Master Your Time, Master Your Income!

Yep, this subject has really gotten my attention. I am so glad I finally picked up Dan Kennedy’s “No B.S. Time Management for Entrepreneurs,” after meaning to read it for quite some time. You’ve gotta love a time management book that’s short enough to read in a couple hours or less!

Last time, I talked about finding your “number” and how much inefficient time management COSTS you. Here are three more gems from Dan…why not try them out this week and see what happens?

1) Absolute punctuality is absolutely powerful. As a professional speaker for nearly three decades, Dan has shared the stage with some of the most successful people on the planet, including Colin Powell and Henry Kissinger. The one discipline the top achievers all share is punctuality: being where you are supposed to be, when you’re supposed to be, as promised, without excuses. This provides personal power for a number of reasons – it demonstrates your integrity, it’s a simple way to impress others, and it speaks volumes about your self-esteem and self-discipline.

I’ll admit, this is one area where Dan and I differ. Especially in social situations, I’m not one to get stressed out about being late…plus, I find that when I am on time, I often find myself sitting there alone because the other people are late. Well, that might just prove Dan’s point: punctuality stands out, in a good way. I think I’ll give this approach another try, by integrating it with the next tip:

2) Make the most of “Odd-Lot” time. Although Dan is a fanatic scheduler who looks for efficiency when setting up meetings and business trips, he still has to sit in traffic from time to time or wait in offices or airports. In the car, he listens to books on tape, both educational and entertaining. He keeps files of articles torn from magazines that have caught his eye and carries them with him on trips; once an article is done, he generally throws it away and lightens his load as he goes.
I always have a notepad handy to jot down ideas and make a note of copy that I think is good. When I’m waiting to pick up my kids, I use that time to make these notes or just “ideate” on things that would help my business. Who knew you could be more patient and more productive at the same time?

3) Improve your work environment and hit peak productivity faster. Take a look at where you’re working: is it somewhere you’d be proud to show the world? Do you feel comfortable there? Dan is a big believe
in psychological triggers and packs his home office with images that remind him of qualities he wants to attain. He has several clocks positioned around the office to remind himself of the passing of time, and he has been using Asian Feng Shui principles since they first caught the attention of Western business.

Sometimes it’s challenging to work in a home office, no matter how tidy it is or how ‘Feng Shui compliant' it might be! One way to get to a more productive place is to literally get up and go work in another place: at a coffee shop, a shared office, heck, even a park bench might work. Some people even take train rides just to have an uninterrupted place to work, and I’ve read of one entrepreneur who occasionally rents herself a hotel room in her own town when she has a bunch of work to do. As Dan says, if they can’t find you, they can’t bother you!

All in all, what makes these so powerful is that they are 100% in your control. When you start paying attention to how you spend your time and making small changes, great things start to happen. You may get the feeling that you’ve been given a big helping of the most precious, irreplaceable resource there is: time. n