While giving a talk recently on time management, I showed a slide depicting a number of very successful people and asked a simple question, “What do these people have in common?” These were men and women of varying ages, from all walks of life and living all over the world and they were all very successful in their chosen subjects. In fact they were all very different indeed, and their backgrounds ranged from business, to politics, to science and beyond. There was one thing they all had in common however, like each of us, they have the same 24 hours each day in which to ‘get things done’. Each of them, in order to achieve the successes they have enjoyed, have found a way of making the most of each 24 hour day…

One of my favorite authors and speakers, Jim Rohn, explains it well:

Suppose you had a bank account, into which $1440 was placed every night. You are free to spend that money in any way you choose, but at the stoke of midnight the balance is cleared. Any money you didn’t spend is lost forever, but a brand new $1440 is deposited before you awake next morning.

Of course the money in Jim’s example is a metaphor for the 1440 minutes of time we each have to spend every day. The difference is that we can always earn more money, but when time is spent it is gone forever!

Time management is a rather poor term for being efficient and productive; getting more done. It’s not possible to ‘manage time’, however we can manage ourselves and how we spend that time.

A major part of my talk dealt with procrastination, and how it can be such a hurdle to running an effective online business, especially when working from home. Over the past few years I’ve found a number of techniques to help avoid procrastinating and I’d like to share the three most powerful ones I use on a daily basis with you.

Plan

There’s an old saying, “failure to plan is planning to fail” and it couldn’t be more true. I always have to fight with myself over this one, I get an idea and my instinct is to dive in headfirst and take action… STOP! All that will happen is you’ll get half way though, change your mind and have wasted time and effort. I’m not suggesting that you shouldn’t take action fast, in fact “Ready, Fire, Aim!” is one of my favorite mantras at the moment, but take the time to plan it out first – whether it’s discussing your plans with a business associate or mentor, listing the steps you need to go through, or creating a mindmap so you can clearly see the route ahead, a little time planning will pay huge dividends.

Eat That Frog!

If you’ve never heard the phrase Eat that frog before then I urge you to read the eponymous book by Brian Tracy. As the name suggests, we are most productive when we do our biggest task (which is inevitably the one we are most likely to procrastinate on) first… The title apparently comes from an old Italian saying which roughly translates to, “If you start every day by eating a live frog, you know things can only get better”. I believe that can be continued with, “If you have to eat two frogs, eat the ugliest one first!”. Amphibians aside, once your biggest job is done a weight is taken off your shoulders and the rest of the day, week or project really does go more smoothly.

To Do List

This has helped me more than anything, and like most gems of wisdom it’s very simple. I heard it from a very successful businessman in Scotland and it has certainly helped me, so I’ll share his three simple steps to success: Each night write a list of tasks for the following day, when you wake up start at the top of the list, don’t go to bed until you reach the end! If you want to take that a stage further then check out this great free To Do List software.