May is Business Improvement Month. One way to improve your business is by making sure that you are scheduling the most important business activities to consistently and effectively happen.
To support you in being more intentional about how you spend your time, it may be helpful to create a master template like the one provided below, which designates specific days of the week and times of the day or evening for specific types of activities. You can use this for both business and personal activities that are important to you.
As you create your own template, keep in mind that not all hours of the day are created equal. When are you at your best for thinking creatively? Schedule your “high brain activities” for that time. When are you at your best for doing “low brain activities” that you can do while in “auto pilot” mode? Are you a morning person or a night owl?
Most business owners, executives, and professionals spend their time in four ways:
- Free Time – time to rest, relax, and rejuvenate (Pink)
- Creative Time – time to generate new ideas (Blue)
- Delivery/Focus Time – time to deliver the product/service that is core to your work (Green). Read my article about Pareto Time here.
- Support Time – time to handle the “behind the scenes” or administrative functions necessary to support you in getting the results you desire. (Yellow)
These four areas of time are very connected, so what you do with one dimension of time affects the others. Have you ever noticed how taking Free Time to rest and rejuvenate enables you to come back to your work with a fresh perspective…one that enables you to be much more creative? Creative Time enables you to work ON your business. It’s tough to have an objective vantage point when you’re “in the trenches” all the time. Taking a step back to see the “big picture” is essential if you want to generate fresh ideas and find new solutions to challenges.
Delivery or Focus Time enables you to work IN your business. You may already spend much of your time here. The key is to remember that it doesn’t matter how much Delivery Time you spend if what you’re delivering isn’t what matters most to you or your company…and if what you deliver and how you deliver it is not valued by the recipient of your products or services. Direction and priorities are generally determined during Free Time and Creative Time.
Part of your success requires spending some Support Time tending to details – responding to email and phone calls, reading, writing, reviewing, evaluating, filing, etc. Of course, some of this can be delegated to others. If you ignore the details that support your core deliverable, it will affect your ability to be productive or deliver the best quality product or service. In addition, you will not feel like you can take Free Time if the you have details that are not handled and are creating a constant source of stress.
Without Free Time, stress and overload set in. Then it’s difficult to be in a frame of mind to take Creative Time. This pushes you to work harder IN your business (Delivery Time), which results in taking a reactive rather than a proactive approach to managing challenges. This rarely results in the best quality results, and often adds to burnout. Shade in your own schedule according to how you choose to designate your use of time. (Click here to download the sample template. Then edit it to fit your preferences.) You can also write in recurring appointments or commitments that don’t tend to change from week to week.
For additional assistance with planning your week,
participate in my free Managing Priorities webinar.
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