Time Management Strategies of Texas Millionaires

Posted on October 06, 2010 by Beverly Ambrosio, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.

If you want to learn the most effective time management and organization skills, ask a millionaire. Better yet, ask a multi-millionaire Texan. That’s what I’ve been doing for the last several years and the information I gained is priceless. I’ve had the good fortune to become friends with, be related to, and work with multi-millionaires in my hometown of Dallas, Texas. We have a lot of millionaires here! Dallas alone has over 70,000 millionaires.

Over the years I noticed there were some definite commonalities among millionaires when it came to time management and organization. Millionaires create order in their lives. Order allows for better focus, creativity and productivity. Rarely will you see a millionaire’s home or office messy and filled with clutter. True, they typically have staff to take care of things, but many millionaires already possessed those qualities before they became wealthy.

Millionaires know the value of time and the best way to use it. They understand managing their time effectively is vital for creating the life they want.

One day over lunch, a friend made a rather shocking comment to me when he said “I don’t believe in doing volunteer work for charities.” Apparently the look on my face, with eyebrows raised and jaw dropped, conveyed my confusion. I must admit my first thought wasn’t a nice one. He then said “my time is better spent making money. Instead of spending time volunteering on a project that might make or save the charity a few hundred dollars, I can put that time to better use and make 10 times that amount and donate the money.” Then I understood. Although I’m not advocating this approach for everyone, as there are many benefits to volunteering, it does make sense for someone with this millionaire’s talent for making money.

Yes, time is money and if you don’t manage your time well, you won’t ever get rich.

Here are a few of the best millionaire time management strategies I’ve learned:

• Email: Only check and respond to emails twice a day. Email is one of the biggest time robbers of our century. Rarely is any email so urgent it can’t wait a few hours. If it is, then a phone call makes more sense. I now check emails around 10 a.m. and again at 5 p.m. each day. That’s it. Everything else after 5 p.m. can wait until the next day without the world crashing down.

• Phone Calls: Just like email, answer and return phone calls at scheduled times of the day. Instruct your assistant or receptionist to take messages and inform callers of when they can expect a return call. Leave a voicemail message on your cell phone informing callers that you will return calls at a certain time of the day. If you’re worried about family members or close friends having an emergency and not being able to reach you, give them a “secret ring code” to use only for a true emergency.

• Regular Mail: Deal with mail the same day you open it. One millionaire told me he reads and deals with mail the minute he gets it and throws the rest away so his desk is clean. If it’s something that can’t be dealt with that day, then have a calendar filing system it goes in. Don’t put it aside, put it off, or stack it up on the side of your desk. Doing so is a mental distraction. In the back of your mind you know you have to deal with it at some point, and often it builds up. Deal with it, be done with it and you can move on to other things.

• Clutter: Create order in your environment by keeping it clutter-free. Keeping your office, desk and home clutter-free will create an amazing space for productivity. It’s a necessary component of time management because when you can’t find what you need, you waste important time and lose your focus.

• To Do Lists: Take time to write out a ”to do” list list a month in advance. Break the month down into weeks, and then break the weeks down into days. Additionally, make a list the day or evening before with items prioritized. It helps to estimate the amount of time for completion of each item.

• Office Chit Chat: Don’t have an “open door” policy for your office. Instead, create a specific time of day when colleagues or staff can stop in to “chat” or ask questions. This will eliminate distractions so you can focus your energy where it’s needed most.

• Get to the Point: Learn to get your point across without going off on some wild tangent and politely help others do the same. Once you establish yourself as someone who doesn’t waste time on idle chit chat, others will likely follow your pace. The same goes for phone calls. Keep them short and to the point. My Dad is an expert at this one. Throughout my life I have never known my Dad to spend more than 5 minutes on the phone.

• Delegation: Delegate, delegate, delegate. Never do anything someone else can do just as well or better than you can. As one millionaire so brilliantly put it …“When an entrepreneur realizes he must give up some control, and there are people who can do things just as well if not better than he, then he has reached the point where he can truly grow his business.” Give up the control and free your time for bigger things.

While it may seem like some of these strategies are harsh or even unfriendly, the end result is reduced stress and increased productivity. You can then be more engaging and less distracted when interacting with someone. Everyone has the ability to manage their time in more effective ways. Millionaires simply put that ability into action and use it to their advantage to focus on the bigger picture.