“You know what you should do. You’re just not doing it.”
This was said without a trace of sarcasm by the powerful Jeffrey Gitomer (author of The Little Red Book of Selling).
Right before he said this, he also stated, “Time management seminars are a gigantic waste of time.”
I read a great article yesterday called Beating the Busy Mindset by Alexis Grant. In it, she shared how she realized she was constantly busy, despite having recently invested significant and thoughtful time and energy into systems, processes, and her team in order to grow her company.
She realized that while she was decidedly more focused on a few big tasks, she was still feeling overly busy.
Her coach suggested something radical: get out of the habit of being busy.
Gentle reader, let me ask you:
Are YOU in the habit of being busy? Of stuffing your schedule full? Of trying to read it all? Answer every email? Return each call? Read every letter, newsletter, and book? Do every little thing on your To Do list and on your mind?
Here’s a true fact: work expands to fill the time you allot it.
If you allow work to happen all day, all evening, and all weekend – surprise! It will fill up all days, all evenings, and all weekends.
What if, instead, you got focused on the really big important things?
What if, after you schedule in time to work on those important big things over the course of a day, week, or months, you schedule in some thinking time?
And what if, after that, you find there’s still time in a reasonable workday to do more, you carefully pick and choose”other busy work” (or delegate it someone else).
How would that change your day? How would that affect your energy levels? And how would that impact your business’s growth and bottom line?
Go ahead – right now – schedule yourself two hours to get focused on the big, important projects. Figure out some realistic work blocks, milestones and deadlines. Put it on the calendar. Then, schedule in some thinking time. Try this schedule for a week and let me know how it works for you.
If you don’t know even how to begin this process, may I suggest you schedule a Make Some Room Rendezvous with me? I’m a master at getting these details out of your head and into a solid, realistic, workable plan.
It’s time let go of the habit of “being busy.”
Make some room,
Angie
P.S. I’m offering these two-hour Make Some Room Rendezvous sessions through the end of 2013. Whether it’s just you and me or a small group, we will get some shit done. The investment is a mere $350.00. In just those two hours, I’ve had clients and teams make major progress on:
- “Why” they are in business
- Which systems would radically change their business for the better
- How to get out of overwhelm using the power of the word “No”
- How to eliminate the “making piles” habit
- Email overwhelm – and I showed them how to banish it for good
- How to make more money
- Creating time for the stuff that really matters