leave “want” behind forever. Only when you are committed to having more time, will you make the tough choices are priorities. Then they will experience feelings of rest and relaxation (a foreign realm for many small business owners), which in return will enable them to enjoy their small business – something they’ve probably devoted 110% of their lives to.

Let’s start right now:  You cannot find a better place to start your new ‘committed” world then by defining the length of your work day. Commit to having a beginning and an ending to your day. Exceptions will happen; falling off the wagon is possible. Consider only staying in that “out of commitment” state for the shortest time possible. Shake it off and jump back into the world of “committed,” where results are the only option to achieve.

Donna Marie Thompson, PhD

Creating your best profit is my highest priority.

http://www.ExpertProfitSolutions.com 

PS: For more information please click here and get my free Special Report: “3 Profit Pitfalls and How To Avoid Them.”

PSS: Go to http://www.officetime.net for a no-cost 21-day trial of the desktop version of OfficeTime or for the free version of their App. You cannot measure productivity until you know the value of an hour!

We need some customized therapy. Do you like the facts?

- There is a quarter of the population who checks e-mails while waking, still in bed, a new version of the alarm clock!

- As a matter of fact more than half of these souls are e-mailing back in their pajamas, their version of the professional look!

- There is a large population who confessed to e-mailing in the bathroom; they simply felt they “had to go!”

- It is criminal that close to 40% of us check e-mail while driving (or text); a very serious offense with possibly catastrophic life long effects.

- Lastly, I have no words for the ones who check e-mails at church (you know who you are); they definitely need our prayers and hope God will not send an angel to confiscate their iPhone!

The search to cover our need for E-Mail Management is endless. How specialized are our lives? The spending on email marketing grew from $1.2 billion in 2007 to $2.1 billion in 2012. The spending on retention strategies for clients using e-mail also doubled during that period.

Here are some new ideas on managing your e-mails:

- Checking e-mail less often and on previously set times is a must, but let any possible sender know (post it) what time you will be checking your e-mail next; eventually it will reduce your inbox volume up to 15% and your phone will ring more.

- Turn notifications of new messages off, they invite you to stop being productive. It is proven that our “just need to know” attitude prevails. Turn it off, as well as other notifications. Have your daily planner handy.

- Don’t open an email until you are ready to deal with it. It will allow less mental distractions.

- Color-code your e-mail; let the software work for you. Use the flag, as well as color coded categories to sort things out.

It is just your genuine intent to be more productive, but also your right to want to have more time for fun!!!

Until next time,

Yours truly,

Thomas Antonopoulos, Blogger for OfficeTime

PS: Get your no-cost trial the desktop version of our Time Tracking Solution atOfficeTime.net

PPS: How do you use OfficeTime? Let us know – or share your own best time management tips – and get featured in our blog!

In the last 20 years, working time has increased by 15% and leisure time has decreased by 33%. Work demands are up, and there is never enough time for family and fun. In the past we have discussed time bandits that plug productivity and decrease the free time we have. Disorganization is today’s time bandit, unmasked. Chaos best describes the situation. Change is needed desperately. Organization is in order. Reclaiming sanity is the immediate goal. Could you handcuff Disorganization?

In order to fuel your need for organization, stop for just a minute and you will find many costs due to disorganization. From lost items, to unhealthy nutrition, to work related unfortunate situations to family fights, frustration and even depression, the costs are high without any doubt. We all have the same time (24 hours per day) and since organization is a learned trait, it would be useful to apply the change in bits at a time. It is not difficult, although the start could be filled with confusion and overwhelmed feelings. Applying organizing in bits will harness your fear of the change.

Where to start? Take a short time daily and focus on one surrounding area.

1. Get rid of cluttering items. Something that has not been in use for the past year and there are no plans to use it within the next year; that is a good start to define these items. Keep all essential paperwork in check and together, donate some items or simply trash the rest.

 2. At work, or home, or even your garage, have only one “junk drawer” and that should be organized the best way possible.

3. Have fun. Organizing should not be expensive but highly creative. Just storing items in bins or expensive storage devices is not productive, finding innovative ways to store items is a goal achieving challenge with lasting effects.

Here are some side notes on organizing:

1. When organizing well, your environment looks clean. Neatness is perceived by the eye as cleanliness. How is this for a shortcut to cleanliness?

2. Have a way of transporting used items back to their organized area. You simply can go back and forth for each item. Use a transportation system to do that.

Do not confuse organizing and staying organized with perfection! It is a way of living, you will need to commit. The benefits are huge no doubt. Looking at the result is sexy but it will definitely need development of new habits to achieve sustainability and stay organized.

Good luck, research for help!

Until next time,

Yours truly,

Thomas Antonopoulos, Blogger for OfficeTime

PS: Get your no-cost trial the desktop version of our Time Tracking Solution atOfficeTime.net

PPS: How do you use OfficeTime? Let us know – or share your own best time management tips – and get featured in our blog!

We will only focus on the goals that are deep desires, not even “wants”. Could we start by proclaiming: “I’m committed to…” those goals that have deep routed benefits for us or others; the ones that will trigger us the most. Refresh ourselves of the big reason(s) behind our commitment; we will use them as our greater motivation to sustain our effort to achieve the goal(s).

When operating in the realm of reality, our goals are real. Prioritizing real commitments is an important task that needs to be completed with the outmost urgency. Time allotted for the completion of each commitment should be in order to complete this face of events, wouldn’t you agree? Declaring our goal to others will add a very powerful incentive. I can go as far as enlisting an accountability partner; a person who we deeply respect and can provide us with timely and effective critique of our commitment. It is the person who will look up to handing us the “finish line” flag. Receiving the trophy is a very powerful incentive to most of us.

We now need to pencil down the top 3 actions that we will complete every day to move the goal, each and every day. We need to plan; I do not think that I’ve met anyone who achieved goals in life without planning. So for all of us mortals, the pencil and paper are needed to move in the desired direction. I can go as far as recommending something in print and not a list of the most important daily moves posted on our laptop screen.

It is very human for us to get off the speedway of achieving goals and commitments. Clear out the “should and must”, and focus on the burning desires. Declare them and enlist a sponsor and then complete three priority moves towards each goal every day. Doing so will bring us back to the rewarding path of achievement. Send me your comments; what other helpful tips could you share?

Until next time,

Yours truly,

Thomas Antonopoulos, Blogger for OfficeTime

PS: Get your no-cost trial the desktop version of our Time Tracking Solution atOfficeTime.net

PPS: How do you use OfficeTime? Let us know – or share your own best time management tips – and get featured in our blog!

When it comes to productivity and profits, again and again we fall prey to the everlasting trap of time wasters and profit sinks. For small business owners especially, some of these are so simple, we don’t even realize we’re killing our bottom line and productivity. The smaller your business, the more likely you’ll be doing it all – without a gate keeper to stop distractions from “ringing” in your ear all day long.

We need to find solutions, ways to avoid each productivity trap – or at least minimize the negative impacts. When it comes to productivity, many new skills wrap around improved Time Management. Productivity suffers tremendously when time traps are not neutralized. So, without further time loss, consider learning a few techniques to solve one of the worst productivity traps: the telephone.

Remember, phone calls are a potential time trap on both incoming AND outgoing calls. As far as standard business outbound calls, plan the calls in groups, set the time aside for each call, stay on topic and within the planned time frame. Consider that the best time to call is when the other person will have limited time to prolong the call or in need to get off the phone quickly. For each important call, however, do pick a time that the other person will be able to give you full attention. Make an appointment for important calls and stick to it.  If you don’t, you’ll just end up in a follow-up call to answer questions or close loose ends – or worse, a round robin of emails to interrupt your day 15 times.

For incoming calls, check your caller ID and decide to avoid distraction or answer the call and immediately set a timer to stay on track. You will be surprised at the time spent on these innocent calls. Develop the urge to keep them within a more productive and well managed time frame.  At the least, become aware of your precious time, gone – with or without your permission! If you’re expecting the call, be ready for the discussion noting key points and decisions to cover; believe me you will score appreciation points with the caller and hugely increase your own productivity. You will increase their productivity as well by not wasting their time.

Consider using the phone standing or walking around when able to; research shows this will make your calls shorter. Have your call agenda on hand and keep checking off items discussed. Get agreement on each item and quickly move on. Review all agreed action items and dates at the end.

For calls that do not need your full attention (conference calls that move on to other topics beside what was on your agenda), politely excuse yourself or have some mindless task planned to complete. It’s a good idea to be ready with parting questions like “So, before we part is there anything else you need from me” or something similar. At any rate, it is not the other person’s fault because they like to go on and on, it is about you showing your ability to restrain, follow a simple plan and value your time. Your productivity. Your profits.

Final tip: Consider starting all calls with: “I just have a quick minute,” to set the stage for your exit!

Donna Marie Thompson, PhD

Creating your best profit is my highest priority.

http://www.ExpertProfitSolutions.com 

PS: For more information please click here and get my free Special Report: “3 Profit Pitfalls and How To Avoid Them.”

PSS: Go to http://www.officetime.net for a no-cost 21-day trial of the desktop version of OfficeTime or for the free version of their App. You cannot measure productivity until you know the value of an hour!

#1. Stay focused; do not duel on insignificant items. You will simply lose perspective. Short the small stuff out by focusing on the bigger picture. Practice ways that will defuse and improve any possible situation that comes bearing anxiety. Exercise the ability to say “Next” and move on. Anxieties tap a lot of your energy leaving you both physically and mentally drained.

#2. Shake off criticism like a wet dog!  If you are like most of us, you probably face criticism coming at you from many directions. You probably don’t deserve it (of course!), but either way, it’s likely to be a blow to your self-esteem. Again, through practice, you may come to a point where you can ask yourself, simply, if you have done your best. If yes, then take it objectively as a chance to move your performance to a higher level. Your productivity should not be sidelined by hurt feelings and wounded ego. Work to be bigger than that.

#3. Don’t be malcontent, no matter what. Maybe you are one of the few with their dream job. Or maybe you’re someone who hates theirs. It’s very likely, however, that you fall somewhere in the middle. And every day on every job is different. Enthusiasm will create a much more pleasant day for you and those sharing your workday. No room for gloom here. An insider’s tip: help your coworkers as much as you can; it will make their day better and yours as well. And it will increase productivity for everyone. Please, do not expect gratitude at all times, though. Condition yourself to be able to continue your high-quality support and initiative even when the thank you’s are much less frequent than expected. Do the right thing without expecting anything  in return.

Do your best to plan your day; that’s a good start. For all the times you’re going to be thrown into situations where you have no control, remember that you can choose your emotional response. You can choose to cooperate with the outcome. Stress is one of the biggest reasons behind poor time management and compromised productivity, so it’s well worth practicing a few creative stress-busting solutions BEFORE you’re faced with the problem.

Donna Marie Thompson, PhD

Creating your best profit is my highest priority.

http://www.ExpertProfitSolutions.com 

PS: For more information please click here and get my free Special Report: “3 Profit Pitfalls and How To Avoid Them.”

PSS: Go to http://www.officetime.net for a no-cost 21-day trial of the desktop version of OfficeTime or for the free version of their App. You cannot measure productivity until you know the value of an hour!