How to Optimize Your Time This Week to Get Ideal Results
Mar 28, 2022As fall seasons are starting up, I am always reminded that the reality of today’s coaching world is that we must achieve great results within less time and not enough resources.
I think a big key for coaches is to figure out how to optimize the time and resources that you do have, both professionally and personally, in a manner that will yield the most ideal results.
As you are hopefully using this time tonight to plan for a successful next week, the following list is a brief guide designed to help you prioritize tasks and work more efficiently as you aim towards accomplishing your goals this week.
- Record Planned Activities- Make a list of everything that you must accomplish for the day and/or week in order to achieve optimum results
- Determine Primary Goals- List your primary goals for the day or the week
- Consider the 80/20 Rule- Determine which 20% of activities will yield 80% the results, bringing you closest to your goals.
- Evaluate Important vs. Urgent- Determine which activities are important, and which are imperative, or even urgent. Consider how certain tasks affect others, and the consequences for failing to complete them
- Rank- Use a ranking system to begin planning: “A” tasks have high priority and must be completed immediately “B” tasks are moderately important but can be done after the “A” tasks “C” tasks are of low-level importance and can be tackled in your spare time
- Create a Schedule- Establish deadlines for each task and estimate the time required to complete each task. Create a schedule and look for opportunities to multitask. For example, can you couple something of lesser priority with something of greater importance?
- Re-evaluate Goals and Adjust Review your goal(s), envision the finish line and adjust your plan.
- Purge Eliminate those tasks on your list that remain at the bottom and realistically will never get done.
A key to making this work is to be consistent with it. Can you block off 30 minutes in your schedule to go through this 8 step process every night? When you do this, you will find pretty quickly that you will feel more in control, and you will actually start making the progress you want to be making towards accomplishing your big goals. Good luck.
P.S. If you have found this article helpful, please share it with your staff or other work colleagues! Studying time and energy management over these last 8 years and applying it to my coaching and recruiting has been a game changer for me. I am committed to helping coaches get more important work done in less time so more time can be spent with family and friends. Thanks!
