86,400 seconds are in a day, but why do so many Executives and business professionals struggle with managing their time? Many will say that technology while making life more convenient is a deep dark abyss of someone else’s agenda that pulls our focus. Others will state that we lack discipline in our daily routines that drives our inability to manage our time. I however have a very simple explanation; we fall victim to 3 thieves of productivity.
Creative Avoidance
Creative avoidance is a term we’ve adopted in our training center that at its core seems illogical. Each day we set off with a plan on how to tackle the day, the tasks that lie ahead but inevitably we fall victim to our own head trash about our activity. Very few professionals jump out of bed in the morning excited to make a bunch of prospecting calls but there is plenty of “other” work that needs to be done. So, what do we do? We put all the tasks ahead of our number one paying activity, prospecting. Now, by the time we complete those tasks there isn’t enough time in the workday and we push it to the following day. Why not “eat the frog” early? The answer is an easy one, not always easy to swallow, but easy. We don’t like the activity, so we avoid it by creating competing activities that “keeps us busy” from doing that one thing we know we have to do, but just don’t like it.
Not being able to say no
Collectively I feel people want to help people, but to what expense? We have a hard time telling people no, that we just don’t have time to take anything else on. Is it our inherent need to be liked by people or our fear that we will disappoint them or let them down? Think about how many times you have taken on a task knowing that you don’t have the time or the bandwidth to take it on, but here you are again, working late on someone else’s agenda all because you couldn’t or wouldn’t tell them no. Protect your time, protect your tasks, and protect your ability to put out good quality work. Being able to say no to people and tasks will save you time, frustration and burnout.
Lack of Discipline
Discipline by definition; Is the practice of making people obey rules or standards of behavior and punishing them when they do not. I’m a believer that many people can learn discipline, to adhere to their schedules or task lists but lack the ability to hold themselves accountable, they lack discipline. It isn’t necessarily their fault, when we are kid’s parents force discipline on us, keeping our rooms clean, taking out the trash etc.….they were our accountability coaches. Now as adults we have something called free will, we don’ have the accountability coach, we are free to make our own decisions and we lack accountability or the discipline to get the job done.
There are many thieves of productivity that we must deal with every day, from phones, to emails to text messages and social media posts, the world can be a noisy place. Focusing your efforts on these 3 thieves of productivity for just a few weeks and you will find yourself more productive, more balanced and overall, more focused.
As always…….Keep Growing.
Principle MP Solutions- For 25 years Rob has been driven by the passion he has to grow people and organizations. Rob has worked with hundreds of companies and is a sought-after speaker on sales, sales management, social media, strategy and goal setting. He brings his 18 years of Sandler Training experience to MP Solutions.
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