In 18 Ways to Jump-Start Your Life, I promised to share with you the Excel spreadsheet I use to track my time in an effort to make certain that I am utilizing my time in the best way possible.  Obviously, you’ll need some instructions as well.

The spreadsheet itself is not that complicated, here’s a screenshot for an example.  Obviously, Excel automatically calculates the Totals for me, all I have to do is inset the Number of Hours Planned, and the Actual time spent each day.

The more important and more difficult aspects of time management are determining those tasks and activities that will contribute the most to your productivity, and how much time to spend doing them. Here is how I figured that out.

In How to Maximize Your Personal Productivity, I explain the Pareto principle, which actually has nothing to do with time management, but we’ve stolen it and applied it in just about every other business paradigm, why not time management?  It does seem to work for a lot of us.  The basis of the Pareto principle as it would apply to time management is this:  20% of the things you do will contribute to 80% of your success.  Also, 20% of the time you work contributes to 80% of your income. This applies whether you work for yourself, or someone else.  Therefore, if you’re not getting the success you want, evaluate that 20% and you will find the error of you ways.  Here’s an example.

For the purposes of this article, let’s say that you work for yourself.  After all, We Are All Self-Employed.  What is your mission?  What is your ultimate goal?  These two items should be diametrically related and will determine your top 20 tasks.  My mission is to motivate, educate, and inspire others to be their best through my writing, speaking, and consulting.  Therefore, my top 20 tasks and activities are those things which relate directly to writing, speaking, and consulting, in such ways that they motivate, educate, and inspire others.  In fact, since speaking and consulting require so much writing, if I did nothing else with my top 20 time except write top quality articles and speeches, I’d be on track.  Now of course I still have to market myself and do a lot of other things to be successful, but if I don’t write, there’s nothing to market.  Get the picture?

If you’re in sales, your top 20 activities might include calling on customers, acquiring product knowledge, providing customer service, returning phone calls to customers, etc.  Anything that helps you make a sale.  In your business, who is your customer?  What does that customer want?  Focus 20% of your efforts on providing that and you’ve got it.

If you work for someone else, your company’s mission statement should give you a clue as to where you should be spending that top 20% of your time.  I say “should” because I’ve witnessed a lot of companies who don’t live up to their mission statements.  But if you were to start adapting your daily activities to match the company mission statement, you might be surprised at how quickly you start to move up, that is, get promoted, and start earning more money.

Now let’s determine how much time you need to spend each week on these top 20 tasks and activities.   If you work for someone else, it might be fairly simple to figure this out.  If you are expected to work a standard 40-hour week, then 8 hours of that time should be spent on mission-related activities.  “That’s only one day,” you’re probably thinking.  I know.  Try it.  I bet it will be more difficult than you think.  If you spread that out over one 5-day week, it would require 96 minutes per day. For you salespeople out there; do you spend 96 minutes per day contacting potential new clients?  No, drive time doesn’t count.  I’m talking on the phone, or person-to-person.

For the entrepreneur, it’s a little different.  To me, my life is my work and my work is my life.  It all flows together.  I love my work and I love my life.  This is the way life should be for everyone.  I’m not one of those people who believes that everyone should be self-employed, because I know that not everyone is cut out for it, for a lot of reasons.  But I do believe everyone should love what they do to make a living for themselves.  If you’re not one of those people but would like to be, read How to Decide What to Do with the Rest of Your Life.

How I determined the amount of time I need to spend in top 20 activities was this.  There are 10,080 minutes in every week.  I allow 3,360 for sleeping.  That’s an average of 8 hours per night.  That leaves 6,720 minutes available in waking hours.  Twenty percent of that is 1,344 minutes, which translates into 22.4 hours.  I set my goal to work 24 hours in my top 20 activities every week.  Why 24?  The extra minutes gives me a little leeway in case I fall short.  I plan for 24, but try to make sure I come in at 22.4.  That’s technically 3 full working days per week.  Sounds easy, doesn’t it?  I thought so too.  But you know what?  It’s easy to major in minors and do a lot of little things that feel like work, and are a lot of work, but accomplish little in the way of my ultimate goal and mission.

As for the tracking part of this, that’s probably the most important thing you could do to rev up your life and your career. When I started tracking my time using Excel, I fell grossly short each week.  I kept busy, but not with the right tasks.  I was majoring in minors and the spreadsheet was the proof.  Once I started evaluating my time on a daily basis, things really started coming together for me.  Each week, during my weekly planning time, I review my strategic plan, (which I probably need to detail for you on how to do, huh?), and create a list of my top 20 tasks for that week.  I review my schedule and roughly plan when each item will get accomplished and how much of my time it will require.  Some days I have to travel and know that I will not get anything in my top 20 accomplished, so I have to make those hours up on another day.  I try to leave at least one day completely free each week.  This method makes me focus and keep my priorities straight.  Once you get the hang of it, it’s simple.

This method also makes decisions easier.  If something comes up or someone asks me to do something, all I have to do is determine if I have time based on how I’m coming along with my top 20.  If it’s Wednesday and I’ve already worked my 24 hours, I’ll put myself aside and do something for someone else.  If not, I stick to my guns and simply explain that I can’t right now.  You simply must stay true to yourself in all of this.  If you don’t, you won’t be any good to any one.  The greatest gift you have to give is your happiness.  Use this for that purpose.  Trust me; it works.

Until next time,
I Invite YOU to Live Joyfully!

Posted under Leadership, Motivation