Andrew Min, a financial advisor and Wealth Management specialist at John Blake Financial Solutions.

Time Management

Are you managing time or energy?

It’s 7.12 am on Saturday morning at my home in Margaret River. I am sitting here for the next hour with you and my cup of tea (hopefully, unless my 22 month old daughter, Mish wakes up and comes running out and then it will all be over) 🙂

You might remember about 4 months ago I conducted an on-line survey with our subscribers.

What came back loud and clear was a real need for Time Management information.

And I know I keep promising it, but when we roll out our new coaching program shortly, time management will be a big part of what we focus on.

But the big thing with Time Management is – you don’t actually manage time – you manage your own energy. Time itself is largely unmanageable, it’s what we do with our time and more importantly our energy that determines if we are effective or not.

Many people have typical days that look like this.

  • A list in front of them with way more things on it that they could possibly do in one day.
  • Constant distraction of office phone ringing, mobile phone ringing email beeping (the you’ve got mail icon beaming from the bottom of the computer monitor)
  • The occasional text message, and
  • A random array of people “calling by their office ” saying “got a minute?”

And a unfulfilled feeling at the end of the day that they didn’t really get anything done. No wonder people want time management info eh?

I am interested in time management for two reasons:

  1. Leigh and I run Blue Rocket on our own with no staff
  2. Because of this I need to be really good at it

So I have studies with the likes of Stephen Covey, Brian Tracey and others where I have learned good systems that work. But in today’s distraction filled world its just not enough.

Ok, so here’s the one thing that has worked best for me most recently – this is what I do, especially when I have a deadline or things I simply have to get done within a tight period of time.

I block time (not a new concept I know) to do the things I need to do.

But here’s’ the missing ingredient. I block uninterrupted time. I get a timer with a count down and alarm and block out chunks of totally uninterrupted time.

This is what it looks like.

  1. Mobile gets put on silent
  2. Email gets turned off
  3. I pick the highest priority task
  4. Clear my desk of all but the task at hand
  5. Set the count down timer for 60 minutes
  6. Total focussed effort for 60 minutes.

After 60 minutes I have what I call a “moth break”.

Firstly I get up have a walk or a stretch for 10 minutes, then I “moth around” returning calls answering important email for about 20 minutes.

Then I do another 60 minute uninterrupted chunk. In a deeper explanation of this I would go into why I choose 60 minutes as the block of time, and how this relates to the wider strategy in terms of goal setting etc.

What I will say is this, it’s based on a sound neurological brain research and it’s a principal that is now largely adopted both in the science of sport and more recently adopted for business.

Above all it works brilliantly. I urge you to give it a go.

Have a great week.

Regards,

John

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