Issue 1.19 of Unleashing Your Remarkable Potential with Kevin Eikenberry -

Unleashing Your Remarkable Potential
Issue 1.19 - December 8th, 2004 - ISSN: 1551-6571

In Kevin's Own Words

Beyond Time Management - Seven Ways to Leverage Your Time for Greater Results

Most of us have a to-do list – some of us have a very long one! While a to-do list is a valuable tool to help us stay on track for the urgent tasks of the day (and while there are many ways to improve your production and use of this list), that isn’t the focus of this article.

This article isn’t about managing your time. It is about taking the limited time resources we have and determining how to leverage that time for greater results in our lives. When we use a lever we use specific, correct actions to create great results. That is what we all want to do with our time --find the activities that will create greater results -- personal, professional, business, financial, or others in our lives.

Listen to Kevin's thoughts on Staying on Task.

To use this lever we have to go beyond our daily to-do list. This lever will require 30 or preferably 60 minutes of your time each day. Considering the returns (leverage) you will get on this investment, it will be time well spent.

Exercise. We all know it is important for our health. Exercise, whether it is walking, running, weights, or some other regimen, makes us more fit, creates energy, gives us time to be with our thoughts, and releases valuable enzymes into our bloodstream. This is a highly leveraged activity. We all know its benefits, but do we do it?

Engage in your hobby. Hobbies are opportunities to learn. They keep our minds, and in many cases our bodies, active. Hobbies allow us to divert our attention from the workings of our day and allow us practice focus on a single task. Most of all, hobbies create joy. Do you have a hobby that could be your greatest time lever?

Develop a new skill. Learn how to juggle. Play a new game. Pick up a musical instrument. Or paint landscapes. Perhaps this skill is related to your hobby (or will become your hobby), or is work related, it doesn’t matter. Developing new skills keeps us learning, keeps our minds active and allows us to learn other things faster. What you learn about yourself and how to learn better is the great by-product of this activity.

Work on a goal. Do your short or long term goals get enough attention on your to-do list each day? How much progress would you make towards any goal in your life if you spent 30 – 60 minutes on it each day? Invest the time, and see the power of leverage in action.

Read. Read for learning or read for pleasure. Read relating to your hobby, or your goal. Just read. Reading will provide opportunities to learn and see things in a new light. Reading keeps your mind active. Reading gives you new ideas and information to when solving problems. Reading gives your subconscious mind time to relax while you engage in a useful and enjoyable activity.

Think and write. Many of us don’t take time to think. To think about our values, our beliefs, the challenges we face, the events of our day, or just to think.. Take time to reflect on your behavior, your results, your challenges – take time to think so that you can go through your day in a more proactive, thought-filled way. Consider using a journal or your computer as a way to stimulate and help your thinking. What you write may be designed to be shared, or just designed for you. Thinking and writing go hand in hand. If no one ever reads what you write, the process of writing has clarified and strengthened your thinking.

Be present with your family or friends. This doesn’t mean sitting in the same room watching television (or at least not only this!). Listen to them. Learn about their day. Show your caring through your actions. Use this time to get out of yourself and into the lives of others you care about.

Each of the suggestions above can be a lever to catapult us forward. Each will help you think clearer, plan better, learn more, create energy and generate greater focus. These are the reasons they are such highly leveraged activities!

You may be reading and saying, I wish I could do all of those things each day – but that would be seven hours a day – I wouldn’t get anything else done! Drop that thought and focus. Let your intuition guide you to the one or two of these that you will do each day, or alternate days, that will have the greatest impact for you. Don’t let the fact that you can’t do them all keep you from doing the one or two that will be the greatest lever for you.

These are powerful levers to help you achieve greater joy satisfaction and results in your life. I wish you great success in applying them – starting today.

Yours in learning,

Kevin

You Ask...Kevin Answers

"Help me Kevin, I’m overwhelmed. I know I need to delegate things to others around me, but too often I feel if I don’t do it, it won’t get done right. Where do I start?"

- Name Withheld

Start by getting over yourself. People who don’t delegate often believe that no one can do it as well as they can so they don’t have anyone else do it. Worry less about having it done the way you would have done it, and focus on the desired results of the work. When you let people know what the end goal is and what the criteria for success are (that doesn’t include “Doing it just like I would”) people will succeed.

As for the other major delegation excuse – “it takes longer to show them than to do it myself” – let go of that one too. The time investment might be as great just to delegate but for a task that is repeated, once the person learns it, you never invest any more time and the delegation proves to be a great way to invest your time initially.

Delegation is a habit and like any habit, to develop it you must do it. But that doesn’t mean you have to start by delegating a multi-million dollar project first! Build your skills of delegation with smaller tasks; practice letting go of your need to control, and strengthening your ability to create trust in others by giving them control.

In the end you will be less overwhelmed, (or overwhelmed about higher priority items – but that’s for another day), and will have developed a more confident and competent team at the same time.

If you have question you want Kevin to answer in a future issue, please ask it.

Another Perspective

Top 7 Rules of Time Management
By Michael Niles

There are the golden rules that apply to time. If followed, your life will be successful. If you ignore these, however, you will always be scratching to catch up. Do not be one of the people you always here say "I don't know where the time went, it just flew by!" You can design your future, much like an architect designs a building. Start small, and work your way to the big things. Prioritize events and meetings in advance and stick to it. Things will always come up, so be vigilant, you will catch yourself doing un-productive things. The more you are "tuned in" to these events, the more you can do about it!

Time is fleeting. Think about it...the moment you started reading this is gone, never to be regained. It seems we get so caught up in petty circumstances that we forget what we set out to do, and before you know it, the day is gone!
Time is valuable. You always have time to make money; but you can never have enough money to make time!
Time is unforgiving. The amazing thing about your time; even through no fault of your own, even ‘wasted’ time will never stand still.
Time is money. You must be constantly asking yourself, “Am I doing the most productive thing I can be doing right now?" Watch out for those ‘wasted’ moments we were talking about earlier.
Time is changing. We all must constantly renew our minds, and let the past be just that...the past! It can't help you now, aside from the learning experience, don't dwell on it.
Time is the ultimate judge. We have all heard "time will tell." Well, there is some truth to that, as the future has a way of finding any flaw in the plan. Pre-planning will save massive amounts of your precious commodity called time.
Time is in your control. We can all be more in control of our day and how we spend it. Today should have been planned out yesterday, and tomorrow should be thought about today.

Michael Niles is a Seattle-based Sales Trainer and speaker. He can be reached at 206-229-3119, or www.focussalestraining.com.

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