4 Time Management Concepts That Changed My Life (And May Change Yours)

In this week’s issue, I’m going to share 4 time management concepts that changed my life and helped maximize my productivity.

Everyone has the same hours in the day - how you use them determines your outcomes.

The problem is most people don’t use their time effectively.

Here are the concepts we’ll cover:

1. Concept 1 - Protect

2. Concept 2 - Timebox

3. Concept 3 - Optimize

4. Concept 4 - Audit

Concept 1 - Protect

The first concept is Protect. If you want to get more done, you must be ruthless in protecting your time.

It’s not uncommon to have b2b meetings, only to realize the work day is over and you barely got anything “productive” done.

Get comfortable saying “No” to meetings, calls, or emails that don’t move the needle.

Every time you say “yes” to something that doesn’t - it means saying "no" to something that does. (prospecting, researching, learning, etc.)

👉 Actionable tip: Put 3 1-hr “Focus Blocks” (per day) on your calendar to get sh!t done. Shut off all notifications and focus on moving the needle.

🔨Tool tip: Use a tool like Boomerang to pause your inbox & ONLY deliver emails at specific times. You need to get into a "flow" and constant notifications kill your productivity.

Concept 2 - Timebox

The next concept is to Timebox your work.

Parkinson’s Law - Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.

Meaning if you give yourself a week to complete a task - it will take you a week.

If you give yourself 3 days - it will take 3 days.

Instead of working until completion - timeboxing puts its focus on the timeline.

The deadline is the motivating factor for doing the task.

👉 Actionable tip - Pick a task to timebox. Ex: Prospect research - Set a timer for 5 min. Find 1-thing company-specific, 1-thing person-specific, & 1-thing industry-specific. Once the timer is up - you're done. (continue to add this to other activities)

Concept 3 - Optimize

The 3rd concept is Optimize. The best way to do this is through the use of templates or frameworks.

The more you can templatize and stop recreating the wheel each time, the more productive you’ll become.

👉 Actionable Tip - Take a process like qualification, discovery, and email outreach and create templates for repeat use. (ex: for email templates, if you don't use a tool like Salesloft, here's how you can create free templates in Gmail.)

Concept 4 - Audit

The last concept is Audit.

You should go back and Audit how you spent your time at least monthly. Weekly is better.

Ask yourself these questions:

• What did I do that can be automated? (email replies, repeating tasks, etc.)

• What did I do that can be eliminated? (notifications, internal calls, constantly checking emails, etc.)

• What did I do that can be templated? (processes, emails, etc.)

• What did I do that can be delegated? (Spending 2 hrs. “prettying” up a deck? - Can PMK help?)

This will ensure you’re constantly looking for ways to improve and maximize your time.

That’s all for this week. Hope you enjoyed and thanks for reading.

See ya next week. ✌️