We all have the same 168-hour work week, but there never seems to be enough time to get things done. Too often Time Wasters eat up your prime time and can negatively impact your ability to consistently hit or surpass goals set. It’s not the hardest worker who WINS, it’s the person who understands where to focus their valuable time, especially during prime time.
The 80/20 rule applies to most careers, including ours. 20% of what you are doing is providing you with 80% of your results – but what is your 20%? It can be very different from one person to the next. It’s up to you to determine the areas of responsibility that are most important for you to accomplish. Consistently ask yourself, “Is this Best Use of My Time” Then focus on consistently increasing the 20% of your actions that are results oriented!
Every Friday, you can hold yourself accountable by conducting a weekly review. Block off 30 minutes on your calendar and step back as if you’re a consultant who was hired to review your week. Then ask yourself three questions:
- What did I do right? (do more of those tasks the following week)
- How did I waste time? (stop doing those things immediately)
- What am I changing? (implement one new technique monthly, to improve
your results)
Let me share some examples of doing things at the right time. If you are serious about increasing your level of success you must embrace DAILY PLANNING that should be done every evening before you leave work. You want to arrive at work each morning knowing 100% of the outgoing calls you will make. If you’re not a planner, this is too big a lift, so start out by writing down the six top priorities closest to the money that you will do the following day and 10 outgoing calls. Keep increasing your outgoing calls by 10 every month, until you control your destiny by planning 100% of your outgoing calls. Don’t be reliant on incoming calls which are often the priorities of others.
Be selfish with your prime-time hours, 9:00 – 11:30 and 1:00 – 4:00 PM. This is when you have the best chance of reaching clients and candidates. Never conduct research or do busy work during these hours. If you work multiple time zones, obviously you benefit by having expanded prime time hours.
If you are a high-volume temporary staffing firm, have the availability calls go to a specific phone line where they leave a voice mail. Candidates NEVER just give you their availability, they want updates and career advice. Most recruiters WASTE 90 minutes a day taking incoming calls from candidates they will never place. Explain why you are unable to help them find a job, and give them something to do, or someone to call. If you feel you can place a candidate, tell them the only time they need to call you is if they’ve changed their resume or have gone on an interview, so you can update your information. Tell them you take these updates between the hours of 4 to 5:00 because the rest of the day you are marketing them to potential employers. This shows them the benefit in no calling you during the day.
Know your numbers and individual ratios, so you know what results you need to achieve daily. This takes the mystery out of consistently attaining or surpassing your goals. You then make how ever many contacts you need to make each day to achieve those daily results.
Growth comes from building on your capabilities, talents and gifts. Never underestimate the purpose of the gifts within you. You don’t want to spend your precious time with candidates you will not place or working orders, contracts or assignments you will not fill.
Being on the offensive and taking initiative to proactively control your actions throughout the day and you will do the right things at the right time and achieve better results!