We live in a distracted culture. Everybody and everything is fighting for our attention.

 

If we’re not answering our phone, we’re replying to a text message or email or talking with someone in person.

 

The majority of the day is spent answering questions, settling disputes, replying to emails, or my personal favorite (not really) sitting in unproductive meetings opening up more loops than it started with, leaving us feeling even more drained and unaccomplished then when we went into the meeting. Instead of investing in growing our businesses.

Unless you have a clear cut agenda, dead lines, and assigned owner of each task moving forward, stay far away from committees.

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I heard Darren Hardy talk about a study that said the average CEO (business owner) only produces for about 90 minutes a day. He said when Jack Walsh heard this he laughed and said he doubts it’s that high.

We return home, feeling completely drained, unaccomplished, and not only with work still on our mind, but with tasks still uncompleted!

How do we break this maddening cycle?

With Time Management Habits To Double Your Productivity

 

And we will get to those, but first a paradigm shift.  You must know your hourly value to your company.

If you work on average over the entire year, 50 hour weeks for 50 weeks, not counting 2 weeks off for vacation, that comes to 2,500 hours a year.

Now take that number 2,500 and divide it by your yearly revenue.

If you are responsible for generating $500,000 for your company: $500,000 / 2,500 hours = $200hr.

Knowing this will give you a clear perspective on what tasks you should actually be focused on and which ones you should delegate.

However, if you are reading this article, you are not focused on today. You are the type of person who is growth oriented and sets goals. Being you are a goal setter, you wouldn’t value your time at todays responsibility rate.

You plan for where you are focused on going and value your efforts of todays time for that goal.

If your goal is to be a MILLION DOLLAR company, that math would double your Hourly Value to your company to $400 for each and every hour you are working.

What if your goal was to run a profitable MILLION DOLLAR company only working a 30 Hour Work Week?

50 weeks x 30hr weeks = 1,500 hours/year.   $1,000,000 /1,500hours = $667 an hour and you get to invest your afternoons with your family and maybe even write your own book on how you did it.

Not only is this possible, we did it and laid our processes out for you. It takes work and focus. 

Knowing your Hourly Value to your company gives you a whole new perspective to qualifying your time and the tasks that consistently find their way into your lap.

Which leads us to…

 

Habit #1 Delegate Everything

Delegate everything you can, so you can focus on the vital few functions that only you can do which brings the most value to your company.

These are: networking, marketing, and sales. Actually, if you do the first 2 remarkably, you won’t need to focus so much on sales. 

Why don’t we delegate everything? We either feel too busy to train our team for the tasks or we don’t trust them to execute the tasks properly and we feel superior doing it ourselves. 

Leaders don’t do everything just to make sure it’s done properly. Leaders delegate everything with clear set expectations and then inspect what they expect so that it is done properly.

Be a leader, and delegate. 

Hire for character, and teach the trade. 

Inspect what you expect.

Knowing now that your hourly value to your company is at least $400 an hour, should give you a whole new perspective on what tasks should you be doing. Delegate everything else.

 

Habit #2 Healthy Boundaries

Having healthy boundaries for ourselves allows us to be able to single-task and focus on our most important priorities. 

This may sound funny, but I remember sitting in a Sunday School class back in Michigan when I first learned about boundaries and it was during that three week class that I first understood that is was ok to say no. 

As a kid we are raised to always do what we are told. This carries on for the rest of our lives because we don’t want to disappoint anybody else, even to the expense of our families.

This gave me a whole new meaning to the slogan ‘Just say, “No.”‘

 

If you don’t respect your own boundaries, no one else will either.

 

First, turn off all email indicators on your phone. All of them. Route your email through Gmail as its blocks 99.9% of spam and then turn on priority inbox.

You can turn on Priority Inbox from your settings.

This is my secret for how I and our DYB members are able to empty our Email Inbox on a regular basis and experience what David Allen in his book Getting Things done, “Mind Like Water”, and it is awesome!

 

Here is how if you are already using Google Apps or Gmail: 

 

 

 

Second, when you are in a meeting or engaged in a conversation with someone. Be completely present with them. Do not answer your phone, or return a text.

 

Third, set the Do Not Disturb setting on your phone to come on at 6pm and then back off at 7am. No calls come through. They will leave a voicemail and respect you for not taking their call at 9pm, because you first respected yourself. 

 

Habit #3 Jam Sessions

 

This is my absolute favorite. 

With 90 minute Jam Sessions first thing in the EARLY morning (5am), I am able to accomplish more during this time, then I can often get done the rest of the day. 

This leads me to start my day with confidence.  The whole world can let loose and get crazy, as often happens as a business owner, but here is up side – it doesn’t set me back because I have already accomplished my most important task or project!

In fact, this is how I wrote my book and how these articles get written. 

It is how I wrote my systems that we used to streamline our company. 

With just one early Jam Session you can reconcile your Quickbooks.

Sometimes, I use it to empty my email inbox, or write that very important proposal. 

 

To execute a Jam Session properly, you must first decide what the one most important project is that you must accomplish.

Next, you must schedule your Jam Session, because life doesn’t just open up and say hey, you have free time. We must make it a priority and schedule it.

If somebody calls or emails to meet or talk at that time, you reply and say Sorry no, I have a prior commitment. And you honor this commitment to yourself because we set healthy boundaries.

Setting up for your Jam Session, you must have a count down timer. This is the psychological element that brings urgency and helps you to stay focused an don task.

I like to use an iPad mini because it’s timer has a big visual clock counting down with a red lined circle. 

Turn your phone on Airplane Mode. Another vital key for successful Jam Sessions is the boundaries of setting yourself up so that no interruptions can get through.

Each interruption cost 11 minutes of productivity, according to Darren Hardy, as we try to get back on task. So we enter Airplane Mode on our phone during our Jam Sessions for zero interruptions and ultimate execution. 

When you are in your Jam Session, other task and ideas are going to pop up and come to mind, so to keep focused on the task that you have committed yourself to execute, keep a piece of paper and pen next to you to capture these as they come to mind, and then process them later. 

Grab a pair a headphones and listen to an album that helps you to focus. For myself, Mozart For The Mind Disk #1 is very helpful for focus and rhythm. It may be just complete silence for you. You decide.

Either way, wear the headphones. Having the headphones helps others to see that you might not be available if you are working in a public place. 

Listening to classical musical helps your brain to focus and think more clearly.

I didn’t care for it at first, but after reading so many studies about the benefits of it, I decided to give it a try and after a few times through I started to bare it.

Now I really like it and when I turn it on and just go for a walk, ideas start to flow in faster than I can capture them. 

The Ultimate Jam Session is 90 minutes. But you may need to work up to that and that is ok. Just start with 30 minutes an you will start to see some major benefits even from just the 30 minutes. 

When that timer goes off, especially at 90 minutes, you must back away and take a break. Do not roll into other task, check emails, or return phone calls.

Go for a 5  to 10 minute walk and let the dust settle, because you just CRUSHED IT! 

The last and my favorite element of the highly effective Jam Session for doubling your productivity, is to make sure you have a great cup of coffee.  

i.e. #KeepItCaffeinated

A bonus productivity strategy we use for streamlining and booking estimates is by using You Can Book Me our our websites.

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