Don’t Manage Your Time? Two crushing losses await.
Posted on May 30, 2015 by Terry McIntosh, One of Thousands of Entrepreneurship Coaches on Noomii.
Ever feel there's never enough hours in the day? Constantly in fire-fighting mode? Here is why you need care… and why you need to get it right.
I must have been the worst time waster in history. I could have cared less about time. I don’t know if I thought I had all the time in the world or what.
It got so bad that my employees gave me my own time zone. Yes, that’s right Terry Standard Time. And it was not fixed; it was a floating time zone. Hey, I thought I was being flexible… yeah, right.
I would always be late and I would never have enough time to do what I wanted.
And folks, this is a huge component to getting the balance back into your life. Don’t think for a moment that you will have a work/life balance without having a system of planning and time management in place.
How do I know these things? I’ve lost deals, businesses, and relationships because of my own lack of planning and time management.
This is not something that I would advise.
Here are a few things you will lose if you don’t master this part of your business.
1) Respect of your potential clients. If you are late, it shows that you don’t value their time, so why should they value yours?
Get your appointment on the schedule. I now use my smart phone that ties into my calendar (iPhone and Google Calendar if you must know specifics). I always get two text messages. The first one is to alert me to the fact that I have an appointment, and to wrap up what I’m doing. And the second text message is one that tells me I need to leave now.
If it’s a phone meeting from my home/office, the first one will come ½ hour ahead of the meeting and the second will come 10 minutes prior, depending on how much I need to prepare.
If it is a meeting I need to travel to, say 30 minutes away, I’ll set the first one to alert me 1.5 to 2 hours ahead of time so I can finish up my task and start to prepare for my meeting, and then the second one will be 45 minutes ahead of the meeting. Why not 30 minutes? It only takes 30 minutes to get there right? Well, what about getting out to your car, finding the address, and parking?
These are things I never thought about before. And you should always be there 10-15 minutes ahead of schedule anyway.
The only time you are not early is when you are using it as a tactical maneuver to gain a psychological advantage with whomever you are meeting with. This is a tactic that is thought out in advance, not when you realize you are going to be late!
2) The second thing you will lose if you don’t have the planning and time management system mastered is this:
Your free time and your family time.
When you look back at your life you will ask yourself three things:
(with special thanks to Brendon Burchard)
1) Did I live?
Did I spend my whole day worrying about work, or did I take the time to really live my life to the fullest?
2) Did I love?
Did I make time to fall in love, to dedicate to that special someone. Or did I spend all my time at my job?
3) Did I matter?
Did I make a difference in someone’s life? What did I do to make the world just a little bit better?
Now, before you claim that I’m all wishy-washy and touchy-feely with this post, read through these questions and think real hard at what you come up with.
If you don’t think spending time on the right things is important…
- Ask the ex-wives/ex-husbands of business owners who never got to see the love of their life.
- Ask the son who never had his dad show up to his baseball games.
- Ask the daughter whose mom needed to finish one last report, send off one last email, and missed her daughter’s soccer goal that won the game.
If you are young and single:
- How many times are you going to ignore your friends because you need to do one last thing at the office?
- What if tonight was the night where you were supposed to meet that one special person?
- Was that project really worth that much?
“But it’s my job!” I hear you. I really do, but many times it’s about something most of us do very poorly… prioritizing your life.
Here’s a thought to leave you with.
A book called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying , written by a long-time nurse and
caregiver Bronnie Ware, lists the top 5 Regrets of People who are dying.
1) I wish I had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me
2) I wish I didn’t work so hard
3) I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings
4) I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends
5) I wish that I had let myself be happier
Don’t think that this stuff isn’t important.
At the end of your life, or even at the end of the day, this is the stuff that matters.
To find out how this can work in your business, contact me now…
— Terry “BizCoachTerry” McIntosh
