25 Ways To Protect Your Time

As you begin the transition from employee to entrepreneur, how you protect and make use of your time will become increasingly important.

 

You’ll likely experience new demands on your time (which may seem like a conspiracy to prevent you from building your new business).

 

Don’t be distracted by these thoughts.

 

Instead, review and apply 1 or more of these 25 Time Protecting and Effective Use Strategies.

 

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Time Protecting and Effective Use Strategies To Implement: BEFORE Work

 

1. Place your keys, wallet or purse and other daily essentials in your designated place (so you don’t have to look for them before leaving the house).
2. Leave the house so that you have at least 15 minutes (in the parking lot or at your desk) before you have to begin your shift.
3. Determine the specific result (regarding your business) that you will ponder throughout the day before leaving the house.
4. Tie your specific result to an income-generating activity.
5. Make sure the specific result is something fascinating, which you cannot wait to create.
6. Listen to something which supports your specific result during the commute.
7. Talk to someone who will support and hold you accountable to this specific result during the commute.
8. Take 10 minutes (you set aside) to write down any ideas or instruction you received about your specific result during the commute.
9. After beginning your shift, don’t check email or voicemails until you’ve evaluated the existing commitments (outlined in the next section).

 

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Time Protecting and Effective Use Strategies To Implement: AT THE OFFICE

 

1. What tasks are already scheduled?
2. What conflicts (if any) exists with today’s scheduled tasks?
3. What new tasks need to be processed (from supervisor)?
4. What new tasks need to be processed (from voicemails)?
5. What new tasks need to be processed (from emails)?
6. What new tasks need to be processed (from co-workers)?
7. Besides the scheduled tasks, what single most important task do you want to complete today (to increase your value)?
8. Process (Clarify) and Organize New Tasks (Do > Delegate > Defer).
9. Review (Reflect) and Do (Engage) only what Processed and Organized.
10. All NEW Tasks (except tasks requiring immediate attention) get Processed (next business day).

 

Note: PROCESS (Clarify) is 1 of the 5 GTD (Getting Things Done) Steps. Learning and applying the GTD Methodology can greatly improve your productivity and protect your time, energy and other important resources. 

 

Download GTD Workflow Diagram

 

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Time Protecting and Effective Use Strategies To Implement: AFTER Work

 

1. Stop multi-tasking and give your attention to the one specific result you defined before work.
2. Achieve your specific result before you start working on something else.
3. If your specific result requires more time than you have available, define an appropriate milestone that you can achieve in the time available and get it done.
4. Simplify complex tasks by chunking each down into 3 to 5 actionable sub-tasks which can completed quickly and easily.
5. Work on your specific result in distraction-free environment. This implies that you may have to STOP somewhere between work and home to get this done.
6. Turn off the cell phone, notifications and social media during your Specific Result Achievement Sprint.

 

These Time Protecting and Effective Use Strategies will give you back the time you need to make an impact on building your business.