Books Unwound

This is part of an in depth review of  The Ultimate Sales Machine: Turbocharge Your Business with Relentless Focus on 12 Key Strategies, by Chet Holmes.  We will focus on 1 section at at time and distill the best information to help your business now.  This should not be considered a replacement for the actual book, which will usually have a lot more in depth information as well as stories, which are an important way to communicate the essentials.  If you find the information in these posts helpful, I recommend buying the book or borrowing it from your library.  

Chapter One: Time Management Secrets of Billionaires: How to Maximize Your Productivity and Help Your People do the Same

Part Two: Six Steps to Great Time Management.

If you struggle with time management, Chet Holmes has some great news for you.  There are essentially only six steps to great time management.  If you can follow these six steps, you will be a time management superstar.  You won’t believe how much you can accomplish in a regular day of work.

Step One: Touch it Once

This first step will help you clear the path to better time management.  It deals primarily with paperwork and email. Chet Holmes proposes that you adapt a “touch it once” philosophy when it come to those things.   The reason is that when you look at something, but then just set it aside to do it later, you will waste 10 to 15 minutes every day revisiting your pile of stuff.  While that may not seem like alot, it turns out to be 97 hours of wasted time per year. Furthermore, while you may only waste 15 minute per day, much of your staff will waste up to an hour a day revisiting things but not taking any meaningful action on them.  This turns out to be 6 weeks of wasted work per year.  

A touch it once rule and a system to implement and enforce it will increase your productivity and, if you are the boss, the productivity of your entire business.

The basic tenet of a touch it once rule is that if you touch it, take action on it.  Ideally, you wouldn’t touch anything until you were ready to take action on it.  However, you will probably come across things every day that you are not ready to take action on.  Instead of adding them back to the stack or just leaving the emails in your inbox, you need to file it in an easy to reach location for later.  When you do, you will also need to create a task to do it later if it isn’t already part of your regular tasks.  In the task, simply write down where you will find the item.  

Email in itself can be a useful tool, but it can also be the enemy of good time management.  Chet Holmes reminds you that email is there for your convenience.  Incorporate your email into your time management system, or else it can easily derail you.  

Step Two: Making Lists

Lists are very important tools to help you maintain focus and get things done.  They will both propel you to accomplishments and give you a record of what you have accomplished.  Holmes advocates using a daily list of just the six most important things to do that day.  He says that you can add everything else to a kind of master list that you can draw from for your six must do things each day.

Keeping your list limited to six is important.  Add too much to your list, and you won’t complete it.  To point is to have a list that you can complete each day.  Take small steps to reach big goals.  In order for all of this to work, you need to commit to getting your daily list done each and every day.  

Step Three: Plan How Much Time You Will Allocate to Each Task

Once you have the six most important things written out, the next step is to realistically plan how long each task will take.  Do this in half hour segments.  For instance, writing a sales letter may take 1 hour.  Calling on a vendor may take 1/2 an hour.  Design work may take 2 hours.  For longer projects, break it up over a series of days.  

Holmes says that your six most important tasks should take approximately 6 hours.  This will leave 2-4 hours to accomplish miscellaneous tasks, respond to phone calls and interruptions, and to just give your schedule a little needed flexibility.  

Step Four: Plan the Day

The next step is to take the allotments and put them on a schedule for the day.  You daily task list should be specific and well planned.  Fit each of your six must do tasks onto the schedule with real times written down.  Include times for miscellaneous tasks such as checking email.  If you do not plan in miscellaneous time, you will find that you will not be able to accomplish all of your tasks due to interruptions.  Be realistic and plan for the unplanned.  

Step Five: Prioritize

Holmes suggests that you place your most difficult and important items early in the day.  This is when you have the most energy and focus.  If you constantly place things that you do not want to do at the end of the day, you will likely find yourself shirking those tasks.  Get them done and out of the way and enjoy the feeling of accomplishment.  

Also, with your important items first, you will be less likely to get caught up in useless busy work.  Without a good prioritized plan for each day, busy work can creep in and take over.  You may find that you have already been at work for an hour or more and have yet to accomplish anything.  Start your day swinging and knock of a big task or two before your first coffee break. 

In order for this plan to work, you have to be determined to make it work.  Keep at it and it will get easier, but it may take some time.  Plan and prioritize every day, no exceptions.  

If you are trying to get your employees on the same plan, it will take even more determination.  Holmes states that employees will “respect what you inspect.”  This means if you make this important and check everyone’s plan and priorities for the day, your people will eventually get in the habit of it.  If, on the other hand, you just throw it out there as an idea, most of your workers will consider it just that, a throw away idea.  

Step Six: Ask Yourself, “Will It Hurt Me to Throw This Away?”

According to studies, 80% of stored or filed information is never needed again.  Holmes suggests that a good way to cut down on the daily clutter is to ask yourself if it will hurt to throw something away.  Also, determine if you can access it again if you need it.  In other words, if someone else is holding on to it, do you need to?  Only keep the things that you absolutely need and will use.  

Conclusion

Creating and implementing this productivity plan in your business will get you to maximum productivity.  You will be amazed at how much more can be accomplished with a little planning.  

When you do get interrupted, just go ahead and deal with the situation.  After you have, do not waste any time getting back to your schedule.  

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Next: Chapter Two – Instituting Higher Standards and Regular Training

Buy or Not: This book is a buy.  It can be used as a manual for reshaping your business which you will refer to time and again.  Buy this book at Amazon.

Bradford Shimp helps small business owners and entrepreneurs build successful businesses.  Read his blog at www.allbizanswers.com.  Follow Bradford on Twitter.

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Six Steps to Great Time Management”