One thing I realize every week is that time management never stops. Every day life throws new challenges at you that can wreak havoc on your carefully planned day.
I have a few strategies that have helped me to stay on top of a busy day and manage to get a fair amount accomplished. Here they are:
1. Keep up with little stuff regularly so it doesn't pile up. Examples being: your mileage log, entering receipts in to your accounting system, emailing contacts to stay in touch a few times a week, and scanning in new business cards in to your contact management system.
2. Do anything that takes less than 2 minutes right then and there. This comes from David Allen of Getting Things Done fame – a resource I highly recommend. For example, an email comes in from someone wanting to make an appointment with you. You could do it right then and there to respond back with a time you're available. Don't put it off unless there's a good reason. Just do it then in less than 2 minutes.
3. Call people instead of email them. I use the phone a lot – as much as 2,000 minutes a month (and I'm not a tele-coach). I can make a lot of calls while I'm driving around during my workday and I find that it keeps me in touch with my clients and prospects just as effectively, if not more, than email. I save time by calling using my voice-activated dialer on my cell phone and people get to hear my voice instead of read my text.
4. Unsubscribe from what you're not reading. Whether it's in print or on email, if you're not reading it, then let it go. I just unsubscribed to something and came back. Took me 5 seconds and now that's one less email I'll be getting regularly. After Christmas is over I'll be unsubbing to a lot more emails.
That's all for now. Let me know what time-saving tips are working for you.
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