Time is not infinite

12 principles to make the best use of your time

Paolo Ruggeri, Sadek El Assaad

• Publisher: Engage Editore
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9788885430303
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Entrepreneurship
• Index: Business

In the last decade alone, I have collaborated with many owners, CEOs, Managing Directors and Company Managers who often worked as though their time was infinite. I saw them spending more and more time with their team in the office until their week became highly laborious. They would only leave the office to eat and sleep. I don't mean to say that we should only work from 9 to 5, 5 days a week and then completely ignore our work on weekends. I know that sometimes we have to put in the extra hours to meet our deadlines and achieve our targets; however, when this becomes the norm, it means that we need to consider alternatives such as working smarter rather than harder. This is the reason why I am writing this book Dedicated to all Entrepreneurs, Business Owners, CEOs, Managing Directors and Company Managers who think that every working day should be 48 hours, during which the need to eat, sleep and socialize is nonexistent. To all those who wait for the weekend just to rest...I, too, was one of them so many years back!

PRINCIPLE 1

Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion

 

 

Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. This is called the Parkinson principle.

Let’s take an example. If you have one day to finish a presentation, that is the exact time you will take to prepare it…You might use two to three hours to think of the layout and what you would like to convey, 4-5 hours on the presentation itself and spend the rest of the day doubting your work, wondering if it is good enough for your audience. The actual final presentation will be finished in only 15 minutes.

Now, let’s take another scenario. If you only had 1 hour to prepare your presentation, you would start by deciding the exact points that you have to cover to get your message across. You then start writing them down on the presentation and quickly decide on the pictures. Finally, you will review for any typo or grammatical mistakes while ensuring that it is coherent, and your point is clear. This is why so many of us think that we can work better under pressure. We don’t waste time when we are under pressure because we focus on the real and necessary stuff only. It is human to procrastinate. However, as a Business Owners or Company Managers, you must know which tasks are worth procrastinating for and which require your immediate attention.

PRINCIPLE 2

Make a list of ongoing projects

Your mind works like a computer. Having many incomplete or half completed projects is just like having many open windows on your screen; the efficiency drops, and your work slows down, including time management.

A good solution is to write down a complete list of all cycles or ongoing projects that are currently running. This is known as the open cycles list.

While making the list, ensure that you don’t get drowned by smaller tasks. There is no harm in writing down the details so you remember them, however, in your list, the first 5 items or so should be of “futurist strategic nature”. These are the tasks that will make your business or role grow and will get you closer to the overall direction and goal you have set up for your company or yourself.

While writing down your tasks, on a piece of paper or digitally, make sure to be specific. Don’t just write ‘Collect credit’ or ‘meeting with the sales team’ but rather write ‘Faysal AED 10,000; Ali AED 6,500’ or ‘Review the targets with the sales team and decide on an action to rectify the missing sales’.

Being specific will allow you to close the windows in your mind and recover your energy. It will also keep you focused on the more important things at hand. Update/review or create a list once a day, week or every 15 days and delete some things from your list every now and then.

I have seen that many successful leaders keep a small piece of paper or booklet in their pocket where they write down the tasks that they might forget. Moreover, in the digital era, you have many tools that will help you organize your to-do list. However, make sure that you don’t overdo it.

It is a proven fact that if you make a to-do list, your productivity increases by 15% to 20%. Start making a checklist of the things you want to do every week, and if necessary, use the open cycles list as a starting point - then keep that list always ready with you. Keep five minutes a day to write down the plan of the day, and if possible, do it the night before.

D...

Table of contents

• Preface
• Introduction
• PRINCIPLE 1
• PRINCIPLE 2
• PRINCIPLE 3
• PRINCIPLE 4
• PRINCIPLE 5
• PRINCIPLE 6
• PRINCIPLE 7
• PRINCIPLE 8
• PRINCIPLE 9
• PRINCIPLE 10
• PRINCIPLE 11
• PRINCIPLE 12
• In conclusion