Explained: The Reason Why You Never Have Enough Time (and How to Fix it)

I this article we are going to be covering the default diary. This article follows on from Stephen Covey's Time Matrix, so if you haven’t read it yet, please follow this link and familiarise yourself before continuing. 

https://facilethings.com/blog/en/time-management-matrix

Time Management:

The first question I will ask you as business owners and entrepreneurs is this: Do you have a robust diary in place? i.e., do you have set times for set things? 

The chances are, the answer to that question is a no. In fact, you most probably operate a very inefficient diary without even realising it. Guess what? You’re not alone; most people have an inefficient structure to their day.

People often don’t make the best use of the hours available to them and then find themselves wondering why they never have enough time to complete everything they want in a day. 

When we looked at Stephen Covey’s Time Matrix, we looked at eliminating all the time-wasting things that you, as a business owner, shouldn't be doing. In this article, we are going to look at all the tasks that you should be doing and organising them to ensure you are as efficient as possible.

Being In-Flow:

The world we work in today is full of interruptions. Whether it's your team interrupting you, a phone call or your own e-mail inbox, the reality is, your completion of tasks will often be very ‘stop, start’, which makes it hard to get any traction or to build up momentum. 

Imagine you're completing a task. It’s taken you a little while to really become in-flow with the task and suddenly, something interrupts you. You, of course, stop doing said task to deal with the interruption, however when you attempt to go back to it, you’ve lost your flow.

Did you know that it can take us anything between 10 and 15 minutes to get back up to speed and find flow again? (It will take you slightly less time if you’re a woman, because most women are natural multitaskers.) 

If you suffer 10 or 15 interruptions a day and it takes you 10 to 15 minutes to get back into flow, then you're losing several hours a day - which is a couple of days a week. 

Is that efficient working? 

Absolutely not.

Ultimately, if you wish to be more efficient, you have got to change the way you work - which is where the default diary comes in. 

The Default Diary:

How is your working week usually structured? Do you plan where you’ll be for the whole week or usually just go with the flow? Maybe have a few scheduled meetings? 

Below is an example of my working week: Default Diary

You will notice that my week is structured into zones. Every morning, I check my e-mails and prepare myself for my day ahead. From 7am, I am ‘on stage’ coaching and must be on my game. 

How often do you have important tasks which you would prefer were set in stone, that start to drift because of ‘distractions’ coming in and disrupting your plans?

Between the hours of 9–11 on a Monday, we always have our team meetings and I never change that. It’s important that we have regular meetings as a team and for that reason, this time slot is set in stone. If I get a phone call whilst attending a team meeting, I will deal with it later; I do not allow myself to be distracted.

You will see then, that for the rest of the day, I coach clients back to back. The reason for this is simple: by grouping all my coaching sessions together, I remain ‘in the zone’. If I were to coach for an hour, then switch to marketing, then go back to coaching later in the day, I would lose flow. I would be much less efficient at my job. y grouping all my coaching sessions together and optimise my efficiency and effectiveness.

This rule applies across my week, whether I’m in the studio recording videos, in the field visiting clients or running workshops; I zone my activities so that I am as efficient as possible.  

I've got immense structure to my diary. I don't expect you to go from having no diary to having a fully structured week like me overnight, however you have got to start thinking about how you can become more efficient.

As business owners, we often have the belief that we must do everything that comes up ‘now’, but that is not the case. You need to get out of the mindset of being reactive and start being proactive. Start by populating your diary with important tasks for you as a business owner and then set them in stone.

Zone your diary and make sure you have the time during the week for your important tasks such as marketing, admin and your team. If you don’t schedule these things in, other rubbish will take its place. If that continues to happen, you will never be in control or see your company reach its full potential.

If there is anything you have read today that has struck a chord with you, please head on over to  boolkah.com and get in contact.

Remember, failing to learn is learning to fail.