Secrets of personal effectiveness in the digital age
After careful study of some of the masters of time management, including Steven R. Covey (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People), Roger Merrill (First Things First), and Timothy Ferriss (4-Hour Workweek ) and after comparing his incredible time management principles to a highly dysfunctional test candidate (myself) I have developed three principles that have helped me become much more effective.
Principle 1. KNOW WHAT YOU ARE LOOKING FOR.
According to Dr. Covey, human beings are made up of four different fundamental areas: mental, physical, spiritual, and social/emotional. Take a sheet of paper, write down the four things, and ask this question: What one thing could you do that would bring about the most positive improvement in this area?
Next, identify the different “roles” you play in your life. Things like wife, husband, father, mother, daughter, member of a community, church or club, businessman, cyclist, etc. Then ask the question for each of these roles as well. You now have a list of goals that cover every important area of your life.
Principle 2. DEVELOP A DAILY AND WEEKLY METHOD OF OPERATION. (MONTH).
First, throw most of your long-term goals in the trash. They make no sense. Why? Because they trick you into thinking that it doesn’t matter what you do TODAY. But today is all you have. How can you possibly achieve a huge goal in five years if you don’t do the daily work necessary to get there? However, not everything has to be done daily, some things are better done weekly. For example, in the role of “husband” I try to have a date once a week with my wife. Weekly makes more sense than daily. But monthly is not enough!
Very few goals other than daily or weekly make sense. So take all the goals determined above and develop your daily and weekly trading method. Write them on a single sheet of paper and display them where you will see them often.
Principle 3. REDUCE AND SIMPLIFY.
Do you think you don’t have enough time? Think again. You have as much time in the day as Mother Teresa or Bill Gates. An important difference between highly effective and dysfunctional people is simply the use of time.
Every morning, look at your daily and weekly MO. Start with the most important activities you have chosen and stay focused until you have finished them. Don’t let ANYTHING distract you from each article. And not multitasking. Do one at a time until complete.
There are four things you’ll need to manage if you want to do this effectively: email, phone, media, and other people.
Email.
Many experts tell us that email wastes more time than any other business practice. And very few emails are mission critical. Here are some steps to take to kill this time-sucking, income-draining monster:
1. Turn off the “you have mail” sound on your computer.
2. Only check your email twice a day, once a day if possible. The best times are midday and 4 in the afternoon. If it’s just one time, do it at 4. If necessary, set up an autoresponder so people know you’re only checking email at 4 pm, and if it’s an emergency item to call you on the phone. When I started checking email twice a day, I thought I would miss out on opportunities or cause complaints from my colleagues. Amazingly, within a week I was down to once a day and my personal effectiveness was through the roof.
3. Be aggressive in deleting email and be quick to delete. If you have dysfunctional friends who think they need to send you stupid “pass it on to 10 people and…” emails, politely ask them to stop sending them. Unsubscribe from mailing lists. Don’t feel obligated to answer every email you receive. The delete button is your friend.
Telephone.
Do you feel like a ringing phone is an emergency? It is not. Believe it or not, the world will continue to function just fine without you for a few hours. Learn to ignore the phone while you work on your priorities and let voicemail do its thing.
Media.
kill him Cancel your newspaper. It’s just filling your head with negative crap anyway. Stop watching the news, reading magazines and celebrity gossip on your home page. Do not surf the internet without doing anything. It’s a good idea to change your home page to a simple no-media, no-news page, like google.com, or a site that helps you accomplish one of your main goals. Do you think you will miss out on something big if you cut media out of your life? No. Trust me, if a major earthquake sinks a continent, you’ll find out very quickly.
Other people.
You have to be careful with this one. What good is life if not for the relationships we have? At the same time, if you implement these principles, you will actually have MORE time for those you care about most. The key is to not let others invade your sacred space when you are working on your modus operandi. Use the “do not disturb” button, notify your family before entering your office, and deal with interruptions quickly. That will help you eliminate time-wasting casual interactions, saving time for the important and planned people you create by being more effective.
The 80/20 rule dictates that 80 percent of results are achieved with just 20 percent of the work. By using these principles, you can eliminate the 80 percent, work only on the 20, and reduce your work time while increasing your effectiveness and creating time for the things that matter most in your life.