Gettin' In "The Zone"

Being productive is always an important part of a person's day. Whether at work or dealing with everyday things.

The business owner, being a much different animal, has a much more difficult time with managing time, especially when they have 10+ things pulling at them at any given time.

But the technology business owner, is at an even bigger disadvantage when taming the time vampires that always suck their energy in every which direction. Why, because unlike the other "non-tech" people, we tend to have an obsession with multi-tasking since we think like a machine.

The problem is, multi-tasking and humans really don't mix. Actually, it really doesn't even exist amongst people. No matter how smart you are.

Unless you are setting a job to run itself, such as a backup, and leaving to do something else, you really can't do two things at once and call it productive. The example I just gave isn't even multi-tasking since it's not requiring you to actually think about the back up while you're doing something else. You have no involvement.

So what does this mean? Well, trying to do 2 things at once will always take more time rather than setting up a time frame (like an hour) to finish something and then moving to the next thing (ie two 1 hours tasks "multi-tasked" can take 2.5 hours or more to fininsh instead of just 2 hours).

Every time you go back to the second or third simultaneous task, it takes you time to get back up to speed. 1 to 5 minutes to get back in the groove can add up real fast if you switch back and forth between even 2 things a couple of times.

Although you're probably doing a ton of things someone else should be doing, like many business owners get caught up in, I want to point out to you how to at least save yourself some time. So here are a few things to do this year to help you get to the important stuff:

- Set up time frames to do things (1 to 2 hours blocks at the most) inside of an actual schedule, not just a "to do" list. Lists are a good start but a schedule actually makes things happens. We humans like deadlines and tend to stick to them when they're in our faces.

- Curb the emails (biggest time killer out there). If you have to run your business with you being the emergency contact for your clients or employees, don't do it via email. It's unnecessary and is actually slower than the good old phone. You should really only check your email 2 or 3 times a day unless you're expecting something important. In that case, you should have informed the sender that you need it by a specific time and that's when you check. I get arguments about this but there are ways around being "always on" for everyone especially through email. Too many non-essential and non-work emails are usually present and knock you completely off track. Being too easily accessible as a business owner is a kiss of death that many fall into the trap of.

- Do yourself a favor and schedule something to do as soon as you start your day and then check your email. Again, unless you are expecting something specific to be in that inbox AND are disciplined enough not to answer or start deleting the other 150 emails, don't even bother starting your day on the wrong foot by going right to your inbox. I know I lack that discipline and avoid this very bad idea.

These are a small few things to do that will surely make you more productive this year. Nobody can afford to waste time nowadays so do what you can to do the important stuff and not be disturbed in the process.

If you think you're ready for some more on time management, grab my book here. It will be a well spent $20 or grab the pdf version for a discount. You can't lose.

Have a very productive week. Feel free to comment back here on your results if you try anything out.


To Your Business Success-


George Sierchio
The Consultant's Coach