Claim Back Your Day and be More Productive

Answer your emails twice a day, you may be thinking ‘I can’t do that, my clients expect to be able to get hold of me’ but just consider for a moment that unless you’re a member of the emergency services or urgent response, it’s highly unlikely that it’s a genuine life or death situation. Plus, if your customers expect instant feedback, stop for a moment and ask yourself who’s trained them to think that way…

Has anyone ever emailed you to say ‘the building’s on fire’? And how many issues need you to instantly respond on the phone? As long as you revert back to the client on the same day, or even within a few hours, it shouldn’t be a problem. If it is, then set up an emergency email or have a dedicated line or mobile to deal with pressing issues (and if you can charge a premium rate for providing this, then make sure you do as it will make people think twice about using it).

And, with every email you receive, make sure that you deal with it as you read it the first time. Ask yourself the following questions and take these actions:

1. Does it concern you? If not, pass it on
2. Do you need to keep it? If not, bin it
3. Is it useful? Yes, file or read it, no, bin it
4. Does it need action? Yes, do it, and no, file it or pass it on.

Create a routine, set up files and systems for easy retrieval, and learn to scan and speed read emails and messages.

I don’t often advocate using an answering machine to field and screen calls, as you risk potential customers hanging up without leaving a message, so why not consider using a professional telephone answering service? These are normally relatively low-cost, the staff are trained to answer the phone as you wish and take core information, then they email you details of the enquiry so that you can pick it up when it suits you better. And again, if it does require an immediate response, the call-handler can email an ‘emergency’ address where you can see and respond to it, or get them to call a specific number that you will be able to pick up. Imagine as an clinic, if you had your calls on divert every morning and spent that morning focusing on getting stuff done without any interruptions, how that would impact on your productivity…

Another great way to seize control of your day is to decide on, and put into action, bookends for your day. You can’t often control every element of the main portion of your day, but you can control what happens immediately after you wake up and before you go to bed. You may decide to read a few pages of a positive book, to meditate or focus on your goals, or to spend a short period of time exercising. Perhaps you decide to listen to an audio book on your commute to work too. Activity first thing in your day is all about getting your brain into the right frame of mind and turning unproductive time into something positive.

Then, when you get into work, block off the first 90 minutes of your day to work on your clinic or an important project. Nigel Botterill Entrepreneurs Circle put a lot of his success down to doing this every day and as he’s built 8 million pound plus businesses so he’s well worth listening too.

By Alan S Adams

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