Time – Can You Ever Get Enough?

Time – Can You Ever Get Enough?

Whether you own a business or work for someone who does, you have probably experienced the “never enough time” phenomenon.  When I worked in the high-tech world, we never had enough time to do it right, but always plenty of time to go back and fix it later. This practice was also known as using the customers for beta testing.

If we want our businesses, and ourselves to thrive, then we must focus on two things:  1) doing the right things, and 2) doing things right.  Stephen Covey, in his book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” offers a powerful tool, the Urgency vs. Importance matrix to achieve both goals.

In this matrix, Quadrant 2, is a set of activities in a business, or your life, that are Not Urgent, but are Important. This quadrant is the Zone.  The Zone is that place where you set aside all the busy work of the day and focus on the things that are truly important for your long-term success.  These are activities like planning, strategy, learning and cultivating relationships.

So how do we get in The Zone?  First and foremost, you make a conscious decision to get there.  It will not happen naturally, because these tasks are not urgent, they are not in your face demanding attention!

When was the last time your most important client called you up and demanded that you get to work on your cash flow forecast?  Probably never, but when was the last time a client complained that you didn’t have the right parts in stock, or that her order was a week late?  Did you take the time to tell her that earlier this year you failed to budget for parts stock, or that you failed to plan to replace that aging equipment?

This is one of the hardest things for my clients to see.  They are constantly in the “urgency” quadrant, specifically because they don’t spend enough time in the zone.  Every day I hear about how overwhelmed they are, because of all the urgent daily demands.  Getting in the Zone takes practice to become a habit. Here are some tips for how to do so.

1. Put it on your calendar on a regular basis

Scheduling time for planning activities is probably the best and maybe the only way to ensure that they get done.  You should spend 20% of your time in Zone activities, but that doesn’t necessarily have to be weekly. It could be on a monthly or quarterly basis.  One way is to allocate 4 hours per week to planning (medium-long term, not short-term), plus 8 hours per month, plus 16 hours per quarter, perhaps in an off-site session like GrowthClub.

2. Establish a system for accountability

Accountability will help you reinforce the need and the habit.  It can be a coach, an accountability partner, a mastermind group, a partner, a spouse or anyone that you will feel accountable to for following through.  Be sure that they know to ask you when and how you are allocating your time. Be sure that you have deliverables to them for the output of your planning, then review and discuss it with them. HINT: if you’re not willing to do this, you’re not committed to achieving the goal.

3. Break up the work and the time into proper-sized chunks

Some people work best in 30-45 minute bursts, other prefer 2 hour chunks of time.  Pay attention to your own attention span and work style.  Then allocate the most efficient periods of time for you to get your Zone work done.  Break up the work into properly sized chunks so that you can accomplish something meaningful in each time period.  Know yourself, and when you set aside your Zone time, make sure the chunks of time will be most effective for you.

4. Pick the right time of day for your Zone activities

In every business and for every person, there are times of day or days of the week that are better or worse than others.  If you know that Monday mornings are always crazy, don’t allocate any Zone time for Mondays.  You also know your own daily flow, so be sure to schedule your Zone time at a time of day that is best for the type of thinking you will be doing – creative out of the box brainstorming or detailed number-crunching.

If you want long-term success in your business and life, it takes this kind of intentional disciplined planning.  Success rarely happens by mistake. Be sure that you are always planning for success, not just this week, but for the next decade.

If you want to really learn how to get into the Zone, come to my TimeWise workshop Friday March 17, 2016 11:30 – 1:30.