How do you eat an elephant ?

The colleague who never stops talking, that client that keeps calling you but spending no money and the never ending battle with the email are all there to keep you away from doing your job. You cannot change any of them but you can change your reaction !

Its such a BIG change....just like an elephant !

The colleague who never stops talking and stops you doing your work is annoying and frustrating. State clearly your boundaries of when it is okay to chat and when it is not. Everyone loves to have fun at work and have some banter but some people can talk and type at the same time. If you can’t but your colleague can you have a big problem.

Talk to your colleague and explain how you feel. Explain that you are not like them and need a little less chatter to get thru your work – most people will understand and respect that you have set some boundaries. Travel agents often work in large open offices and this can cause friction with different ways people work. There is no wrong or right way but with a good honest discussion you can find a middle ground. 

If you have time wasting clients sack them and move on. This would be one of the most common time wasting things for anyone in sales. If we have low sales, or need income this is often the hole we dig for ourselves. We take any sale because we need the money. If you find yourself in this situation ask yourself three questions

1. Is is good for me (or for my business) ?
2. Is it good for the client (is this something they will praise my business for) ? 
3. Is is good for the greater good (am I doing this for the right reasons) ?

Email is a great thing and in many cases can be a time saver however in most offices it is the biggest time wasting inactive activity. Never answer your email more than twice a day or you will find yourself in an email conversation. Before long you will find you have wasted hours of time responding only to be hit with another 2 or 3 emails with more questions.

I strongly suggest you only check emails twice a day and that you take off your pop up email flag. THINK: Every time you are distracted you take time to refocus. If this happened 15 -30 times a day think of all the time you have wasted being distracted. 

When answering your email take no longer than one hour and in many cases less. The biggest mistake people make with email is that they answer it ! I know that sounds funny but if Jenny sent you an email about her quote with several questions within the email do not stop find out the answers and answer her as that could take a long time – in fact you could spend all your allocated email time answering Jenny’s email and not even get to the 20 other emails you have. 

You could do many things and most people would spend the time answering Jenny. However this is not time effective unless it takes you less that 5 minutes to answer her email. If it will take you longer then I suggest you do one of two things.

1. You could answer Jenny thanking her for her email and telling her you will get back to her by end of business tomorrow with the answers (knowing that you can answer later in the day but give yourself time)
2. You could print out the email and add it to your “to do list” then call her leaving her a message after you have finished you allotted time blocked for emails. Whichever way you proceed the key is to continue with your emails in allotted time and not get stuck with one client.

Social media is another time waster. I know that many small business owners spend a large amount of time using Facebook or Linked in. I had one client Jane who I was coaching who could spend hours on social media without any results. This is like any activity you do in your business you must work out the cost of the activity. When we worked out the cost of this activity for Jane we found she could have hired a team of experts to set up her sales funnel and do all her social media for half of what it was costing her to do it herself. 

It is not to say social media or any activity you do in your business is not worth while. It is to say work out how worthwhile it is to you and what exactly it is costing you. Your time is money as that is all you have to trade.

Be smart with your time and aware what it costs you for each activity that you do. Before you sit at your computer or go to your office plan what you want to achieve in that day and the priority of each task. Prior to booting up my computer I write on a sticky note the two or three tasks I want to do and the time on which I will do them in. I stick it to the screen and I achieve them without distraction. If they are important then I unplug, turn off phones and motor through them. I always start with the task that is causing me the most amount of procrastination (my big ugly frog) If I have a large task I remember that old question 

“How do you eat an Elephant ? One spoonful at a time”