One of the things that I often hear when speaking at events, working with clients or out networking with business colleagues is…..

‘That’s all well and good, Adrian, but where am I going to find the time to do all that?”

People often complain that they do not have enough time. But the fact of the matter is that they have the same amount of time as anyone else, whether rich or poor, successful or waiting to be found. It’s what you do with it that matters not how much you have.

Being a master of your time is one of the greatest skills that you can develop and one of the most powerful things that you can teach your team to help them improve their performance and productivity.

Here’s a set of 3 big tips from some of the biggest known names in the time management, peak performance and productivity industry that have helped me along the way. I hope they help you.

• Brian Tracy – ‘Eat that frog!’. This was the name of one of Brian Tracy’s biggest selling books. What he meant by ‘Eat that frog!’ was that we have a natural tendency to put off doing the stuff that we don’t like to do and that can tend to be the most important stuff. This can be one of the biggest challenges for many people when it comes to making progress and achieving the things they set out to achieve. However, he believes, that the key to high performance is to plan every day the night before, in advance, and set priorities for it. Once complete you should then ask what is the most important thing on the list that would normally get put off but has to get done. Whatever that thing is, it becomes your frog and the next morning you should focus and discipline yourself to start in on that task, the most important thing on your list, and do only that until it is complete. 

The rationale being if you can ‘Eat that frog!’ then your day will only get better. Further, if you can develop that habit of focus, you can double and triple your productivity and take full control of your life. It is one of the most important of all lessons to learn, and one of the hardest things to implement. However, if you can master it it is worth it.
• Denis Waitley – Prime time is your time. Denis talks about using prime time as your prime time and not somebody else’s. What he means here is that prime time is normally associated with TV between the hours of 7-11 pm. Most people at this time are ‘relaxing’ in front of the TV and watching other people be successful ie. stories about celebrities, successful entrepreneurs, news about business leaders etc. But, he says, if you truly want to master your time, raise your performance and productivity and achieve then you have to start using prime time as your own time to invest in yourself……..time to write, to learn, to work on your relationships etc. Successful people don’t do the things that everyone else does. They find different ways to get more done with the same amount of resources. If you do the same things that everyone else does can you really expect different results?
• Vic Johnson – Deal with it once and once only. One of the biggest issues that we all face in modern life is how to handle the amount of email that we receive of a daily basis. One of Vic’s biggest tips is to never handle the items in your inbox more than one time. His idea is that you should deal with each email that you receive only once. Whether you reply, forward it, delete it or drag it to a folder for action by someone else. If you continue to have to go back and revisit that email over and over trying to make a decision that takes time – time that you are trying to save. So, if you find yourself getting a lot of emails try dealing with them only once and once only.

Did you like these tips? Do you use these tips or ones like them to help you mange your time? What other tips do you have that work for you?

Thanks to John Morgan for the image.