Unlike the rhythm of our heart beats, which will keep on playing until our last breath in this world, the one and only mechanism that will never ever perish in this universe, which was here before to us is here with us and will be there after we leave from this world, is the “Tick Tick Tick” sound which we often hear clearly when we had that unusual, for most of the people but for a few, awake in the middle of the night. Yes, I am talking about the undisputed eternal and a very real property of the universe TIME……… the continued sequence of existence.
TIME
If you do or do not do a thing, the time will tick on… can’t pause, reverse or fast-forward; we are no one to control it; instead, we could well manage ourselves in line with the time. The metaphor ‘Time-management’ is quite contrary. We can only manage what is in our control.
With no further delay, here are the 6 Essential strategies to manage your time professionally.
Focus on what you have.
We live in a complaint culture that gets high on expressing outrage; especially on social media, have you ever found that the more you complain and the more you read and hear other people complain the easier it is to find things to complain about? Complaining is one of the easiest things for us to do. On the other hand, have you ever found that the more grateful you are, the more you have to be grateful for?
When you focus on something you are thankful for, the effect is instant. It immediately shifts you from a lack state: – {regrets, worries about the future, the feeling of being behind} and puts you into a have state: – {what is going right what progress you are making, what potential exists at this moment}. It reminds you of all the resources, all the assets, all the skills you have at your disposal – so you can use them to do more easily what matters most.
Ironically when you focus on what you lack, you lose what you have and when you focus on what you have, you get what you lack.
Learn from the best of what others have already figured out.
Quite often ‘we do not need to reinvent the wheel; improve it if you may need to.’ Learn from the best open your eyes and look around. If you are stepping into a new domain suppose into the Equity market search out Warren buffet & Berkshire Hathaway, Jim Simons, Steve Cohen, Jesse Livermore so on and so forth the big shots in the wall street history.
when I started to learn more into the automotive business especially the operational structure I was very lucky to get hold of the Second edition of Jeff Smith’s ‘THE KPI BOOK’ https://jeff-smith.com/ ( I still owe Lama A Makarem of J&R Business Consultancy for getting me an author signed copy of the same). Which is a complete operational guide for the automotive business. If you are already in automotive business irrespective of your current role and eager to improve your business sense or seriously thinking about a career in automotive industry, I urge you to have a copy, probably the latest edition, of-course, as a practical guide book.
Not everything needs the extra mile.
Being asked to do X is not a good enough reason to do Y; for example being asked to do a presentation is not a good enough reason to create slides with videos and graphics and pages and pages upon unnecessary data. The main purpose of most presentations is supposed to be just talk about your business; straight to the points.
Slow is smooth, smooth is fast.
The very same phrase uses in the special operators in military. Which is a fundamental principle of pace also known as streamlining processes. Let’s assume in a typical sales funnel of an automotive business the sales conversion rate is about 10% so in order to hit the target a sales executive needs to do a 10x prospecting, 3x Test Drive etc. imagine if a sales executive messes with the daily quota of TD’s and forced to carry out more TD’s towards the month end! it’s a chaos and most probably he/she will miss the target.
Make a “Done for the Day” List.
Parallel to the more often To-Do-Lists keep a Done for the Day list as well, which is nothing but any important task that will haunt you all night if left undone for the day. E.g. When your boss asks for a couple of slides of yours to be incorporated with his presentation, in a business review with the prime stake holders first thing in the next morning. That should definitely go on the Done for the day list.
Accept what you can’t control.
Find a way to get it easier to accept the things you cannot control. Fall sick or other medical or family emergency. Always keep a backup plan to meet the unavoidable uncertainty. Expect the unexpected.
To sum up, If you plan the process and consciously control the time spent on various activities will reduce your stress and anxiety and increase your effectiveness, efficiency, and productivity.
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