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Taking Inventory of Time

Written on June 9, 2009 by George Krueger & Mary-Lynn Foster in Time Management

Bigg Success is life on your own terms. Today, we want to focus on time – one of the five elements of bigg success.

For bigg goal-getters, there never seems to be enough time in the day. Yet we all have 24 hours … 1,440 minutes … 86,400 seconds in the day.

Sometimes it’s helpful to look at things through a different lens. Let’s make these units of time more tangible by thinking about them as units of inventory.

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Going bananas for time

Think about a grocery store. More specifically, think about the produce area of the grocery store. Can you see the apples, the lettuce, and the broccoli? Oh, and there’s the bananas!

Our grocers have to sell these things before they go bad. Otherwise, they aren’t worth anything. Unlike canned goods, produce has a very limited shelf life.

So it is with our time. We all have 86,400 seconds as an asset at the beginning of every day. But this second is gone. Now this one. The seconds turn into minutes; the minutes into hours.

When you look back on your day, did you get the most out of every hour?

“I don’t have time”

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marylynn Our friend, Lisa Cree, said something profound to me a while back. She said, “’I don't have time’ is a statement of priority, not fact.” If something is important to you, then you make it a priority and you do have time for it.

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george We always hesitate to recommend this, but if you really feel like you don’t have time for those things that are really important to you, keep a journal for a week or maybe even a month. It’s a bit tedious but it will be worthwhile.

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To make the best use of your time, ask yourself these three questions:

Have you set your direction?
You have to know where you’re going to use your time effectively by doing the right things.

Are you working efficiently?
Do you use technology enough (or too much) to get things done expeditiously. Are there tasks you perform yourself which could easily be done by someone else? We have more options for outsourcing, both in our businesses and at home, today than ever before. Are you capitalizing on them?

Are you focused enough?
As a bigg goal-getter, you may like to have a “lot on your plate.” But here’s a really important principle to understand:

If you try to accomplish too much, you risk accomplishing nothing!

Bigg success is life on your own terms. We’ve discussed before that one of the meanings of the word “terms” in our definition is phases. During any term (e.g. a year), focus on two or three major objectives. Break that down into quarters or months. Then you’ll know what you need to accomplish every day and every week.

Here’s another bigg secret: You’ll get where you want to be faster if those two or three objectives work in synergy – the bigg idea behind bigg success – rather than having two or three completely different things.

Focus on doing a few of the right things the right way so you reach bigg success faster!

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Would you like more tips and tools to live your life on your own terms? Subscribe to the Bigg Success Weekly – it’s FREE!

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Thanks so much for the gift of your time today. Please join us next time when we’ll discuss little things that make bigg differences. Until then, here’s to your bigg success!

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(Image in today's post from iprole)

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How to Stay Focused

Written on May 5, 2009 by George Krueger & Mary-Lynn Foster in Goals, Personal Growth

Have you ever met someone who really seemed to have it all?

‘Cause they’ve got personality … walk!

Personality … talk!

Personality … smile!

Well you get the idea! So ends our tribute to Lloyd Price and the song You’ve Got Personality. Back to our regularly scheduled program …

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Hear George & Mary-Lynn discuss today's topic on The Bigg Success Show! Click the purple player to listen while you read: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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You know they could be a bigg success, but they just can’t stay focused. They start a project but then something else captures their attention. Kind of like the interruption we just had with the song.

Bright, shiny objects

Liz Strauss calls it Shiny Object Syndrome. It’s easy to succumb to bright, shiny objects. We must overcome these distractions if we want to reach bigg success and live our lives on our own terms.

It begins by creating a vivid image of what you want your life to be. With this long-term vision in mind, you’re ready to break it up step-by-step and set a due date for each step.

That’s called a milestone. It’s our exclusive focus day-to-day. We develop a plan to get to the next milestone. It’s helpful to break that milestone down into terms – a quarter or a month.

Then begin each week by thinking about what you need to accomplish this week to reach your goal for the month. Now that helps you determine what’s most important to get done each day of this week.

Then all you have to do is everything you can every single day to get there!

Today is all that matters

It begins with a prioritized list – what must I do today to hit my goal this week?

By having this focus, it keeps us from being distracted by those bright, shiny objects. Here’s how we do it:

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george I love spreadsheets so that’s what I use. I divide my tasks every day by priority – “A priorities” are those things I must do, “B” are what I need to do, and “C” are things I want to do. Then I order the tasks within the categories. So the first thing I work on is my “A1” item.

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marylynn Sounds like a steak sauce, George! I like the old-fashioned pen and paper. For me, it works better to write out everything on a legal pad. Then every day, I pull off the most important things I have to do from that paper and put it on a sticky note. I have everything on my main list but I put the most important things front and center. Another thing that I really like about this is getting to crumble up those sticky notes when I’ve finished these important tasks.

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george I’m glad you pointed that out, Mary-Lynn. I highlight each item in my spreadsheet as I complete it for the same reason. As the day goes on and I see more and more lines highlighted, I get a tangible sense of accomplishment.

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Avoid bright, shiny objects so you can focus on the bigg prize. Start with your vision of what life on your own terms means to you. Then focus today on what’s most important to get there.

Doing the right things leads to bigg success!