Manage your time or lose control

The immediacy provided by mobile technology places even greater time constraints on today’s workforce.

Most of you have heard the expression ‘time is money’ thousands of times throughout the course of your life; and as many times as you’ve heard it, you have ignored it.

Every year I get hundreds of requests for a course in time management. And every year I give my answer: ‘Why are you asking me what to do with your time? Don’t you know what to do?

Is it time management or wasted time?

Is it time management or procrastination?

Is it time management or lack of productivity?

Is it time management or lack of achievement?

Is it time management or poor time choices?

You tell me, I’m concentrating on my time challenges, not yours.

I love some of the expressions that have been created over the years about time:

• just in time;

• save time;

• no time like the present;

• time commitment;

• time management; and

• time bomb.

All of it is irrelevant garbage.

So if time is money, as suggested earlier, what are you doing with yours? Are you spending it or investing it? And how are your time investments working for you?

Are you frustrated because there are not enough hours in the day? I am.

Spending time or investing time is a choice. Here are some examples of choices. See which ones apply to you. 

• Spend time watching TV or invest time reading a book.

• Spend time drinking in a bar or invest time writing or preparing for a sales call.

• Spend time playing a video game or invest time learning social selling.

• Spend time watching a movie or invest time talking to your kids.

This isn’t about time management, it’s actually time allocation. It’s how you choose to use your time right now. How are you spending or investing your 16-18 hours a day?

New pressures placed in the immediacy of your time – and for many it’s hours, not minutes a day. And these are time uses that have crept into the work fabric, and are firmly planted in your life – and mine.

• Email. How many a day? Ten? A hundred? More?

• Texting. The instant communication mode. Instant and unavoidable. 

• Smartphone. People (not you of course) are addicted. Can’t sit down without looking at it, and responding to it. You spend hours on your mobile device with text, search, email, apps, games and then you start talking.

An hour and a half a day on your device is 2,700 minutes a month; almost two full 24-hour days a month. And most people spend more than that.

And new time-pulls are creating re-allocation of your allotted time. The biggest being social media. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube demand business and personal attention, and more time allocation. Time you and I never had to allocate before. Add blogs, e-zines, emails, and websites, and you have hundreds of new hours demanding, no commanding, both attention and time. Your time. My time.

So, how do you allocate your time on all these devices? Three hours a day (minimum for all the items above) is 15 hours a week, if you only play five days. Doubtful. That’s 780 hours a year. My number would be closer to 1,000 – how about you?

You’re probably 1,000 hours just on your smartphone.

Here’s the opportunity, or the rub, depending on how you look at it. In all this allocation or re-allocation of time, make certain you’re addressing the real goals of the time investment process. Here’s what you must be concentrating on achieving during these allocated hours.

• Making connections.

• Helping customers.

• Providing value.

• Service in an instant.

• Building relationships.

• Earning referrals.

• Building a social selling platform.

• Writing and blogging.

• Following up with hot accounts.

• Making sales

After this, you might want to allocate some hours for reading, family, and travel. I do.

Want my best time allocation secret? Go to www.gitomer.com and enter ALLOCATION in the GitBit box.

Jeffrey Gitomer is an American author, professional speaker and business trainer, who writes and lectures internationally on sales, customer loyalty and personal development.

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