Your Excellence Connection January 07
2007 What will it hold for you?
As the season’s festivities recede and the New Year appears, our thoughts naturally turn to the future. For some this just means making a few New Year resolutions, however for others it is an important opportunity for the stock taking, reflection and planning that will drive lasting success in the New Year.
In our ongoing drive to help you learn the techniques that you need for an excellent career, relationship or business we will give you helpful tips to develop your leadership skills and build a truly successful you.
Manage your Time
Take some time out to actually think about what you have on your plate and what your priorities are. Often, we get caught up with the business of our lives and all the things we have to do and we don’t take the time to reflect on what it really important.
Generally, we just keep doing, and doing, and doing. By taking some time out to actually review what is on your plate, and then decide what is the most important thing for you to do – in the next hour, the next day or the next week - you gain additional perspective on this which helps to see clearly what the priorities are.
When you take this time to reflect on all your tasks, ensure you take all of these To Do items in context with the big picture of your life. Ask yourself, how does this particular activity or task fit into my big picture? How important that it gets done today? What would happen if I didn’t do it at all? Can I delegate it to someone else?
- Understand what you can realistically achieve with your time;
- Plan to make the best use of the time available;
- Leave enough time for things you absolutely must do;
- Preserve contingency time to handle ‘the unexpected’; and
- Minimize stress by avoiding over-commitment to yourself and others.
Remember that one of the most important ways people learn to achieve success is by maximizing the ‘leverage’ they can achieve with their time. They increase the amount of work they can manage by delegating work to other people, spending money outsourcing key tasks, or using technology to automate as much of their work as possible. This frees them up to achieve their goals.
Quote of the month
Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.”
Will Rodgers
Wishing you Success and Happiness
Julie & John Sanders