Here, then, is the rule: Work all the time you work. When you go to work, work. Do not play with your friends, check your e-mail every five minutes, read the newspaper, or take care of personal business. Work all the time you work. If you are really serious about getting results, start a little earlier. Work a little harder during the day. Stay a little later. Pick up the pace. Move faster. Keep focused on your most important tasks. Don’t waste time.
If someone wants to talk with you, you say, “I’d love to talk to you, but right now I have to get back to work”
This shuts most people down immediately. How can they stop you from getting “back to work”? Tell them you would be delighted to talk to them after work or on the weekend. Meanwhile, your personal mantra is “Back to work! Back to work! Back to work!”
Your goal, only known to you, is to develop the reputation for being the hardest-working person in your company. Work all the time you work.
When Are You Working?
Many people think that because they are at work, they are actually working. But you are only working when you are starting and completing important tasks. You are only working when you are getting results your company wants and needs to generate revenues and create value. Top people spend more and more time doing things of higher value. Average people spend much or most of their time on activities of lower value or no value at all.
All teaching, books, and courses on time management come down to helping you ask and answer the question, “What is the most valuable use of my time right now?” Your ability to ask and answer this question accurately, and then to do exactly what is the most valuable use of your time, determines your success in your career as much as or more than any other single factor.
Get Started and Keep Going
You can use a series of strategies, tactics, methods, and techniques to get started and then to keep going until you complete the most important task before you. To manage your time effectively and get maximum results, you begin with clear goals to which you are committed.
Some of the most important questions that you can ask and answer on a regular basis are the following:
- What am I trying to do?
- How am I trying to do it?
- How is this working for me? Am I getting the kinds of results I want?
- What are my assumptions?
- What if my assumptions in this area are wrong?
- Could there be a better way to achieve the results I want?
- If I were starting this work over again, what would I do differently?
Once you are clear about your most important goal or objective, your top priority, you can use a series of proven methods and techniques each day to get your most important task completed on time.
Time Management Tools
The most powerful time management tool is a list. You start with your major goal or goals and then make checklists of everything you will need to do to achieve that goal. In your work, you begin with a list of everything you want to accomplish that day.
Ideally, you should create your work list the night before, at the end of your workday. When you plan your day the night before, you are, in reality, setting a series of mini-goals for the following day. Writing it out in the evening allows your superconscious mind to work on your list of mini-goals while you sleep. You often will awake with ideas and insights you can use to get more of your most important work done faster.
If you were not able to make out a list the night before, the first thing you do in the morning, before anything, is to plan your day on paper. Make a list of everything you intend to accomplish that day. Refuse to do anything you have not first written down on your list, not even a telephone call.
The very act of working from a list will increase your productivity by 25 percent to 50 percent the very first day.
Don’t Check Your E-mail
Discipline yourself not to check your e-mail first thing in the morning. You can double and triple your productivity by breaking the addiction to electronic interruptions, especially e-mail. Instead, resolve to check your e-mail only twice per day, at 11 a.m. and at 3 p.m. Turn off the sound on your computer that alerts you to incoming e-mails. Do not allow yourself to become a slave to someone else randomly communicating with you on issues that in most cases can wait until later, and even much later.
Excerpt from “GET SMART: How to Think and Act Like the Most Successful and Highest Paid People in Every Field” by Brian Tracy (Jeremy P. Tarcher, An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2016).
Brian Tracy is chairman and CEO of Brian Tracy International, a company specializing in the training and development of individuals and organizations. Tracy’s books include “Eat That Frog! 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time,” “Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life: How to Unlock Your Full Potential for Success and Achievement,” and most recently “GET SMART: How to Think and Act Like the Most Successful and Highest Paid People in Every Field.” His writing has appeared in Entrepreneur, Success, Fast Company, and Forbes, among others. Learn more at www.BrianTracy.com.
