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The two hour challenge!

Written by: Jeff Gill

Article Overview: Here's a question to all business owners, could you run your business on just two hours of your time a day? In fact, could you make it even more successful?

The two hour challenge!

You may be surprised to know that female entrepreneurs are often more successful than their male counterparts. One reason being they have had to learn how to manage their time astonishingly better because they are often juggling many other priorities in addition to their business ones. Consequently they have got incredibly good at getting excellent results in short amounts of time and this means holding a different mind set about how they manage their time. Instead of ‘to do lists’, they are thinking about what high impact business results they need to have achieved at the end of just two hours and then doing it! This is quite different thinking to the person who has eight hours plus a day to devote to their business. In fact for many who like to think they own and run their business the reality is the other way around because their business owns and runs them! (I bet this wasn’t what they had in mind when they started out). They may spend from 9 to 5 working ‘in’ their business (being an employee!) and when everyone else goes home they fit in the extra time to work ‘on’ their business by doing the essential business development activities such as strategic planning and marketing that lead to the high impact results like for example doubling turnover.

So here is the challenge, could you run your business on two hours of your time a day and even make it more successful? Now maybe you don’t want to do this or even think it’s possible, however just working towards it will help you to significantly manage your time better. Did you know for example that a ‘manager’ is interrupted on average every 7 minutes which as well as being frustrating stops them from processing and storing information effectively. Consequently they make more mistakes or have to start all over again after each interruption. Now that can’t be good time management!

If you want to work towards the ‘two hour’ challenge or simply improve your time management then how would you need to think differently? What results would you need to achieve in two hours? What might you have to stop doing? What habits would you need to change? To improve your time management here are some powerful tips which will help you get stunning results when you apply them consistently over time.

Each day say NO to something you habitually say YES to and say YES to something you usually say NO to because you haven’t the time. (Choose to say NO to activities of lesser importance that you feel are not best use of your time and choose to say YES to activities of greater importance that achieve more and feel more fulfilling). For example you could say NO to someone who asks you to do something they should be doing for themselves and instead say YES to spend your time working on a key project. Try using the YES/NO Switch outside of work as well, for example one evening you may choose to say NO to watching TV and YES to going for a walk. While this won’t initially save you time it does mean you are switching some of your time to engage in more important and meaningful activity which over time means you achieve more. As you learn to say NO more often this will further safe guard your time and create the possibility for having more of it – now would that be good? For a free time management information pack email me today: info@betterbalance.co.uk

If you combine the YES/NO Switch with the ‘later rather than sooner’ principle you will get dramatic results even quicker. Often we give up the spaces in our diaries too cheaply. Perhaps someone wants an appointment, so we look ahead, find the first available space and fill it. The space was empty because there were no other appointments booked in but the space did represent the time we had free ‘in reserve’ for other things. Habituate early space filling and your diary will always be jam packed as you squeeze in one more thing after another at the expense of your own time and space. If this strikes a chord then what might happen if you reversed this habit by offering people ‘later’ appointments and keeping more of your ‘sooner’ spaces free? This is ‘wise procrastination’ which may sound crazy but often people are OK to wait a while to see you, of course there will be some genuine times when it’s not appropriate but these maybe less frequent than you think? You could also apply this to meetings, agreeing deadlines, promises for early delivery or taking on extra work. Better a promise for later that’s kept and with a quality outcome than bursting at the seams trying to please everyone all the time with the consequences of overload, mistakes and letting people down. Quite often ‘later rather than sooner’ or even NO is better for everyone concerned.

I am guessing that if you are an individual who is serious about wanting to manage your time better then you will want to discover the secrets of time management that most people don’t even know about. If that’s the case I have an incredible offer to help you do just that. To find out more simply email me today to be eligible for the offer and receive your free information pack, there is limited availability so its first come first served! info@betterbalance.co.uk

Jeff Gill ICF Coach

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Article Tags: business development activities, business results, eight hours, extra time, female entrepreneurs, good time management, high impact, impact business, impact results, interruption, male counterparts, marketing, priorities, strategic planning, turnover



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