4 Tips to Use Time Well
1. Be effective vs. efficient
- Doing right things is more important than doing things right.
- Be effective with people and efficient with things.
- Key is not how many or how busy you are but what you accomplish.
2. Use the longer view
- Don’t give into shortcuts that have the potential to go awry.
- Delay gratification if it’s necessary.
- Reward yourself as you go.
- Live in today but look toward tomorrow
3. Focus your energy (vs. scattering or being diffused)
- The concentration of effort is the springboard to success.
- Limit your distractions, diversions and time interruptions.
- Do one task at a time until it’s done.
- Focus on the vital few instead of the minutiae or trivial ‘many’.
- Use to do lists and 80/20 Rule to prioritize (20% have greater value or impact than other 80%).
- Write it down – clarity in writing is clarity in action.
- Be vigilant in how you spend your time – don’t let others waste it, get the most from every moment, don’t be so much to everyone else that you have nothing for yourself.
4. Leverage your efforts
- Produce vs. manage.
- Know your value – delegate anything that produces less than your value.
- Simplify – complicated things take energy, enthusiasm, strength, stamina and don’t confuse complexity with being successful (or busy with being productive).
- Look for the opportunities are already present before searching for more.