hello I’m Brian Tracy about 25 years ago
I began a lifelong search for the answer
to the question why is it that some
people are more successful than others
why is it that some people earn more
money they have better jobs that get
promoted more rapidly they live longer
they have better health they have
happier relationships and yet the great
mass of men and women by their own
admission let live lives of quiet
desperation well I’ve studied this over
and over again I traveled in over 80
countries on seven continents I have
learned and spoken three four different
languages I have spent over 30,000 hours
studying and I’ve come to a very simple
conclusion that successful people are
those who do things differently from
unsuccessful people I’ve also come to
another conclusion is that you or
anybody can be far more successful at
life or anything that you want if you
will simply learn how and practice it
over and over again until it becomes a
habit now no matter what fields you are
in no matter what fuel is endeavor no
matter what work no matter what activity
there is one thing that all successful
people have in common is that they are
good time managers and the reason they
are good time managers is because they
recognize that time management is life
management it is personal management I
have never seen an example in the
hundreds of thousands of biographies and
autobiographies I’ve studied of
successful men and women where the
individual has not been well organized
and efficient and valued and used their
times well successful people winners use
their time well losers do not and in the
next 60 minutes 55 minutes I am going to
give you 21 of the very finest time
management ideas ever developed if you
use these ideas to somatically you can
increase your personal productivity by 2
or 3 hours a day you can increase your
income you can increase your rate of
promotion you can increase your lifespan
as fashion you can even increase the
length of time you live the question is
how badly do you want to learn how to
manage your time well how much effort
are you willing to put into it because
the key to time management is
self-discipline
probably the best way to put it is this
is time management is self disciplined
inaction and self-discipline is the key
to success so let’s get started right
now and with these 21 key ideas
the first idea the most important of all
the core of time management the axil
around which the wheel of life turns is
goal what are your goals what is it that
you want to be or to have or to do what
is it that you want to accomplish in the
next 1 2 3 4 5 years the top 3% in every
field have goals the balance of the
populations have either very vague goals
or no goals at all so the question you
have to ask yourself is who am i where
am I going what do I want to accomplish
and there are three major areas of goals
that you have to think about the first
is your personal and your family goals
these are the reasons why you’re alive
what do you want to accomplish for
yourself and for your family write them
down
define them clearly the second set of
goals that you have to ask is your
business your career your financial your
material goals what is it that you want
to accomplish in the external world
where do you want to make your
contribution the third type of goals you
have to ask about are your
self-development goals and in my
estimation your ability and your
willingness and your tenaciousness in
developing yourself is the key to
accomplishing everything else so here’s
three questions that you can ask the
first question is know what you do what
would you set as a goal for yourself
well that you want to be or have if you
just won a million dollars in the
lottery what would you do if you just
want a million dollars you get all the
time and money you’re completely free to
decide to do anything you want it if you
want a million dollars what would you do
differently think about that hold that
in your mind the second question is what
would you do if you just learned today
that you only had six months to live
what if you only had six months to live
what would you stop doing obviously do
more of who would you spend time with
now the answer to that question is very
interesting because what it tells you is
what you really value what is really
important to you and what we have found
is that self-esteem satisfaction
happiness in life comes from getting
your goals and your activities congruent
with your values with your priorities
with what you consider to be really
important now here’s the third question
the third question is what one great
thing would you dare to dream if you
knew you could not fail if you knew
beyond a shadow of a doubt that you
could not fail what one
English use that as a goal for yourself
because sometimes answering that
question will tell you the one thing
that you’ve been put on this earth to
accomplish one final point with regard
to goals is that goals must be in
writing you must write them down you
must rewrite them you must define them
you must redefine them the top 1% of
successful people in every area have
very clear specific written goal and
most of them carry their goals around
with them so let’s go from goals as the
core of success to point number 2 which
is organized plan of action in an
interesting study or a variety of
studies that have been done they’ve come
to the conclusion that organized plans
of action are the key to all success in
fact action without planning is the
cause of every failure action without
planning is the cause of
underachievement action without planning
is the cause of frustration time wastage
anxiety stress and lack of success in
life so organize plans of action are
critical now what it’s an organized plan
of action an organized plan of action is
where you take your goal you take your
objective and you write out every single
step that you’re going to have to follow
in order to accomplish that objective
you write it out and you list all those
plans of action all of those different
activities and you organize them
together into a plan that you can then
implement on a day-to-day basis you
decide which has to be done first and
which has to be done last which is more
important
which is less important in fact the
ability to set goals and to create plans
for their accomplishment is the master
skill of success if all you learned in
life all you learned in school was the
ability to be a continuous goal setter
and a continuous planner day and night
planning organizing planning writing
thinking about what you’re trying to
accomplish you’ll accomplish more in a
year or two years than most people
accomplish in 10 years or an entire
lifetime it has nothing whatever to do
by the way with your intelligence
it hasn’t great anything to do with your
education you know half of the best
educated people in the country are
working for people who didn’t finish
high school or didn’t finish college I
wrote an article for a major publication
not long ago which said that if you do
not have clear
goals for your life you are condemned
forever to work for those who do you see
in life it’s very simple
either you are working toward the
accomplishment of your goals or you’re
working toward the accomplishment of
other people’s goals very important how
the Third Point in excellent time
management is analysis make a list in
fact it’s been discovered that if you
make a list before you begin any task or
job you will immediately improve your
productivity by 25% how do you make a
list well you make your list for the
week the Sunday or the Saturday before
and you make your list for each day the
evening before and you always work from
a list now why do you make it evening
before the primary reason is if you make
a list the evening before the
subconscious goes to work on your list
while you’re asleep and during the night
the subconscious will solve problems and
bring insights to you you’ll wake up in
the morning with insights ideas
intuitions answers that will make your
day more productive now the second
reason that you use a list is because
you don’t have a list like driving down
the street in a car with no steering
wheel you just drift in every bump every
interruption everything that happens
sets you off in a different direction a
list gives you a track to run on for the
entire day
another reason that you use a list is
because of the list you can analyze
where you are you can tell what is more
important and what is less important you
can tell what is irrelevant what can be
delegated what can be delayed what can
be put off the most important reason for
using a list though however is this is
that when you use a list and you work
down the list and you check things off
each time you check something off on a
list it gives you a feeling of
accomplishment it’s been well said that
happiness is the progressive realisation
of a worthy ideal that happiness is the
step by step accomplishment of the task
necessary to accomplish a worthy ideal
and a successful life is based on a
series of successful days in a series of
successful days is based on working on a
list one step at a time
okay now the fourth principle for
effective time management is to set
priorities it’s interesting there are
many people who have goals vague or
clear there are many people who do make
plans but the biggest single problem in
human life is setting priorities
determining what is relevant and what is
irrelevant
and in setting priorities an italian
economist named vilfredo pareto in 1895
came up with a principle which is called
the Pareto principle we call it the
80/20 rule it says that 80% of the value
of what you do will be contained in 20%
of the things that you do what does this
mean that means if you make a list of
ten things that you have to do today you
will find that two of those things are
worth all of the others put together now
the difference between highly effective
people as real fatal Pareto said or that
highly effective people work on the
vital few versus the trivial many the
difference between the two is that in
effective people work on the trivial
many they work on things that are fun
they work on things that are easy they
work on little tasks fun tasks
irrelevant tasks but they keep putting
off and delay in working on their major
tasks so the key to success is always be
asking this question what is the most
valuable use of my time right now what
is the most valuable use of your time
right now I’m convinced that if all you
did was organize your life and only work
on the most valuable use of your time
that alone would be enough to make you
an effective efficient person that alone
would be enough to increase your
productivity your performance your
profitability your rewards by 10 20 30
40 even 50% so always before you begin
ask yourself is this the most important
thing I could be doing is this my top
priority task does this give me the
highest payoff is this the most valuable
use of my time now here is one simple
test with regard to value ask yourself
in approaching any task is what impact
will be accomplishment of this task have
on my future
the Futurity of decisions is the key to
measuring the value most people spend as
much as 80% of their time dealing with
the problems and difficulties of the
past and only 20% dealing with the
opportunities of the future but
successful people are always saying what
impact will this have on the future so
the important tasks will always have an
impact on the future unimportant tasks
will only have an impact on the present
and maybe even
path so let’s say what is the most
valuable use of my time right now and
what impact will this have on tomorrow
the next day and the futures one of the
key ways to keep on track with regard to
priority the fifth key idea in time
management which I am a fanatic on is
concentration concentration
concentration many people come to me in
my seminars and I said well I never
learned how to concentrate I can’t
concentrate how do I learn to
concentrate learning how to concentrate
is absolutely essential to success as a
matter of fact it is impossible for you
to accomplish anything worthwhile in
life without the ability to concentrate
single-mindedly on one thing at a time
and stay with it until it’s complete in
fact time and motion studies have shown
that if you start a task and you put it
down and you come back to it and pick it
up and start it and put it down and come
back to it and pick it up that it will
take you as much as 500 percent of the
necessary time to do a task than if
you’ve picked it up and carried it
through Alec McKenzie great time
management expert Alec McKenzie calls
this single handling once you have made
a list of what you have to do organize
your goals determine the highest and
most valuable priority then pick the
most important thing and begin working
on it and stay with it until it’s
finished now people say well if I stay
with this testing codebase don’t get
anything else done that doesn’t matter
if it’s the most valuable thing that you
have to do it’s the most important thing
that you could be working on now it’s a
wonderful thing when you concentrate and
work intensely on an important task it
gives you a feeling of energy and
enthusiasm when you complete an
important task your self-esteem goes up
you feel like a winner you feel great
about yourself but if you work away on
low priority tasks even if you complete
them and do them well
you don’t get any bang for the buck you
don’t get any excitement or thrill from
doing something that’s not important as
a matter of fact most stress anxiety
frustration in the world of work today
comes from working very hard on
irrelevant tests benjamin Trego said if
it’s not worth doing it’s not worth
doing right and I think it was Drucker
who said the very worst thing in the
world is to do very well what need not
be done at all so concentrate
single-mindedly
on one task at a time do first things
first and do things one at a time now
here’s a very simple system
that you can use for the first five
points that we’ve talked about goals
plans priority analysis concentration it
is the ABCDE method a is the things that
you must do top priority B is the things
that you should do second polarity sees
the things should be nice to do if
you’ve got all your age and B’s done
these stands for delegates East stands
for eliminates so when you make a list
the first thing you do is you ABC all
your list a what you must do B what you
should do see what it’d be nice to do
and then delegate and eliminate the
others with goals what you do is this
you make a list of all the things you’d
like to accomplish in the next one to
five years and then you go down the list
of like ABC what you’d love to do what
you’d like to do what’s not that
important then you take your a goals and
you make a 1 a 2 a 3 in other words your
most important second most important
third most important then you take those
a goals you transfer them to another
sheet and you make a list of all the
things you’re going to have to do to
accomplish your goals then you ABC the
list and you say what are the things you
have to do what are the things I should
do what are things that would be nice to
do to accomplish my goal and then you
put those into the goal list and then
use structure and schedule what you’re
going to do any implement this is called
the six step method set choose your
goals set priorities choose your
activities to set priorities and
schedule and implement if you just do
that on a day to day basis that alone
can make you a great great success in
life the sixth key to time management is
deadlines deadlines and rewards now
psychologists have discovered that 85%
of the reason that you or I do anything
is because of what we expect to happen
as a result we call this consequences or
logical consequences 15% is because what
we’ve been told but 85% is the
consequences that we expect so therefore
what you do is when you have an
important task the way that you motivate
yourself to do the task is you structure
a specific reward that you’re going to
get when it’s finished let me give you
an example sometimes people are very
uneasy about making telephone calls
especially salespeople so they put it
off and they procrastinate what we
encourage them to do is give themself a
reward every time they make a phone call
put a cup of coffee next to the phone
every time you make a phone call give
yourself a sip of coffee
take a cookie and break it up give
yourself a piece of cookie in other
words train yourself the way you train a
dog to have a positive consequence for
everything that you do so set deadlines
how do you set deadlines first of all
when you set the goal when you specify
the task set the deadline when it’s
going to be accomplished all we set the
deadline with lots of room to spare and
always try to finish before the deadline
tell other people that you’ve been
finished by this deadline promise others
that you’ll have your work done it’s a
powerful way to act as what is called a
forcing system a forcing system is
something that motivates you to stay at
it because if you don’t set a deadline
and give yourself a forcing system you
fall into the trap of what is called
Parkinson’s law now Parkinson’s law says
that work expands to fill the time
allotted for it if you have two hours of
work to do and eight hours of time you
will stretch that work over eight hours
Parkinson’s law also says that work
contracts to fill the time allotted for
it if you have eight hours of work to do
and because an emergency you have to
have it done in two hours you will get
it done in two hours
highly effective people are always
setting tight stringent discipline
deadlines on themselves so they get more
work done in a short period of time
rather than less work done in a long
period of time this makes sense very
very important the next principle number
seven is what is called the time log
which is writing down and keeping track
of where your time is going all
effective people know where their time
goes now let me tell you an interesting
principle with regard to time management
it is this is the more important you are
the more successful you are the more you
can to measure out your time in minutes
the less successful you are the more you
tend to measure out your time in hours
days and weeks the average person thinks
of terms of morning or afternoon the
above average person thinks of hours the
successful person thinks of half hours
the very successful person thinks in
terms of minutes they allocate their
time carefully the only time ways you
can do that is what is you’ve got to
keep track of what you’re spending your
time on 60 70 80 % of people are not
aware of how they spend their time they
think they spent a lot of time in
meetings it turns out they spend a lot
of time socializing they think they
spend a lot of time working on reports
it turns out they spend a lot of time on
the telephone they think they spend a
lot of time doing important jobs it
turns out they spend a lot of time
wasting time so keep a time log or just
keep a sheet and whenever you can have a
chance to look at your watch write down
what you’re doing at the time or have
somebody else watch what you’re doing
and feed back to you how you’re spending
your time and then you have to ask it’s
how I’m spending my time consistent with
my major goals by top priorities my high
payoff test and you’ll find that it’s
not you’ll also find that you feel
frustrated and you feel stressed if you
are not working your time on the things
that you’re supposed to do so keep
measuring your time logging your time
analyzing your time how am i spending my
time am i spending my time on the things
that are important to me am i spending
my time on the things that give me a big
payoff and if you’re not keep adjusting
and modifying your schedule a very
interesting point with regard to the
time log is that self-discipline is
critical you’ve got to discipline
yourself and you’ve got to measure and
analyze your time every single day or
you slip off it again the next principle
is the principle of procrastination
overcoming procrastination is absolutely
critical but there’s two kinds of
procrastination there’s positive
procrastination and negative
procrastination positive procrastination
is when you procrastinate on doing low
priority tasks it is when you
procrastinate on doing things that do
not contribute very much to your major
goals negative procrastination is when
you procrastinate on what is called your
most important tasks now there’s an
interesting point is that their tasks
are either urgent which means they have
to be done now or they are important
which means they don’t have to be done
now but they have a very high impact on
your future where you have a natural
tendency to always do what is urgent
rather than what is important important
tests are Seljuk seldom urgent and
urgent tasks are seldom important so you
overcome procrastination with a very
very simple method was developed by w
climate stone when he was a young man he
built a fortune of 500 million dollars
and this is one of the central
principles of his life it’s simply this
every morning when you get up say over
and over to yourself do it now do it now
do it now I do it now
do it now whenever you have this
tendency to procrastinate program your
subconscious mind with this automatic
conditioned command do it now do it now
do it now the key to overcoming
procrastination is to develop a sense of
urgency be the kind of person who get
things done quickly be the kind of
person who launches fast on a task one
of the ways to launch fast on a task is
to take the task and break it up what is
called salami slicing it slice the piece
of salami you don’t try to eat a whole
loaf of salami eat at one slice at a
time take your task and break it up into
small pieces and to do one piece at a
time say over and over to yourself do it
now do it now do it now do you know that
less than 2% of the population have a
sense of urgency and that there’s not an
example of a successful person anywhere
who does not have a sense of urgency
that if you just develop a sense of
urgency when somebody gives you a task
that you get on it and do it fast that
alone will move you into the top ranks
in a very short period of time in a
study done amongst a hundred and
fourteenth executive officers two years
ago they asked what would be the
qualities that would put a person on the
fast track in their career
you know the conclusion they came back
to with two qualities number one the
ability to set priorities to choose what
was relevant over what was irrelevant
and number two was the ability to get
the job done fast if all you did was
this set priorities and get the job done
fast that alone would cause you to stand
out from 80 to 90 percent of the people
that you work with number nine delegate
delegate everything that you possibly
can now what does delegation mean
delegation is very simple what it means
is this is that whatever your hourly
rate is let us say your goal is to earn
$50,000 a year if you work eight hours a
day that’s $25 an hour you got that so
your $25 an hour pushing now the only
way you can make $25 an hour is if you
do $25 or more work and the only way you
can do $25 an hour or more work is if
you take anything that can be done by
anybody who earns less than you per hour
20 15 10 5 and so on and delegate
outsource have somebody else do it the
most valuable resource in the world
today
is productive time and do not waste your
productive time dropping off laundry
getting your car washed mowing your lawn
cleaning your house do not waste your
product
time doing things that you can hire
people to do for 5 or 10 dollars an hour
use your productive time on the tasks
that are more expensive of higher value
delegate everything that you possibly
can in fact its general conclusion is
this is that if you cannot delegate if
you cannot get other people to do things
of lower priority for you
you cannot grow you cannot develop you
cannot be successful you may be
successful laying the shoeshine stand
but that’s about the limit of it
delegation requires one key word clarity
clarity the reason people don’t delegate
it’s because they’re delegated and other
people have dropped the ball but the
major reasons why people don’t fulfill
the task that you’ve given to them is
because of lack of clarity so when you
delegate here to keep first of all think
through what you want done write it down
second of all pick the right person to
do it don’t give in a major task to an
incapable person third of all make it
crystal clear what you want done and
when you want it done and fourth of all
check review inspect keep on top of it
to make sure it is done on time never
assume that anything will be done on
time I read something years ago a great
sign it said that assumption lies at the
root of all foul-ups never assume that
anybody or anything will be done on time
unless you check on it yourself okay the
next prints of both number 10 is
meetings meetings are an absolutely
essential part of human life we spend
75% of our time outside of our home and
inside our communicating with other
people it’s absolutely essential that we
meet meetings are very very productive
uses of time but 50 to 70 percent of
meeting time is wasted I read a
statistic recently that says the average
person spends 3 to 5 years of their life
in meetings the average business person
spends 25% of their day in meetings and
is wasting more than half of that time
so here are some of the keys to to using
meetings as an effective business tool
number one is have a purpose for a
meeting make sure that it’s crystal
clear at the beginning what the purpose
of the meeting is if you are the person
organizing the meeting when you start
the meeting you say the purpose of this
meeting is and if you are not when you
sit down you ask the person who is
chairing the meeting what is the purpose
of
this meeting do you look upon a meeting
as an investment take the time the
dollar value of the time of each of the
people at the table and look upon it as
an investment of that many dollars in
time best way to save time in meetings
is what is don’t go at all if you can
possibly avoid a meeting don’t go to it
if there’s no need for you to be there
get the report on what happened later
second thing we’re doing you do go to
meetings is make sure that there’s an
agenda and agenda is like a list to
track to run on if the chairperson
doesn’t have a list offer to put
together a list origin and agenda for
them even if you just write it out and
photocopy it it’s better than no list at
all deal with the most important items
first when you have finished your
contribution ask if you can be excused
and start and stop the meeting on time
now what’s the biggest time waster in
meetings in my estimation it’s two
things the meeting goes off track and
the conversation becomes irrelevant or
second of all people wait until the late
comer shows up so here’s the basic rule
with meetings it’s always assumed that
the late comer is not coming at all and
start the meeting punctually start and
stop the meeting at the specified time
say the meeting will start at 8:00 and
at 9:00 and at nine o’clock wrap up the
meeting fair okay that’s how you handle
meetings and there’s a lot more to it
than that but your skill your ability to
work well in meetings is a critical part
of good time management number 11 is
interruptions the biggest single time
wasters in the world of work within the
office are interruptions and the two
major types of interruptions are
telephone and walk-in visitors people
that just drop in to socialize and to
talk to you
so how do you deal with these
interruptions let’s talk about the
telephone first the way to deal with
telephone interruptions is to remember
this when you were a child the telephone
was where you got phone calls from your
boyfriend or your girlfriend today we
still are conditioned to have an
irresistible urge to answer the phone as
a matter of fact that’s been
demonstrated that you can get through to
people on the phone that you could give
or never get to physically because
people cannot resist answering a ringing
phone you have to discipline yourself to
remember that if it’s important enough
they’ll phone back so here are some of
the things you do with telephone calls
first of all have your calls held tell
somebody you’re going to be in a meeting
you’re going to be working now all your
calls held for two or three hours and
phone back all at once second of all
with regard to interrupt if you don’t
have somebody to hold your calls do what
I do when I work at home I unplug the
telephone people say well what if it’s
important because importance they’ll
call you back another thing that you can
do if you can’t stand unplugging the
telephone is put on an answering machine
and have the calls captured with an
answering machine and then call them
back at your own leisure but don’t be a
slave to the telephone the next
principle with regard to interruptions
is people people most people are time
wasters that’s the basic rule most
people are time wasters they waste your
time they waste their own time they
waste other people’s time and you have
to be alert to it so when a person comes
in they want to talk they drop in
without notice the very fastest way to
get rid of a person stand up when they
walk in if you stand up and stay
standing up that one sit down and you
can lead them out by saying there’s one
more thing before you go and then just
say it and lead them to the door if
necessary and I’ve had to do this on
occasion a cockade person comes into my
office I get up and I start toward the
door and I say I was just leaving and I
leave and the person follows me out and
goes on somewhere that bother somebody
else then I go back into my office if
people call and say have you got a
minute say no not right now could I wait
till this afternoon you know what
they’ll say they’ll say sure and 90% of
cases they’ll forget let it came in the
first place so control interruptions
interruptions and a ringing telephone
are two major sources of stress in the
world of work
now another key management principle and
in management and time management and
personal management this is essential
it’s what is called key result areas in
other words it is the key results that
you have been hired to accomplish for
your business even if you own your own
business you are still subject to key
result areas and the way that you find
out your key result areas is you ask
yourself this question over and over
again why am I on the payroll why are
you on the payroll what have you been
hired to accomplish not do not share
tasks and activities but what results
are expected of you you ask yourself
this question the accomplishment of what
result is going to lead to my promotion
how am I going to earn more money what
results do I have to
in order to get a raise in salary what
results does my company expect of me
what contribution am I expected to make
and then you say what are my key results
another way of looking at it is to
remember that every job has a series of
functions and there are secondary
functions and primary functions and
there what is called core functions so
you have to ask what are the core
functions of your job what are the goals
of your job how many people say to me
well I’m not sure you know what the
major reason for stress and American the
American workplace is today is people
don’t know what’s expected I would say
eighty or ninety percent of people out
there do not know what’s expected
they’re not sure why they’re on the
payroll and here’s a very simple
technique for it go to your boss with a
list of everything that you do and ask
your boss to organize it in order of
priority say what’s number one what’s
number two what’s number three what’s a
B or C help him or her organize your
list in order of priority and give it
back to you I promise you you’ll be
surprised but why is it that you
absolutely have to know why you’re on
the payroll it’s simply this is that you
cannot perform excellently you cannot do
superior work you cannot be promoted you
cannot get a rate unless you are doing
and doing well the key things that your
boss has hired you to do have you got me
on that or I got you on that key result
areas are critical and you have to know
every single day in fact you know
something one of the major sources of
frustration and work is to be working
very hard on something and being vaguely
uneasy because you know it’s probably
not important so keep clear channels of
communication with your boss and if you
supervise other people have them bring
to you a list of everything that they do
and you organize an order of priority
and make it clear to every person what
their contribution is expected to be
okay the next on one number 13 is
batching tasks it’s interesting that
there is what it’s called in the world
of work a learning curve a learning
curve says this it says when you do a
job the first time it takes you the most
amount of time to do it because you’re
learning how the second time it takes
less the third time it takes less the
fourth time it takes less in fact
learning curve theory says that you can
decrease the amount of time by as much
as 80% if you do the same job over and
over again over
of time so batching your task to the
major time management tool what does it
mean it means that if you’re going to
make phone calls make all your phone
calls at once have your calls held make
them all at once if you’re going to do
invoices do all the invoices at once if
you’re going to do correspondence to all
the correspondence at one if you’re
going to read and catch up
read everything at once it’s been found
that if you do this on a regular basis
you’ll get so much more done by doing it
and concentrating on batches of tasks
than if you did not so that’s your task
whenever you possibly can imagine what
most people do is they do a little bit
of telephone call a little bit of
correspondence a little bit of this a
little bit of that and they have no
learning curve at all each one takes the
maximum amount of time so batch your
tasks put groups of tasks together at
once and do them at once okay the next
principle is neatness it’s an
interesting thing because you run into
people all the time I render people in
my office who say it’s okay if my desk
is messy I know where everything is now
you have to understand one thing is
intelligent people people with good
memories can very often remember where
everything is but it just means that
they are using their intelligence to
combat the inefficiency of neatness
every single study that has been done
says this that if you will just clean up
your work environment so it’s completely
neat and everything is off of your desk
or your work place except the one thing
you’re working on that will increase
your productivity by twenty to forty
percent people have a difficult time
understanding this but I have tested it
I’ve worked with a messy desk I’ve
worked with a clean desk and I tell you
I promise you you will be astonished at
the difference it makes now how do you
clean it up it’s very simple there’s a
very simple way of cleaning off a desk
it’s called the tracks system the track
system has four letters T stands for
toss remember that in time management
your wastebasket is your best friend so
toss it out throw it away R stands for
refer which means it’s not relevant to
you so if you refer it to somebody else
a stands for action and what you do is
you take a file folder and you put it
into an action folder so it’s out of the
way and S stands for file file it away
do something with it
but before you file always ask this
question what would happen if I didn’t
have this document what would happen if
I never could find us again
if it’s not particularly serious throw
that away too once you’ve done that TRAF
you’ve tossed it referred it’s filed it
or put it in an action file once you’ve
done that then you start with your
action file and you work through it
neatness is important clean your desk
clean your work place even in the
kitchen you’ll find that if you take one
thing out and use it and put it away and
take another thing out you will get far
more done in a short period of time
though here’s the rule if you’re not
using it put it away if you’re not using
it put it away even if you have to take
the stuff off your desk and your
credenza and put it on the floor do it
your briefcase is your work place if you
are on the road if you’re a salesperson
if you’re moving around make sure your
briefcase is neat and orderly and has
everything that you need and nothing
more than you need neatness is critical
to productivity here’s the final point
in a study that was done recently
ninety-eight percent of senior
executives said they would not promote a
messy person that they would not give a
messy person greater responsibility that
if you are messy no matter how much you
kid yourself everybody around you
concludes that you are inefficient
undependable unreliable and incompetent
and even if you do the job well they
think it’s just an accident so be neat
stand back from your desk and look at it
and say what kind of a person would work
at a desk like this stand back and look
at your car say what kind of a person
drives the car like this look at your
workplace your briefcase look at your
home and say what kind of a person lives
here works here and you’ll find that
what will come to you is messy
inefficient incompetent disorganized and
so on neatness it’s critical to time
management number fifteen is what it’s
called getting chunks of time
interesting studies over and over they
have found that important work requires
chunks of time to do what is the chunk
of time a chunk of time is 60 90 minutes
two hours in fact it’s been found that
most serious work cannot be done in less
than 60 or 90 minutes so when we look at
the work styles of highly effective
people successful people the ones who
make the most money
the ones who graduate or are promoted
the most rapidly you find that they have
developed a habit of cutting out blocks
of time where they can work without
interruption
now here’s an example there’s several
several examples that you can use one of
the examples and one of the ways that I
do it is I get up early in the morning
sometimes I get up at 5:00 a.m. and I’ll
work for two or three solid hours you
can get an entire day’s work done in
three uninterrupted hours as a matter of
fact again we have found that it’s
impossible for you to do creative work
and administrative work at the same time
if you have creative work to do reports
to do proposals anything that requires a
sustained period of time to put together
you cannot do it at the desk when the
telephone is ringing and people are
coming in you cannot do administrative
and creative work together you have to
break them apart in the office you do
administrative work and you cut away
chunks of time for the important stuff
that affects your future one of the
things that I do is I come into the
office an hour early I can clear off in
one hour I can do half a day’s work
another thing that you can do is stay at
the office at lunchtime work at your
desk at lunchtime sometimes is the very
best time to work and by the way if you
work from 12:00 to 1:00 and then go out
for lunch you’ll find that you can get
in anywhere that you don’t have any ways
that you can get in and out and back to
work quickly a third is stay late
sometimes just working from 5:00 to 7:00
you’ll do an entire day’s worth of work
by the way with regard to travel by
travel a lot and more and more people
travel by air one uninterrupted hour on
an aircraft if you’re properly organized
with all of your work in your briefcases
were three hours in your office so if
you’re going to travel be sure that you
take the work necessary so that you can
work if you like like a workhorse once
you get on that plane I always try to
sit next to a window just the next to a
window you can bury yourself in your
work you have no interference people not
walking over you but you can get an
enormous amount of work done in a plane
it’s a matter like much of this course
that we’re talking about today was done
on airplane number 16 is to use what we
call transition time remember this is
that you will always be paid in life for
the value of your contribution and if
you want to earn more you must learn
more and the most successful people are
those who are continually taking in new
information continually learning more
continually taking every opportunity to
keep current with their profession and
to advance their
knowledge in fact the knowledge in every
single field today is doubling every
five to seven years which means that
whatever you’re doing in order to stay
even your knowledge has to double every
five to seven years now it’s simple to
do this the basic rule is this
you should or you must spend an hour
every day investing in your own mind
investing in yourself you must take an
hour every day and read and study and
take notes if you’re doing less than an
hour a day you’re falling behind if you
do two hours a day you put yourself on
the side of the angel now here’s some of
the ways that you can get this extra
learning time is extra working time this
extra personal growth time first my most
important of all is driving or traveling
to and from work if you drive the
average driver today drives twelve to
twenty five thousand miles a year that’s
the equivalent of 500 to a thousand
hours a year and of course if you’re on
the Los Angeles freeways it’s about
$1,500 – mm what that is the equivalent
of 12 to 25 40-hour work weeks that’s
the equivalent of three to six months
and work weeks that’s one to two
University semesters you know the
average person of course it’s not you
because the people who watch videotapes
like this are usually the cream in any
organization for any Society the average
person sit there listen to radio all the
time you can become one of the best
educated people in your profession
simply by listening to audio cassettes
going to and from work or to and from
errands now another very important part
of transition time is coffee breaks you
know the average person takes two coffee
breaks a day 20 minutes each 40 minutes
a day 40 minutes a day times five days a
week is 200 minutes 200 minutes times 50
weeks a year is 10,000 minutes 10,000
minutes is 166 hours 166 hours is over
four full 40-hour a week
now what does that mean to you it means
that if you just decide that you’re
going to read on a particular subject at
your coffee breaks for the next year you
will be an expert on that subject before
the year is out just when you sit down
with coffee make sure that you have
something to read whether it’s time
management or goal-setting or personal
communications for your profession if
you wanted to be an outstanding
salesperson if you just read on your
coffee breaks 20 minutes of morning 20
minutes in the afternoon and applied
what you learned you could double your
income in less than a year and most
people sit there in their coffee
they read the sports page and they don’t
realize that their life is passing them
by well another key element up through
the transition time is lunch times the
average person takes an hour a day an
hour a day times 250 working days a
years 250 hours 250 hours is six full
weeks of time that you spend eating
lunch if you just read at your lunchtime
and something that will help you grow in
advance in your career if you did
nothing but coffee breaks and lunch time
you’d become one of the best educated
people in society within 3 to 5 years
and you know the average person does
they waste this time another important
part of transition time by the way if
you read magazines instead of carrying
magazines what you do is you read a
magazine tear out all the articles put
in a file and whenever you’re traveling
keep that file with you you’re sitting
waiting for something you’re waiting in
a waiting room you’re taking a trip you
have appointments that are canceled just
pull out your file and keep current
remember keep taking in more information
use those what are called gifts of time
these are gifts of time they’re given to
us by God and we can do anything we want
with them but high-performing human
beings use those gifts of time as though
they were precious and low performing
human beings do not which do you want to
be ok the next is what we call telephone
you know the telephone is interesting
telephone is an essential part of our
lives but as we said a little bit
earlier we are conditioned from our
teenage years to look upon the telephone
as a social tool it’s something that we
look forward to getting onto because we
associated with romance and fun and and
communications with people are important
to us as adults however we have to
change our thinking 180 degree we have
to realize the telephone is a business
tool the telephone is a business tool
it’s like a computer it’s like a
typewriter it’s like a photocopier it
may have other uses but it’s a business
tool so here’s the rule with using the
telephone get on and get off fast see
how fast you can get on and off the
phone control your telephone calls as we
said before let other people hear
letters your telephone calls get bashed
so that you can call them back and you
control the call call back at their
lunch times call back at the end of the
day call back so you control the time
now when somebody calls you and you take
the call here’s the key question always
ask what can I do for you they’ll always
have a tendency to say
hi how’re you doing how’s things goin
how’s the weather out there say you say
fine
what can I do for you and get straight
to the point of the phone call and other
things you can say how can I help you
but and make it very very clear that
this is a business call if you’re going
to be making phone calls look upon a
phone call as a meeting by wire and what
you do is you make an agenda for the
meeting what many people do is you talk
to people all the time keep a file on
that person and when you think of
calling that person take out the file
and work on your agenda go down the
agenda when you completed the agenda you
say thank you very much I’ll let you go
now I know you’re busy and hang up the
phone what do you do with talkative
people talk to people you say excuse me
I’ve got another call coming I’ve got to
run if that doesn’t work you say my boss
is calling me if that doesn’t work hang
up the phone in the middle of a
conversation as though the phone line
has been cut off person probably won’t
even pay any attention to it because
they’re so used to being cut off by
other people remember this is that
people are time-wasters
and the great majority of people have no
goals they have no priorities they have
no plans they have no concern about
becoming successful and they think that
you are the same they think because
their time isn’t worth anything that
your time isn’t worth anything also so
be it very alert to that by the way one
final point when you have telephone
meetings keep good notes I heard a very
smart man say that the power is on the
side of the person with the best notes I
have lost thousands of dollars because I
have agreed to something on the
telephone
I have not documented it the person has
come back to me and said you agreed to
something else and they had it written
down in their files and I couldn’t argue
so when you’re on the telephone like one
final point is always have a pen always
have a pencil always have a pad never
pick up the telephone without a pen in
your hand the most incredible thing I
hear over and over again is when I call
people and I try to leave a message the
person their voice drops and they say oh
oh just a minute I’ll go and see if I
can find a pencil and the phone goes
clunk and the person goes away and they
come back and they say oh gee this pin
won’t work just a minute and the clone
goes clunk and they go away again if a
person ever answers the phone without a
pen in their hand you know this person
is going nowhere in life
just simple as that my own personal
opinion of course the next key is
punctuality one of the most important
things you can get in terms of
reputation is a reputation for being
punctual which means being on time my
friend your Wheldon says it very well he
says if you’re not early you’re late but
there is only one one minute period in
any appointment when you’re exactly on
time and so if you want it there early
you’re there late less than 5% of people
in America are punctual less than 5% of
the population is punctual and those
people stand out as a matter of fact
that you want to stand out from the
average person all you have to do is
develop a reputation for punctuality
pretty soon people say boy he or she
sure is punctual he or she sure is
functional let me tell you something
about punctual people if you ask a
person what do you think about so-and-so
who is very punctual they will say I
think this person is more competent more
reliable more dependable more
intelligent more valuable and more
likely to be promoted and given greater
responsibilities than the person who is
late all the time the person is late all
the time is considered unreliable sloppy
undisciplined a poor time manager and
not capable of greater responsibilities
why is it that people are not punctual
two reasons one is they don’t realize
how important it is it never occurs to
them that when you are late for an
appointment you are insulting the person
who has agreed to see you at that time
if you are in sales and you’re late for
appointments
you can forget I had an interview with a
person the other day who I was hiring
for a very expensive position she showed
up to an appointment 15 minutes late a
person who comes 15 minutes late to the
first appointment the basic rule is this
is never hire a person who comes late to
an interview person who comes late to an
interview is sending you a flash it’s a
signal that this person is unreliable
incompetent undependable and if you let
them get away with it you’re in for
trouble I’m just passing on that
punctuality coming back to that Lombardi
Vince Lombardi of the Green Bay Packers
had what he calls Lombardi time which
meant 15 minutes early if he said to his
team be here Lombardi time that meant be
there 15 minutes early develop the
reputation for being punctual and
finally one other thing is if you are a
superior and you have subordinates or
you have people working for you
– you don’t keep them waiting if you
were going to see them at 3 o’clock
don’t keep them out there spinning their
wheels standing around it’s one of the
worst insults that you can do people and
if I can if I could just come back one
more time with regard to communications
you know one of the great time wasters
in life this is aside from the point
that we’re talking about is lack of
concentration distraction fatigue is not
paying attention how many times have you
had problems serious problems because
you had a conversation with a person and
they agreed to do something and or you
agree to do something and one or the
other of you forgot all about it
didn’t remember it wasn’t paying
attention it wasn’t done it cost an
enormous amount of money how often does
that happen to you paying very close
attention is a powerful time management
tool if somebody comes in to see you cut
off all phone calls
close the door clear your desk and
concentrate single-mindedly on a person
10 minutes of concentrated conversation
will clear out more than one hour of
interrupted conversation pay attention
take notes now number 19 is called work
simplification do you know that at the
turn of the century in the United States
it took 50% of the American population
to feed working on the farms to feed the
other 50% living in the cities today it
takes less than 3% of the farm
population to feed the other ninety four
seven percent in the cities and half of
the world besides the reason for that is
because of mechanization systematize
ation simplification of the agricultural
process as a matter of fact every great
advance that has been made since the
Industrial Revolution has been toward
simplification always be looking for
ways to do tasks faster easier cheaper
quicker better always be looking for
ways to do them faster as a matter of
fact over and over again individuals
have put their careers on the fast track
by finding ways to streamline existing
processes now here’s a couple of other
ideas which have been very useful to me
in terms of getting more done in a short
period of time
here are the six maybe seven key ideas
if you want to get more done in a given
period of time or if you want to get
more done period you can do one you can
work longer in other words you can spend
more hours working but that’s not a
great idea because your productivity
starts to draw
and you start to make mistakes but you
have to come back and correct and so on
number two is you can work faster you
can get more done within a short period
of time number three is you can do fewer
things but do more important things do
higher payoff tasks in the same period
of time to increase your productivity
number four is you can do things that
you are better at one of the qualities
of leaders is that leaders exceptional
people are always concentrating their
time on doing what they do best so ask
yourself what is it that I’m the best at
what is that I do the easiest you can
sometimes dramatically increase your
productivity simply by concentrating on
where you’re good another thing that you
can do is make fewer mistakes you know
there’s an old saying that there’s never
enough time to do it right but there’s
always enough time to do it over if you
make fewer mistakes you will get far
more done within a certain time prevent
new within that time period and the last
thing which many people miss is do
things together teamwork putting a group
of people together to work on a complex
project can sometimes get the project
done in two hours whereas would take
another individual eight or nine or ten
hours so do things together work as
teams with other people those are the
key a work simplification means always
finding faster easier newer quicker
cheaper more efficient ways to do what
you’re doing number twenty is the magic
word the magic word in time management
is know learn to say no to activities
tasks responsibilities and obligations
that do not contribute to the most
important goals that you have set for
yourself the word no is magic in the
place and the time to use the word know
is early and often it’s like the waste
basket waste basket is your best friend
when you’re sorting the mail you know
the average person spends eight months
of their life
sorting junk mail reading through junk
mail absolutely from a recent study it’s
incredible how much of your life is
taken up by people who ask you to do
things and you do it because of a sense
of obligation let me tell you as I said
to you before most people do not value
their time so they don’t value yours now
how do you deal with a person who you
know who you like who you respect who
ask you to do something very simple when
they ask you to do something or work on
a committee or take on a project ask
especially if you have two edges it’s
not if your boss but if
actually you have control they say let
me think about it and get back to you
there’s an old saying that delay is the
cruelest form of denial if they press
you for a decision say I cannot make a
decision now I have to think about it
and after you thought about it for 24
hours call them back and say I’ve
thought about it I simply don’t have the
time but thank you very much for
thinking about me and get on with the
rest of your life you know Nancy Reagan
says Nancy Reagan says just say no now
in time management the word no is one of
the most powerful have all words it’ll
save you hours weeks months of working
on projects that contribute nothing to
your goal and finally number 21 is
balance in all of time management you
have to ask this question is what is the
purpose of managing your time well what
is the purpose of getting an extra two
or three hours a day and the purpose is
to enhance and improve the quality of
your life and the most important things
in a person’s life are their health
their peace of mind and your
relationships in fact the quality of
your relationships is the true measure
of your quality of life so take time to
invest time in your relationships spend
time with the people who are close to
your spouse your loved ones your parents
your children take time because that’s
what that’s what life is life is
managing your time so that you can do
the things that are most important to
you we start off in life thank you
boyfriend really successful at my job
and I’ll be able to do all of these
things for myself in my family and what
happens is we lose sight of that goal
and we become totally preoccupied with
the job to the exclusion of the factor
so you know what how much time the
average working parent spends talking to
their child in America today 30 seconds
per day do you know how much time the
average couple spends talking together
intimate communication four minutes
according to the recent research very
very important if you want to be
successful in life you’ve got to be sure
what your priorities and values are and
your highest value must be the people
that you love and the people who love
you there must be your help they must be
your energy there must be your peace of
mind
they must be your emotional and
spiritual development they must be the
completion of you as a human being
when you are using all these time
management techniques remember that the
purpose of using these time management
techniques is to enhance the overall
quality of your life ask again what
would you do if you only had six months
to live what would you do if you only
had six months to live who would you
spend your time with where would you go
what would you want to do what would be
important will be unimportant if you
asked that question over and over again
you’ll have a tendency to keep your life
and balance everything in moderation now
if I could just summarize by saying two
or three quick things the essence of
success in time management is goals the
key to goals is to make to write them
down and to make organized plans for
their accomplishment the key to those
organized plans is to set priorities and
determine what is more important and
what is less important and always
concentrate on the most valuable use of
your time the key to concentrate the
most valuable use of your time is to
stay at the task until it’s finished
persevere without distraction or
diversion keep added hammer Hammer
hammer until your most important tasks
are finished and finally finally develop
that sense of urgency do it fast do it
now
fast-tempo is essential to success
fast-tempo goes hand-in-hand with energy
with happiness with enthusiasm with
self-esteem so make crystal clear what
you want to do and crystal clear the
steps and start working on those steps
and do something every day
I began a lifelong search for the answer
to the question why is it that some
people are more successful than others
why is it that some people earn more
money they have better jobs that get
promoted more rapidly they live longer
they have better health they have
happier relationships and yet the great
mass of men and women by their own
admission let live lives of quiet
desperation well I’ve studied this over
and over again I traveled in over 80
countries on seven continents I have
learned and spoken three four different
languages I have spent over 30,000 hours
studying and I’ve come to a very simple
conclusion that successful people are
those who do things differently from
unsuccessful people I’ve also come to
another conclusion is that you or
anybody can be far more successful at
life or anything that you want if you
will simply learn how and practice it
over and over again until it becomes a
habit now no matter what fields you are
in no matter what fuel is endeavor no
matter what work no matter what activity
there is one thing that all successful
people have in common is that they are
good time managers and the reason they
are good time managers is because they
recognize that time management is life
management it is personal management I
have never seen an example in the
hundreds of thousands of biographies and
autobiographies I’ve studied of
successful men and women where the
individual has not been well organized
and efficient and valued and used their
times well successful people winners use
their time well losers do not and in the
next 60 minutes 55 minutes I am going to
give you 21 of the very finest time
management ideas ever developed if you
use these ideas to somatically you can
increase your personal productivity by 2
or 3 hours a day you can increase your
income you can increase your rate of
promotion you can increase your lifespan
as fashion you can even increase the
length of time you live the question is
how badly do you want to learn how to
manage your time well how much effort
are you willing to put into it because
the key to time management is
self-discipline
probably the best way to put it is this
is time management is self disciplined
inaction and self-discipline is the key
to success so let’s get started right
now and with these 21 key ideas
the first idea the most important of all
the core of time management the axil
around which the wheel of life turns is
goal what are your goals what is it that
you want to be or to have or to do what
is it that you want to accomplish in the
next 1 2 3 4 5 years the top 3% in every
field have goals the balance of the
populations have either very vague goals
or no goals at all so the question you
have to ask yourself is who am i where
am I going what do I want to accomplish
and there are three major areas of goals
that you have to think about the first
is your personal and your family goals
these are the reasons why you’re alive
what do you want to accomplish for
yourself and for your family write them
down
define them clearly the second set of
goals that you have to ask is your
business your career your financial your
material goals what is it that you want
to accomplish in the external world
where do you want to make your
contribution the third type of goals you
have to ask about are your
self-development goals and in my
estimation your ability and your
willingness and your tenaciousness in
developing yourself is the key to
accomplishing everything else so here’s
three questions that you can ask the
first question is know what you do what
would you set as a goal for yourself
well that you want to be or have if you
just won a million dollars in the
lottery what would you do if you just
want a million dollars you get all the
time and money you’re completely free to
decide to do anything you want it if you
want a million dollars what would you do
differently think about that hold that
in your mind the second question is what
would you do if you just learned today
that you only had six months to live
what if you only had six months to live
what would you stop doing obviously do
more of who would you spend time with
now the answer to that question is very
interesting because what it tells you is
what you really value what is really
important to you and what we have found
is that self-esteem satisfaction
happiness in life comes from getting
your goals and your activities congruent
with your values with your priorities
with what you consider to be really
important now here’s the third question
the third question is what one great
thing would you dare to dream if you
knew you could not fail if you knew
beyond a shadow of a doubt that you
could not fail what one
English use that as a goal for yourself
because sometimes answering that
question will tell you the one thing
that you’ve been put on this earth to
accomplish one final point with regard
to goals is that goals must be in
writing you must write them down you
must rewrite them you must define them
you must redefine them the top 1% of
successful people in every area have
very clear specific written goal and
most of them carry their goals around
with them so let’s go from goals as the
core of success to point number 2 which
is organized plan of action in an
interesting study or a variety of
studies that have been done they’ve come
to the conclusion that organized plans
of action are the key to all success in
fact action without planning is the
cause of every failure action without
planning is the cause of
underachievement action without planning
is the cause of frustration time wastage
anxiety stress and lack of success in
life so organize plans of action are
critical now what it’s an organized plan
of action an organized plan of action is
where you take your goal you take your
objective and you write out every single
step that you’re going to have to follow
in order to accomplish that objective
you write it out and you list all those
plans of action all of those different
activities and you organize them
together into a plan that you can then
implement on a day-to-day basis you
decide which has to be done first and
which has to be done last which is more
important
which is less important in fact the
ability to set goals and to create plans
for their accomplishment is the master
skill of success if all you learned in
life all you learned in school was the
ability to be a continuous goal setter
and a continuous planner day and night
planning organizing planning writing
thinking about what you’re trying to
accomplish you’ll accomplish more in a
year or two years than most people
accomplish in 10 years or an entire
lifetime it has nothing whatever to do
by the way with your intelligence
it hasn’t great anything to do with your
education you know half of the best
educated people in the country are
working for people who didn’t finish
high school or didn’t finish college I
wrote an article for a major publication
not long ago which said that if you do
not have clear
goals for your life you are condemned
forever to work for those who do you see
in life it’s very simple
either you are working toward the
accomplishment of your goals or you’re
working toward the accomplishment of
other people’s goals very important how
the Third Point in excellent time
management is analysis make a list in
fact it’s been discovered that if you
make a list before you begin any task or
job you will immediately improve your
productivity by 25% how do you make a
list well you make your list for the
week the Sunday or the Saturday before
and you make your list for each day the
evening before and you always work from
a list now why do you make it evening
before the primary reason is if you make
a list the evening before the
subconscious goes to work on your list
while you’re asleep and during the night
the subconscious will solve problems and
bring insights to you you’ll wake up in
the morning with insights ideas
intuitions answers that will make your
day more productive now the second
reason that you use a list is because
you don’t have a list like driving down
the street in a car with no steering
wheel you just drift in every bump every
interruption everything that happens
sets you off in a different direction a
list gives you a track to run on for the
entire day
another reason that you use a list is
because of the list you can analyze
where you are you can tell what is more
important and what is less important you
can tell what is irrelevant what can be
delegated what can be delayed what can
be put off the most important reason for
using a list though however is this is
that when you use a list and you work
down the list and you check things off
each time you check something off on a
list it gives you a feeling of
accomplishment it’s been well said that
happiness is the progressive realisation
of a worthy ideal that happiness is the
step by step accomplishment of the task
necessary to accomplish a worthy ideal
and a successful life is based on a
series of successful days in a series of
successful days is based on working on a
list one step at a time
okay now the fourth principle for
effective time management is to set
priorities it’s interesting there are
many people who have goals vague or
clear there are many people who do make
plans but the biggest single problem in
human life is setting priorities
determining what is relevant and what is
irrelevant
and in setting priorities an italian
economist named vilfredo pareto in 1895
came up with a principle which is called
the Pareto principle we call it the
80/20 rule it says that 80% of the value
of what you do will be contained in 20%
of the things that you do what does this
mean that means if you make a list of
ten things that you have to do today you
will find that two of those things are
worth all of the others put together now
the difference between highly effective
people as real fatal Pareto said or that
highly effective people work on the
vital few versus the trivial many the
difference between the two is that in
effective people work on the trivial
many they work on things that are fun
they work on things that are easy they
work on little tasks fun tasks
irrelevant tasks but they keep putting
off and delay in working on their major
tasks so the key to success is always be
asking this question what is the most
valuable use of my time right now what
is the most valuable use of your time
right now I’m convinced that if all you
did was organize your life and only work
on the most valuable use of your time
that alone would be enough to make you
an effective efficient person that alone
would be enough to increase your
productivity your performance your
profitability your rewards by 10 20 30
40 even 50% so always before you begin
ask yourself is this the most important
thing I could be doing is this my top
priority task does this give me the
highest payoff is this the most valuable
use of my time now here is one simple
test with regard to value ask yourself
in approaching any task is what impact
will be accomplishment of this task have
on my future
the Futurity of decisions is the key to
measuring the value most people spend as
much as 80% of their time dealing with
the problems and difficulties of the
past and only 20% dealing with the
opportunities of the future but
successful people are always saying what
impact will this have on the future so
the important tasks will always have an
impact on the future unimportant tasks
will only have an impact on the present
and maybe even
path so let’s say what is the most
valuable use of my time right now and
what impact will this have on tomorrow
the next day and the futures one of the
key ways to keep on track with regard to
priority the fifth key idea in time
management which I am a fanatic on is
concentration concentration
concentration many people come to me in
my seminars and I said well I never
learned how to concentrate I can’t
concentrate how do I learn to
concentrate learning how to concentrate
is absolutely essential to success as a
matter of fact it is impossible for you
to accomplish anything worthwhile in
life without the ability to concentrate
single-mindedly on one thing at a time
and stay with it until it’s complete in
fact time and motion studies have shown
that if you start a task and you put it
down and you come back to it and pick it
up and start it and put it down and come
back to it and pick it up that it will
take you as much as 500 percent of the
necessary time to do a task than if
you’ve picked it up and carried it
through Alec McKenzie great time
management expert Alec McKenzie calls
this single handling once you have made
a list of what you have to do organize
your goals determine the highest and
most valuable priority then pick the
most important thing and begin working
on it and stay with it until it’s
finished now people say well if I stay
with this testing codebase don’t get
anything else done that doesn’t matter
if it’s the most valuable thing that you
have to do it’s the most important thing
that you could be working on now it’s a
wonderful thing when you concentrate and
work intensely on an important task it
gives you a feeling of energy and
enthusiasm when you complete an
important task your self-esteem goes up
you feel like a winner you feel great
about yourself but if you work away on
low priority tasks even if you complete
them and do them well
you don’t get any bang for the buck you
don’t get any excitement or thrill from
doing something that’s not important as
a matter of fact most stress anxiety
frustration in the world of work today
comes from working very hard on
irrelevant tests benjamin Trego said if
it’s not worth doing it’s not worth
doing right and I think it was Drucker
who said the very worst thing in the
world is to do very well what need not
be done at all so concentrate
single-mindedly
on one task at a time do first things
first and do things one at a time now
here’s a very simple system
that you can use for the first five
points that we’ve talked about goals
plans priority analysis concentration it
is the ABCDE method a is the things that
you must do top priority B is the things
that you should do second polarity sees
the things should be nice to do if
you’ve got all your age and B’s done
these stands for delegates East stands
for eliminates so when you make a list
the first thing you do is you ABC all
your list a what you must do B what you
should do see what it’d be nice to do
and then delegate and eliminate the
others with goals what you do is this
you make a list of all the things you’d
like to accomplish in the next one to
five years and then you go down the list
of like ABC what you’d love to do what
you’d like to do what’s not that
important then you take your a goals and
you make a 1 a 2 a 3 in other words your
most important second most important
third most important then you take those
a goals you transfer them to another
sheet and you make a list of all the
things you’re going to have to do to
accomplish your goals then you ABC the
list and you say what are the things you
have to do what are the things I should
do what are things that would be nice to
do to accomplish my goal and then you
put those into the goal list and then
use structure and schedule what you’re
going to do any implement this is called
the six step method set choose your
goals set priorities choose your
activities to set priorities and
schedule and implement if you just do
that on a day to day basis that alone
can make you a great great success in
life the sixth key to time management is
deadlines deadlines and rewards now
psychologists have discovered that 85%
of the reason that you or I do anything
is because of what we expect to happen
as a result we call this consequences or
logical consequences 15% is because what
we’ve been told but 85% is the
consequences that we expect so therefore
what you do is when you have an
important task the way that you motivate
yourself to do the task is you structure
a specific reward that you’re going to
get when it’s finished let me give you
an example sometimes people are very
uneasy about making telephone calls
especially salespeople so they put it
off and they procrastinate what we
encourage them to do is give themself a
reward every time they make a phone call
put a cup of coffee next to the phone
every time you make a phone call give
yourself a sip of coffee
take a cookie and break it up give
yourself a piece of cookie in other
words train yourself the way you train a
dog to have a positive consequence for
everything that you do so set deadlines
how do you set deadlines first of all
when you set the goal when you specify
the task set the deadline when it’s
going to be accomplished all we set the
deadline with lots of room to spare and
always try to finish before the deadline
tell other people that you’ve been
finished by this deadline promise others
that you’ll have your work done it’s a
powerful way to act as what is called a
forcing system a forcing system is
something that motivates you to stay at
it because if you don’t set a deadline
and give yourself a forcing system you
fall into the trap of what is called
Parkinson’s law now Parkinson’s law says
that work expands to fill the time
allotted for it if you have two hours of
work to do and eight hours of time you
will stretch that work over eight hours
Parkinson’s law also says that work
contracts to fill the time allotted for
it if you have eight hours of work to do
and because an emergency you have to
have it done in two hours you will get
it done in two hours
highly effective people are always
setting tight stringent discipline
deadlines on themselves so they get more
work done in a short period of time
rather than less work done in a long
period of time this makes sense very
very important the next principle number
seven is what is called the time log
which is writing down and keeping track
of where your time is going all
effective people know where their time
goes now let me tell you an interesting
principle with regard to time management
it is this is the more important you are
the more successful you are the more you
can to measure out your time in minutes
the less successful you are the more you
tend to measure out your time in hours
days and weeks the average person thinks
of terms of morning or afternoon the
above average person thinks of hours the
successful person thinks of half hours
the very successful person thinks in
terms of minutes they allocate their
time carefully the only time ways you
can do that is what is you’ve got to
keep track of what you’re spending your
time on 60 70 80 % of people are not
aware of how they spend their time they
think they spent a lot of time in
meetings it turns out they spend a lot
of time socializing they think they
spend a lot of time working on reports
it turns out they spend a lot of time on
the telephone they think they spend a
lot of time doing important jobs it
turns out they spend a lot of time
wasting time so keep a time log or just
keep a sheet and whenever you can have a
chance to look at your watch write down
what you’re doing at the time or have
somebody else watch what you’re doing
and feed back to you how you’re spending
your time and then you have to ask it’s
how I’m spending my time consistent with
my major goals by top priorities my high
payoff test and you’ll find that it’s
not you’ll also find that you feel
frustrated and you feel stressed if you
are not working your time on the things
that you’re supposed to do so keep
measuring your time logging your time
analyzing your time how am i spending my
time am i spending my time on the things
that are important to me am i spending
my time on the things that give me a big
payoff and if you’re not keep adjusting
and modifying your schedule a very
interesting point with regard to the
time log is that self-discipline is
critical you’ve got to discipline
yourself and you’ve got to measure and
analyze your time every single day or
you slip off it again the next principle
is the principle of procrastination
overcoming procrastination is absolutely
critical but there’s two kinds of
procrastination there’s positive
procrastination and negative
procrastination positive procrastination
is when you procrastinate on doing low
priority tasks it is when you
procrastinate on doing things that do
not contribute very much to your major
goals negative procrastination is when
you procrastinate on what is called your
most important tasks now there’s an
interesting point is that their tasks
are either urgent which means they have
to be done now or they are important
which means they don’t have to be done
now but they have a very high impact on
your future where you have a natural
tendency to always do what is urgent
rather than what is important important
tests are Seljuk seldom urgent and
urgent tasks are seldom important so you
overcome procrastination with a very
very simple method was developed by w
climate stone when he was a young man he
built a fortune of 500 million dollars
and this is one of the central
principles of his life it’s simply this
every morning when you get up say over
and over to yourself do it now do it now
do it now I do it now
do it now whenever you have this
tendency to procrastinate program your
subconscious mind with this automatic
conditioned command do it now do it now
do it now the key to overcoming
procrastination is to develop a sense of
urgency be the kind of person who get
things done quickly be the kind of
person who launches fast on a task one
of the ways to launch fast on a task is
to take the task and break it up what is
called salami slicing it slice the piece
of salami you don’t try to eat a whole
loaf of salami eat at one slice at a
time take your task and break it up into
small pieces and to do one piece at a
time say over and over to yourself do it
now do it now do it now do you know that
less than 2% of the population have a
sense of urgency and that there’s not an
example of a successful person anywhere
who does not have a sense of urgency
that if you just develop a sense of
urgency when somebody gives you a task
that you get on it and do it fast that
alone will move you into the top ranks
in a very short period of time in a
study done amongst a hundred and
fourteenth executive officers two years
ago they asked what would be the
qualities that would put a person on the
fast track in their career
you know the conclusion they came back
to with two qualities number one the
ability to set priorities to choose what
was relevant over what was irrelevant
and number two was the ability to get
the job done fast if all you did was
this set priorities and get the job done
fast that alone would cause you to stand
out from 80 to 90 percent of the people
that you work with number nine delegate
delegate everything that you possibly
can now what does delegation mean
delegation is very simple what it means
is this is that whatever your hourly
rate is let us say your goal is to earn
$50,000 a year if you work eight hours a
day that’s $25 an hour you got that so
your $25 an hour pushing now the only
way you can make $25 an hour is if you
do $25 or more work and the only way you
can do $25 an hour or more work is if
you take anything that can be done by
anybody who earns less than you per hour
20 15 10 5 and so on and delegate
outsource have somebody else do it the
most valuable resource in the world
today
is productive time and do not waste your
productive time dropping off laundry
getting your car washed mowing your lawn
cleaning your house do not waste your
product
time doing things that you can hire
people to do for 5 or 10 dollars an hour
use your productive time on the tasks
that are more expensive of higher value
delegate everything that you possibly
can in fact its general conclusion is
this is that if you cannot delegate if
you cannot get other people to do things
of lower priority for you
you cannot grow you cannot develop you
cannot be successful you may be
successful laying the shoeshine stand
but that’s about the limit of it
delegation requires one key word clarity
clarity the reason people don’t delegate
it’s because they’re delegated and other
people have dropped the ball but the
major reasons why people don’t fulfill
the task that you’ve given to them is
because of lack of clarity so when you
delegate here to keep first of all think
through what you want done write it down
second of all pick the right person to
do it don’t give in a major task to an
incapable person third of all make it
crystal clear what you want done and
when you want it done and fourth of all
check review inspect keep on top of it
to make sure it is done on time never
assume that anything will be done on
time I read something years ago a great
sign it said that assumption lies at the
root of all foul-ups never assume that
anybody or anything will be done on time
unless you check on it yourself okay the
next prints of both number 10 is
meetings meetings are an absolutely
essential part of human life we spend
75% of our time outside of our home and
inside our communicating with other
people it’s absolutely essential that we
meet meetings are very very productive
uses of time but 50 to 70 percent of
meeting time is wasted I read a
statistic recently that says the average
person spends 3 to 5 years of their life
in meetings the average business person
spends 25% of their day in meetings and
is wasting more than half of that time
so here are some of the keys to to using
meetings as an effective business tool
number one is have a purpose for a
meeting make sure that it’s crystal
clear at the beginning what the purpose
of the meeting is if you are the person
organizing the meeting when you start
the meeting you say the purpose of this
meeting is and if you are not when you
sit down you ask the person who is
chairing the meeting what is the purpose
of
this meeting do you look upon a meeting
as an investment take the time the
dollar value of the time of each of the
people at the table and look upon it as
an investment of that many dollars in
time best way to save time in meetings
is what is don’t go at all if you can
possibly avoid a meeting don’t go to it
if there’s no need for you to be there
get the report on what happened later
second thing we’re doing you do go to
meetings is make sure that there’s an
agenda and agenda is like a list to
track to run on if the chairperson
doesn’t have a list offer to put
together a list origin and agenda for
them even if you just write it out and
photocopy it it’s better than no list at
all deal with the most important items
first when you have finished your
contribution ask if you can be excused
and start and stop the meeting on time
now what’s the biggest time waster in
meetings in my estimation it’s two
things the meeting goes off track and
the conversation becomes irrelevant or
second of all people wait until the late
comer shows up so here’s the basic rule
with meetings it’s always assumed that
the late comer is not coming at all and
start the meeting punctually start and
stop the meeting at the specified time
say the meeting will start at 8:00 and
at 9:00 and at nine o’clock wrap up the
meeting fair okay that’s how you handle
meetings and there’s a lot more to it
than that but your skill your ability to
work well in meetings is a critical part
of good time management number 11 is
interruptions the biggest single time
wasters in the world of work within the
office are interruptions and the two
major types of interruptions are
telephone and walk-in visitors people
that just drop in to socialize and to
talk to you
so how do you deal with these
interruptions let’s talk about the
telephone first the way to deal with
telephone interruptions is to remember
this when you were a child the telephone
was where you got phone calls from your
boyfriend or your girlfriend today we
still are conditioned to have an
irresistible urge to answer the phone as
a matter of fact that’s been
demonstrated that you can get through to
people on the phone that you could give
or never get to physically because
people cannot resist answering a ringing
phone you have to discipline yourself to
remember that if it’s important enough
they’ll phone back so here are some of
the things you do with telephone calls
first of all have your calls held tell
somebody you’re going to be in a meeting
you’re going to be working now all your
calls held for two or three hours and
phone back all at once second of all
with regard to interrupt if you don’t
have somebody to hold your calls do what
I do when I work at home I unplug the
telephone people say well what if it’s
important because importance they’ll
call you back another thing that you can
do if you can’t stand unplugging the
telephone is put on an answering machine
and have the calls captured with an
answering machine and then call them
back at your own leisure but don’t be a
slave to the telephone the next
principle with regard to interruptions
is people people most people are time
wasters that’s the basic rule most
people are time wasters they waste your
time they waste their own time they
waste other people’s time and you have
to be alert to it so when a person comes
in they want to talk they drop in
without notice the very fastest way to
get rid of a person stand up when they
walk in if you stand up and stay
standing up that one sit down and you
can lead them out by saying there’s one
more thing before you go and then just
say it and lead them to the door if
necessary and I’ve had to do this on
occasion a cockade person comes into my
office I get up and I start toward the
door and I say I was just leaving and I
leave and the person follows me out and
goes on somewhere that bother somebody
else then I go back into my office if
people call and say have you got a
minute say no not right now could I wait
till this afternoon you know what
they’ll say they’ll say sure and 90% of
cases they’ll forget let it came in the
first place so control interruptions
interruptions and a ringing telephone
are two major sources of stress in the
world of work
now another key management principle and
in management and time management and
personal management this is essential
it’s what is called key result areas in
other words it is the key results that
you have been hired to accomplish for
your business even if you own your own
business you are still subject to key
result areas and the way that you find
out your key result areas is you ask
yourself this question over and over
again why am I on the payroll why are
you on the payroll what have you been
hired to accomplish not do not share
tasks and activities but what results
are expected of you you ask yourself
this question the accomplishment of what
result is going to lead to my promotion
how am I going to earn more money what
results do I have to
in order to get a raise in salary what
results does my company expect of me
what contribution am I expected to make
and then you say what are my key results
another way of looking at it is to
remember that every job has a series of
functions and there are secondary
functions and primary functions and
there what is called core functions so
you have to ask what are the core
functions of your job what are the goals
of your job how many people say to me
well I’m not sure you know what the
major reason for stress and American the
American workplace is today is people
don’t know what’s expected I would say
eighty or ninety percent of people out
there do not know what’s expected
they’re not sure why they’re on the
payroll and here’s a very simple
technique for it go to your boss with a
list of everything that you do and ask
your boss to organize it in order of
priority say what’s number one what’s
number two what’s number three what’s a
B or C help him or her organize your
list in order of priority and give it
back to you I promise you you’ll be
surprised but why is it that you
absolutely have to know why you’re on
the payroll it’s simply this is that you
cannot perform excellently you cannot do
superior work you cannot be promoted you
cannot get a rate unless you are doing
and doing well the key things that your
boss has hired you to do have you got me
on that or I got you on that key result
areas are critical and you have to know
every single day in fact you know
something one of the major sources of
frustration and work is to be working
very hard on something and being vaguely
uneasy because you know it’s probably
not important so keep clear channels of
communication with your boss and if you
supervise other people have them bring
to you a list of everything that they do
and you organize an order of priority
and make it clear to every person what
their contribution is expected to be
okay the next on one number 13 is
batching tasks it’s interesting that
there is what it’s called in the world
of work a learning curve a learning
curve says this it says when you do a
job the first time it takes you the most
amount of time to do it because you’re
learning how the second time it takes
less the third time it takes less the
fourth time it takes less in fact
learning curve theory says that you can
decrease the amount of time by as much
as 80% if you do the same job over and
over again over
of time so batching your task to the
major time management tool what does it
mean it means that if you’re going to
make phone calls make all your phone
calls at once have your calls held make
them all at once if you’re going to do
invoices do all the invoices at once if
you’re going to do correspondence to all
the correspondence at one if you’re
going to read and catch up
read everything at once it’s been found
that if you do this on a regular basis
you’ll get so much more done by doing it
and concentrating on batches of tasks
than if you did not so that’s your task
whenever you possibly can imagine what
most people do is they do a little bit
of telephone call a little bit of
correspondence a little bit of this a
little bit of that and they have no
learning curve at all each one takes the
maximum amount of time so batch your
tasks put groups of tasks together at
once and do them at once okay the next
principle is neatness it’s an
interesting thing because you run into
people all the time I render people in
my office who say it’s okay if my desk
is messy I know where everything is now
you have to understand one thing is
intelligent people people with good
memories can very often remember where
everything is but it just means that
they are using their intelligence to
combat the inefficiency of neatness
every single study that has been done
says this that if you will just clean up
your work environment so it’s completely
neat and everything is off of your desk
or your work place except the one thing
you’re working on that will increase
your productivity by twenty to forty
percent people have a difficult time
understanding this but I have tested it
I’ve worked with a messy desk I’ve
worked with a clean desk and I tell you
I promise you you will be astonished at
the difference it makes now how do you
clean it up it’s very simple there’s a
very simple way of cleaning off a desk
it’s called the tracks system the track
system has four letters T stands for
toss remember that in time management
your wastebasket is your best friend so
toss it out throw it away R stands for
refer which means it’s not relevant to
you so if you refer it to somebody else
a stands for action and what you do is
you take a file folder and you put it
into an action folder so it’s out of the
way and S stands for file file it away
do something with it
but before you file always ask this
question what would happen if I didn’t
have this document what would happen if
I never could find us again
if it’s not particularly serious throw
that away too once you’ve done that TRAF
you’ve tossed it referred it’s filed it
or put it in an action file once you’ve
done that then you start with your
action file and you work through it
neatness is important clean your desk
clean your work place even in the
kitchen you’ll find that if you take one
thing out and use it and put it away and
take another thing out you will get far
more done in a short period of time
though here’s the rule if you’re not
using it put it away if you’re not using
it put it away even if you have to take
the stuff off your desk and your
credenza and put it on the floor do it
your briefcase is your work place if you
are on the road if you’re a salesperson
if you’re moving around make sure your
briefcase is neat and orderly and has
everything that you need and nothing
more than you need neatness is critical
to productivity here’s the final point
in a study that was done recently
ninety-eight percent of senior
executives said they would not promote a
messy person that they would not give a
messy person greater responsibility that
if you are messy no matter how much you
kid yourself everybody around you
concludes that you are inefficient
undependable unreliable and incompetent
and even if you do the job well they
think it’s just an accident so be neat
stand back from your desk and look at it
and say what kind of a person would work
at a desk like this stand back and look
at your car say what kind of a person
drives the car like this look at your
workplace your briefcase look at your
home and say what kind of a person lives
here works here and you’ll find that
what will come to you is messy
inefficient incompetent disorganized and
so on neatness it’s critical to time
management number fifteen is what it’s
called getting chunks of time
interesting studies over and over they
have found that important work requires
chunks of time to do what is the chunk
of time a chunk of time is 60 90 minutes
two hours in fact it’s been found that
most serious work cannot be done in less
than 60 or 90 minutes so when we look at
the work styles of highly effective
people successful people the ones who
make the most money
the ones who graduate or are promoted
the most rapidly you find that they have
developed a habit of cutting out blocks
of time where they can work without
interruption
now here’s an example there’s several
several examples that you can use one of
the examples and one of the ways that I
do it is I get up early in the morning
sometimes I get up at 5:00 a.m. and I’ll
work for two or three solid hours you
can get an entire day’s work done in
three uninterrupted hours as a matter of
fact again we have found that it’s
impossible for you to do creative work
and administrative work at the same time
if you have creative work to do reports
to do proposals anything that requires a
sustained period of time to put together
you cannot do it at the desk when the
telephone is ringing and people are
coming in you cannot do administrative
and creative work together you have to
break them apart in the office you do
administrative work and you cut away
chunks of time for the important stuff
that affects your future one of the
things that I do is I come into the
office an hour early I can clear off in
one hour I can do half a day’s work
another thing that you can do is stay at
the office at lunchtime work at your
desk at lunchtime sometimes is the very
best time to work and by the way if you
work from 12:00 to 1:00 and then go out
for lunch you’ll find that you can get
in anywhere that you don’t have any ways
that you can get in and out and back to
work quickly a third is stay late
sometimes just working from 5:00 to 7:00
you’ll do an entire day’s worth of work
by the way with regard to travel by
travel a lot and more and more people
travel by air one uninterrupted hour on
an aircraft if you’re properly organized
with all of your work in your briefcases
were three hours in your office so if
you’re going to travel be sure that you
take the work necessary so that you can
work if you like like a workhorse once
you get on that plane I always try to
sit next to a window just the next to a
window you can bury yourself in your
work you have no interference people not
walking over you but you can get an
enormous amount of work done in a plane
it’s a matter like much of this course
that we’re talking about today was done
on airplane number 16 is to use what we
call transition time remember this is
that you will always be paid in life for
the value of your contribution and if
you want to earn more you must learn
more and the most successful people are
those who are continually taking in new
information continually learning more
continually taking every opportunity to
keep current with their profession and
to advance their
knowledge in fact the knowledge in every
single field today is doubling every
five to seven years which means that
whatever you’re doing in order to stay
even your knowledge has to double every
five to seven years now it’s simple to
do this the basic rule is this
you should or you must spend an hour
every day investing in your own mind
investing in yourself you must take an
hour every day and read and study and
take notes if you’re doing less than an
hour a day you’re falling behind if you
do two hours a day you put yourself on
the side of the angel now here’s some of
the ways that you can get this extra
learning time is extra working time this
extra personal growth time first my most
important of all is driving or traveling
to and from work if you drive the
average driver today drives twelve to
twenty five thousand miles a year that’s
the equivalent of 500 to a thousand
hours a year and of course if you’re on
the Los Angeles freeways it’s about
$1,500 – mm what that is the equivalent
of 12 to 25 40-hour work weeks that’s
the equivalent of three to six months
and work weeks that’s one to two
University semesters you know the
average person of course it’s not you
because the people who watch videotapes
like this are usually the cream in any
organization for any Society the average
person sit there listen to radio all the
time you can become one of the best
educated people in your profession
simply by listening to audio cassettes
going to and from work or to and from
errands now another very important part
of transition time is coffee breaks you
know the average person takes two coffee
breaks a day 20 minutes each 40 minutes
a day 40 minutes a day times five days a
week is 200 minutes 200 minutes times 50
weeks a year is 10,000 minutes 10,000
minutes is 166 hours 166 hours is over
four full 40-hour a week
now what does that mean to you it means
that if you just decide that you’re
going to read on a particular subject at
your coffee breaks for the next year you
will be an expert on that subject before
the year is out just when you sit down
with coffee make sure that you have
something to read whether it’s time
management or goal-setting or personal
communications for your profession if
you wanted to be an outstanding
salesperson if you just read on your
coffee breaks 20 minutes of morning 20
minutes in the afternoon and applied
what you learned you could double your
income in less than a year and most
people sit there in their coffee
they read the sports page and they don’t
realize that their life is passing them
by well another key element up through
the transition time is lunch times the
average person takes an hour a day an
hour a day times 250 working days a
years 250 hours 250 hours is six full
weeks of time that you spend eating
lunch if you just read at your lunchtime
and something that will help you grow in
advance in your career if you did
nothing but coffee breaks and lunch time
you’d become one of the best educated
people in society within 3 to 5 years
and you know the average person does
they waste this time another important
part of transition time by the way if
you read magazines instead of carrying
magazines what you do is you read a
magazine tear out all the articles put
in a file and whenever you’re traveling
keep that file with you you’re sitting
waiting for something you’re waiting in
a waiting room you’re taking a trip you
have appointments that are canceled just
pull out your file and keep current
remember keep taking in more information
use those what are called gifts of time
these are gifts of time they’re given to
us by God and we can do anything we want
with them but high-performing human
beings use those gifts of time as though
they were precious and low performing
human beings do not which do you want to
be ok the next is what we call telephone
you know the telephone is interesting
telephone is an essential part of our
lives but as we said a little bit
earlier we are conditioned from our
teenage years to look upon the telephone
as a social tool it’s something that we
look forward to getting onto because we
associated with romance and fun and and
communications with people are important
to us as adults however we have to
change our thinking 180 degree we have
to realize the telephone is a business
tool the telephone is a business tool
it’s like a computer it’s like a
typewriter it’s like a photocopier it
may have other uses but it’s a business
tool so here’s the rule with using the
telephone get on and get off fast see
how fast you can get on and off the
phone control your telephone calls as we
said before let other people hear
letters your telephone calls get bashed
so that you can call them back and you
control the call call back at their
lunch times call back at the end of the
day call back so you control the time
now when somebody calls you and you take
the call here’s the key question always
ask what can I do for you they’ll always
have a tendency to say
hi how’re you doing how’s things goin
how’s the weather out there say you say
fine
what can I do for you and get straight
to the point of the phone call and other
things you can say how can I help you
but and make it very very clear that
this is a business call if you’re going
to be making phone calls look upon a
phone call as a meeting by wire and what
you do is you make an agenda for the
meeting what many people do is you talk
to people all the time keep a file on
that person and when you think of
calling that person take out the file
and work on your agenda go down the
agenda when you completed the agenda you
say thank you very much I’ll let you go
now I know you’re busy and hang up the
phone what do you do with talkative
people talk to people you say excuse me
I’ve got another call coming I’ve got to
run if that doesn’t work you say my boss
is calling me if that doesn’t work hang
up the phone in the middle of a
conversation as though the phone line
has been cut off person probably won’t
even pay any attention to it because
they’re so used to being cut off by
other people remember this is that
people are time-wasters
and the great majority of people have no
goals they have no priorities they have
no plans they have no concern about
becoming successful and they think that
you are the same they think because
their time isn’t worth anything that
your time isn’t worth anything also so
be it very alert to that by the way one
final point when you have telephone
meetings keep good notes I heard a very
smart man say that the power is on the
side of the person with the best notes I
have lost thousands of dollars because I
have agreed to something on the
telephone
I have not documented it the person has
come back to me and said you agreed to
something else and they had it written
down in their files and I couldn’t argue
so when you’re on the telephone like one
final point is always have a pen always
have a pencil always have a pad never
pick up the telephone without a pen in
your hand the most incredible thing I
hear over and over again is when I call
people and I try to leave a message the
person their voice drops and they say oh
oh just a minute I’ll go and see if I
can find a pencil and the phone goes
clunk and the person goes away and they
come back and they say oh gee this pin
won’t work just a minute and the clone
goes clunk and they go away again if a
person ever answers the phone without a
pen in their hand you know this person
is going nowhere in life
just simple as that my own personal
opinion of course the next key is
punctuality one of the most important
things you can get in terms of
reputation is a reputation for being
punctual which means being on time my
friend your Wheldon says it very well he
says if you’re not early you’re late but
there is only one one minute period in
any appointment when you’re exactly on
time and so if you want it there early
you’re there late less than 5% of people
in America are punctual less than 5% of
the population is punctual and those
people stand out as a matter of fact
that you want to stand out from the
average person all you have to do is
develop a reputation for punctuality
pretty soon people say boy he or she
sure is punctual he or she sure is
functional let me tell you something
about punctual people if you ask a
person what do you think about so-and-so
who is very punctual they will say I
think this person is more competent more
reliable more dependable more
intelligent more valuable and more
likely to be promoted and given greater
responsibilities than the person who is
late all the time the person is late all
the time is considered unreliable sloppy
undisciplined a poor time manager and
not capable of greater responsibilities
why is it that people are not punctual
two reasons one is they don’t realize
how important it is it never occurs to
them that when you are late for an
appointment you are insulting the person
who has agreed to see you at that time
if you are in sales and you’re late for
appointments
you can forget I had an interview with a
person the other day who I was hiring
for a very expensive position she showed
up to an appointment 15 minutes late a
person who comes 15 minutes late to the
first appointment the basic rule is this
is never hire a person who comes late to
an interview person who comes late to an
interview is sending you a flash it’s a
signal that this person is unreliable
incompetent undependable and if you let
them get away with it you’re in for
trouble I’m just passing on that
punctuality coming back to that Lombardi
Vince Lombardi of the Green Bay Packers
had what he calls Lombardi time which
meant 15 minutes early if he said to his
team be here Lombardi time that meant be
there 15 minutes early develop the
reputation for being punctual and
finally one other thing is if you are a
superior and you have subordinates or
you have people working for you
– you don’t keep them waiting if you
were going to see them at 3 o’clock
don’t keep them out there spinning their
wheels standing around it’s one of the
worst insults that you can do people and
if I can if I could just come back one
more time with regard to communications
you know one of the great time wasters
in life this is aside from the point
that we’re talking about is lack of
concentration distraction fatigue is not
paying attention how many times have you
had problems serious problems because
you had a conversation with a person and
they agreed to do something and or you
agree to do something and one or the
other of you forgot all about it
didn’t remember it wasn’t paying
attention it wasn’t done it cost an
enormous amount of money how often does
that happen to you paying very close
attention is a powerful time management
tool if somebody comes in to see you cut
off all phone calls
close the door clear your desk and
concentrate single-mindedly on a person
10 minutes of concentrated conversation
will clear out more than one hour of
interrupted conversation pay attention
take notes now number 19 is called work
simplification do you know that at the
turn of the century in the United States
it took 50% of the American population
to feed working on the farms to feed the
other 50% living in the cities today it
takes less than 3% of the farm
population to feed the other ninety four
seven percent in the cities and half of
the world besides the reason for that is
because of mechanization systematize
ation simplification of the agricultural
process as a matter of fact every great
advance that has been made since the
Industrial Revolution has been toward
simplification always be looking for
ways to do tasks faster easier cheaper
quicker better always be looking for
ways to do them faster as a matter of
fact over and over again individuals
have put their careers on the fast track
by finding ways to streamline existing
processes now here’s a couple of other
ideas which have been very useful to me
in terms of getting more done in a short
period of time
here are the six maybe seven key ideas
if you want to get more done in a given
period of time or if you want to get
more done period you can do one you can
work longer in other words you can spend
more hours working but that’s not a
great idea because your productivity
starts to draw
and you start to make mistakes but you
have to come back and correct and so on
number two is you can work faster you
can get more done within a short period
of time number three is you can do fewer
things but do more important things do
higher payoff tasks in the same period
of time to increase your productivity
number four is you can do things that
you are better at one of the qualities
of leaders is that leaders exceptional
people are always concentrating their
time on doing what they do best so ask
yourself what is it that I’m the best at
what is that I do the easiest you can
sometimes dramatically increase your
productivity simply by concentrating on
where you’re good another thing that you
can do is make fewer mistakes you know
there’s an old saying that there’s never
enough time to do it right but there’s
always enough time to do it over if you
make fewer mistakes you will get far
more done within a certain time prevent
new within that time period and the last
thing which many people miss is do
things together teamwork putting a group
of people together to work on a complex
project can sometimes get the project
done in two hours whereas would take
another individual eight or nine or ten
hours so do things together work as
teams with other people those are the
key a work simplification means always
finding faster easier newer quicker
cheaper more efficient ways to do what
you’re doing number twenty is the magic
word the magic word in time management
is know learn to say no to activities
tasks responsibilities and obligations
that do not contribute to the most
important goals that you have set for
yourself the word no is magic in the
place and the time to use the word know
is early and often it’s like the waste
basket waste basket is your best friend
when you’re sorting the mail you know
the average person spends eight months
of their life
sorting junk mail reading through junk
mail absolutely from a recent study it’s
incredible how much of your life is
taken up by people who ask you to do
things and you do it because of a sense
of obligation let me tell you as I said
to you before most people do not value
their time so they don’t value yours now
how do you deal with a person who you
know who you like who you respect who
ask you to do something very simple when
they ask you to do something or work on
a committee or take on a project ask
especially if you have two edges it’s
not if your boss but if
actually you have control they say let
me think about it and get back to you
there’s an old saying that delay is the
cruelest form of denial if they press
you for a decision say I cannot make a
decision now I have to think about it
and after you thought about it for 24
hours call them back and say I’ve
thought about it I simply don’t have the
time but thank you very much for
thinking about me and get on with the
rest of your life you know Nancy Reagan
says Nancy Reagan says just say no now
in time management the word no is one of
the most powerful have all words it’ll
save you hours weeks months of working
on projects that contribute nothing to
your goal and finally number 21 is
balance in all of time management you
have to ask this question is what is the
purpose of managing your time well what
is the purpose of getting an extra two
or three hours a day and the purpose is
to enhance and improve the quality of
your life and the most important things
in a person’s life are their health
their peace of mind and your
relationships in fact the quality of
your relationships is the true measure
of your quality of life so take time to
invest time in your relationships spend
time with the people who are close to
your spouse your loved ones your parents
your children take time because that’s
what that’s what life is life is
managing your time so that you can do
the things that are most important to
you we start off in life thank you
boyfriend really successful at my job
and I’ll be able to do all of these
things for myself in my family and what
happens is we lose sight of that goal
and we become totally preoccupied with
the job to the exclusion of the factor
so you know what how much time the
average working parent spends talking to
their child in America today 30 seconds
per day do you know how much time the
average couple spends talking together
intimate communication four minutes
according to the recent research very
very important if you want to be
successful in life you’ve got to be sure
what your priorities and values are and
your highest value must be the people
that you love and the people who love
you there must be your help they must be
your energy there must be your peace of
mind
they must be your emotional and
spiritual development they must be the
completion of you as a human being
when you are using all these time
management techniques remember that the
purpose of using these time management
techniques is to enhance the overall
quality of your life ask again what
would you do if you only had six months
to live what would you do if you only
had six months to live who would you
spend your time with where would you go
what would you want to do what would be
important will be unimportant if you
asked that question over and over again
you’ll have a tendency to keep your life
and balance everything in moderation now
if I could just summarize by saying two
or three quick things the essence of
success in time management is goals the
key to goals is to make to write them
down and to make organized plans for
their accomplishment the key to those
organized plans is to set priorities and
determine what is more important and
what is less important and always
concentrate on the most valuable use of
your time the key to concentrate the
most valuable use of your time is to
stay at the task until it’s finished
persevere without distraction or
diversion keep added hammer Hammer
hammer until your most important tasks
are finished and finally finally develop
that sense of urgency do it fast do it
now
fast-tempo is essential to success
fast-tempo goes hand-in-hand with energy
with happiness with enthusiasm with
self-esteem so make crystal clear what
you want to do and crystal clear the
steps and start working on those steps
and do something every day
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