Five Minute Time Life Managment Class

For any of you out there who cannot find the time to go to a Time Life management course , here is a five-minute course for you to read.   Lee

• Schedule yourself to have planning time every day for 5 to 30 minutes.
• Write down everything in your planner that you want to accomplish on a business, school, or personal level.
• Ask yourself three question every day:  What did I not do well enough yesterday that I need to go back and work on? What should I work on today, this week, or this month that will not pay off for 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, or 40 years? What responsibilities that are mine should I work on today ( work, home, family, health, retirement, etc, etc.)?
• The name of the game in managing your time and life is to THINK!  Then get started.
• Put a priority code next to each item.  I use * for Urgent, A for Vital, B for Important.
• When you get any free time, you do *1 first, *2 next, and so on until you finish the Urgent tasks for the day.  Then you start the Vital tasks coded with an “A.”  These are those Vital things in your life.  You start them today with something as simple as a phone call, but they may take six months to several years to complete.  An example might be to get into shape or get your MBA.  Vital things are things that may take a while to complete, but they have a big payoff (big bang for the buck theory).  Then you do the “B” Important things, which are often routine but Important like paying your tuition or doing the payroll if you are in business.  These tasks are Important and need attention but are not Urgent.  Urgent to me is in the next few hours or so.
• Write down everything in your Day-Timer® and carry it with you 24/7.  When you make a commitment, write it down in the planner and then follow through.
• A good way to think about the things that you should be adding into your planner when you do planning time is to “think” about the different responsibilities in your life that you have signed up for or should have.  For me I think about my wife, my son and his wife, my three grandchildren, my job, my direct reports, my boss, my obligations to nonprofit organizations that I participate in within the community, church, financial planning for retirement, my health, work partners, friends, parents.  We have many responsibilities in our lives.  Most people do not do a good job with most of them.  If you can, make a list of what they are and then just think about them every day—you will be pleasantly surprised of how much more you have done in each area.  The list of responsibilities grows as you get married or have kids or take on additional responsibilities.  This process is a great way to ensure that you have not forgotten anything that is your responsibility.
• As you work through the day going to a meeting or to a class . . . then in non-class or meeting time . . . work on the lists that you created in Planning Time; you will find that you are more under control and less stressed out. 

It does not matter how smart you are or what degree you have if you cannot get things accomplished.  Schedule the priorities in your life right into your planner, become a Master of details and follow up.  It is your reputation, and YOU are mostly responsible for it. 

If you want to have credibility as a leader, you must have a reputation for excellent follow-up, for not only working on Urgent tasks but also being able to get the Vital things done in your life that make a big difference to you and others, while getting the routine Important things done as well.     . . . Lee