The following is a guest post from John Brubaker, consultant, speaker, and award winning author.
This is GUARANTEED to increase your wealth
If you’ve either heard me speak, read my books or subscribed to my eNews for any length of time, you’ve heard me say this phrase “Your time is your wealth”. Well, if you want to become wealthier you need to take better control of your time. Time management is really behavior management. You are managing your energy and the choices you make which are both types of behaviors. You can choose to be efficient just as easily as you can choose to be disorganized. You can choose to focus and concentrate on W.I.N. (What’s Important Now) or you can waste your time on activities that do not add value to your life. The choice is yours.
For a lot of people time management is a mental block. The single best way to get rid of this mental block is to simply make a commitment to executing a system. Management expert W. Edwards Deming once said:
“If you can’t describe what you’re doing as a process then you don’t know what you’re doing.”
Truer words were never spoken and I believe this quote applies to all aspects of how we work, live, and play. Sales people who utilize a process (any type of process) are exponentially more successful than those who don’t. Navy SEALS have the lowest combat fatality rate in the military in large part because they have a process for handling every possible scenario and are exceptionally disciplined and trained.
These two professions also share one common trait, they are fiercely protective and mindful of their time, in everything they do. You can train yourself to be equally successful with time management by utilizing a process. All you need are 31 manila folders, 14 hanging files–and a little discipline.
The 45 file system can be used in conjunction with the Annual Time Block Tool I shared in last week’s eNews. The 45 file system is a strategy, I learned from fellow author Brian Tracy. Like the Time Block tool, it’s a simple method of organizing your time and your schedule for up to two years in advance. This system handles the day to day activities and the time block tool covers the big picture activities and sacred dates on your calendar.
* If you’re a “paperless” person, this exact same system can also be used by creating a file of 45 folders on your computer. To seamlessly integrate your smartphone, desktop & laptop save the files “in the cloud” for access from any device.
The 45 file system lets you plan and organize your activities and projects for the next 36 months.
How to set it up:
- Get a box of 45 manila folders and 14 hanging files to put them into.
- The 45 files are divided as follows: Create 31 file folders numbered 1-31 for the days of the month.
- Next create 12 hanging file folders labeled January through December for the months of the year.
- The last two hanging file folders files are for the next two years, label them 2013 & 2014.
How to use it:
When you have an appointment or responsibility for 6 months from now, you simply drop it into that monthly file. At the beginning of each month, you take out all of your responsibilities for that month and sort them into your daily files, numbered one through thirty-one. Each day, you take out the file for that day and that becomes the starting point of your planning.
This time management system is like taking out an insurance policy. It takes just a couple of minutes to set up but it then insures that you’ll never miss a deadline or appointment, never forget to follow up on a task and your organizational skills will dramatically.
[box]About the Author
John Brubaker is a nationally renowned performance consultant, speaker and award winning author. John teaches audiences how to obtain better results in business with straightforward tools that turbo charge performance.
Using a multidisciplinary approach, John helps organizations and individuals develop their competitive edge. Brubaker is the award winning author of The Coach Approach: Success Strategies From The Locker Room To The Board Room and co-author of the book Leadership: Helping Others To Succeed. He is also the host of Maximum Success: The Coach Bru Show on NBC Sports Radio Boston. Brubaker was recently cited as one of Forbes Magazine’s Top 10 Consultants Who Avoid The B.S.
John is a graduate of Fairleigh Dickinson University with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and he also earned a master’s degree in personnel psychology from FDU. Brubaker has completed his doctoral coursework in Sport Psychology at Temple University.
Learn more at www.coachbru.com[/box]
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