January 13, 2017 by

Would You Like To Have More Time?

Why don’t our goals or resolutions get accomplished? Many of my initial client conversations on this topic begin with –“No time! I really do not have any time for it!”

Really? Would you like to have more time?

Would you like to have more time?Think about how many demands there are on your time. We are all so really, so very busy people aren’t we? In fact, take a moment and either on your device or a good old pad of paper take note of the ten things pulling at your time right now. Quickly, just ten things – write them out.

How do you determine which items to address immediately and which are the ones that can wait until later? 

For many of us responding to a text or an email is a priority, Why is that? Seriously how did that happen?  What we are doing is allowing a demand on our time to jump our determined line of importance because a message has been delivered electronically!

Many of us will determine to address items in an order based upon the topic.

  1. A family emergency – this would take priority over most other items for many  people. An emergency is not that your nine year old daughter left her lunch on the school bus.  If you have an assistant hopefully they handled how she might buy lunch that day at school and you don’t even know about it at all until later.
  2. If you are in charge of a group of people, their leader, any time one of them has an important item to discuss with you or a situation where they may need your guidance or input, hopefully you have set up a way for their issue or concern to move right up to the top of your list. By responding with questions they will need to answer and essentially solve their problems themselves, over time, you will be contacted less and less often.
  3. Your role may be to bring in new business, or to handle any current client engagements, or you may be in charge of a project. Each day you should have regularly scheduled calls or meetings. However, if there is an issue you will want to deal with it as soon as possible and this must move up on your list.
  4. Maybe you are the business owner. A service based business or a retail business. Your number one priority has to be spending most of you time engaged in income producing activities. Period. There is no discussion. “Well, Mitch, you just don’t understand – my market – my business – my situation..…” 

Use the contact form here and tell your story. Let’s see it. 

At this point you get the idea, how do you set your own priorities for what you do first with your precious time? Now for anyone who is convinced they have zero time to work on or to devote to any new or bigger goals – here is your assignment.

For two weeks from the time you wake up in the morning until you go to bed each night, write down in a few words exactly what you did for the last twenty minutes. Period. Each and everyday for the next two weeks. For every single twenty minutes all day long. Bring this reporting with you to the table and review it with either a close, friend, your partner, spouse or executive coach and ask this question – 

“How much time do I have to spend on achieving bigger goals and my own personal development?”

My bet on you is hours!  As in hours each day!

Ready to Find It?

Mitch Tublin owns a boutique consulting firm with a main focus on leadership development, business consulting and executive coaching. Based in Stamford, CT they serve clients all over the world.

Filed Under: Achieve Goals, Inspiration, Self Improvement, Time Management Tagged With: , , , , , ,
April 8, 2016 by

Do You Measure Yours?

Do you measure yours?Seriously, do you measure yours?

Measuring and comparing are essential to moving up, growing and becoming more successful. One example my coaching clients often hear from me when they respond to my question: “And when will you start this…?”

With the answer: “One day soon.” OR “One day next week.”

“Really? Take a second and show me on your watch where it says, one day soon or one day next week? How about a specific date, and a specific time?”

Basically if you cannot measure it – it didn’t happen! If you are not able to measure it – you will not make it happen and no one is able to hold you accountable! Seriously, do you measure yours?

How many meetings have been ended where action items were not assigned to anyone? Or even if action items were assigned to people no one was assigned to hold each person accountable. Plus the date and time for execution was not part of the assignment either?

This is the difference between a meeting taking place to fill up calendar space and a top notch, first class meeting taking place! Therefore the question is: Do you measure yours?

  • Do you measure your actual results?
  • Do you measure how you spend your time?
  • Do you measure what your time is worth?
  • Do you measure what you actually earned per hour for the first quarter of 2016?
  • Do you measure your time better spent and available to be utilized on higher payoff activities?
  • Do you measure how many people you typically must call on or contact in order to obtain an appointment? A signed deal? A signed check?
  • Do you measure the results you are achieving this year compared to last year?

Okay a small reprieve to permit some recovery time, like in spin class, a little rest.

Doesn’t everyone look at the number of people someone has on their LinkedIn profile when they are checking them out? How about on Facebook or other social media? This is measuring – isn’t it? Now you know your numbers for your social media platforms – right? Oh, by the way, the break is over.

What are your conversion numbers from your social media presence? In terms of engagement and moving into your web site or customer relationship category.

All of this is measuring yours!

Start to assess what metrics will provide you with the information to assist you in obtaining the results you desire.

If this sounds too daunting of a task – begin with your time. Track your time and what you are doing with it. Begin here for a month – track and record what you are doing every fifteen minutes of each and every single day.

At the end of each week color code your time against high payoff activities or time spent on things only you must do and no one else is capable of doing. For everything else either hire in someone to do these items, stop doing them and replace your newly found time with high payoff activities.

Measuring yours is a critical part of becoming great at what you do and may be applied to teams and groups as well.

Mitch Tublin is an advanced, certified coach, business consultant and speaker based in Stamford, CT.

Filed Under: Accountability, Achieve Goals, Business Strategy, Time Management Tagged With: , , , , ,
March 24, 2016 by

What Are Your Highest Payoff Activities?

What Are Your Highest Payoff Activities?What are your highest payoff activities? Sad to say for many people it may be easier to answer this question: What are your lowest payoff activities?

Either one – it is your choice – take a few minutes and write down – yes write like with a pen – your answers. Start out with three for each question. Feel free to return later to add in more onto your list. Want to see the value? Once you complete these go right to the bottom of this article where noted.

My Highest Payoff Activities Are: 

  1. _______________________________________
  2. _______________________________________
  3. _______________________________________

My Lowest Payoff Activities Are: 

  1. _______________________________________
  2. _______________________________________
  3. _______________________________________

 

Now that you have this information here is what you need to – no correct that – MUST DO! Schedule to spend more time on your high payoff activities. Schedule, hire in or eliminate your time spent on low payoff activities. No two people are going to be alike. There will be a few common threads.

Typically a high payoff activity will be in one of your main areas of focus. For your business this may mean sales calls, closing the sale, delivery of your product or service and accepting payment. In your personal life this may mean a date with your spouse each week on date night. Keeping your relationship alive and thriving. In your spiritual or faith area this may mean attending church or leading a bible study class or both. In your community maybe you volunteer serving meals in a shelter a few hours a week or a month. These may be high payoff activities for someone.

For the low payoff activities it is easiest to spend a week or two writing down how you are spending every fifteen minutes from the time you wake up until the time you go to bed. You may find the amount of time spent in front of the TV to be on the top of your list. The amount of time on the internet without a purpose or a plan may be a close one to the TV depending upon your age. Include time on social media and this includes utilizing your smart phone and this will easily come into first place. There is nothing wrong with spending time on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social media as long as there is a reason, a purpose and a plan. Otherwise schedule to limit the amount of time you are willing to spend in this arena. Three hours goes by very quickly and these hours never come back.

***RIGHT HERE***

Now calculate the value of your time! Every hour you are spending in the low payoff activities is like you are robbing yourself! Do you fully understand? Go back now and read the article if you skipped that part.

Mitch Tublin is an advanced, certified coach, business consultant and speaker based in Stamford, CT.

Would you ready to work with Mitch to identify your high payoff and low payoff activities and how to leverage yourself and manage your time more effectively CLICK HERE.

Filed Under: Business Planning, Business Strategy, Focus, Self Improvement, Time Management Tagged With: , , , , ,
February 4, 2016 by

Are We All Really That Busy?

Are we all busy people - or is it time managementYou see a person that you know walking by you – does this conversation sound familiar:

“Hey, how are you?“
“Great! Really busy! You?”
“Yeah, me too! Busy, busy.”
“Nice to see you.”
“Yes, same. We should plan to get together – two couples – one day soon.”
“Yeah, let’s do that! Gotta, go!”
“Say hello at home.”
“Will do.”

Aren’t we all so – – – BUSY!

Seriously, what is the deal? Why do we all find that being busy is important and that being busy equates to actually executing and getting important and critical things accomplished?

My proposal to you is to get unplugged everyday as soon as possible. Plan out what you must get accomplished each day and then figure out the priorities and begin to execute the plan for the day. Better yet – plan out the day before you plug in at all!

Right away things that people will bring up and ask about are:

  • checking email
  • checking voicemail
  • reading and responding to text messages

Rather than suggest a full ‘cold turkey’ approach, my suggestion is to set a time and then a time limit each day for these activities.

For Example: Schedule three or four specific times each day for fifteen minutes each in total. During this time check email, texts and voicemail. These times might be at approximately 10 AM – 1 PM – 3 PM – 5:30 PM.

The times – how many there are (two or three or four) – how long exactly is the time period (15, 10, 20 minutes) – is a personal preference.

The point is to set up a schedule with the parameters and then follow it! Adhere to the new schedule. If the 5:30 PM time slot bothers you consider why it bothers you? Are you feeling as if it is too early as you will be working and reading and responding to email all night long at least up until 11 PM? Or is the 5:30 PM time after 5 PM and you only have access to email in your office and you leave every single day at 4:55 PM?

It is not for me to judge how anyone conducts their work. This is about being more efficient, effective and productive in the work we all are doing.The busy work which may creep into anyone’s work habits must be erased. Analyze what really needs to have your focus and time devoted to and spend your time and effort on that and much less time checking your email.

Use the comments area to let me know where you find yourself keeping busy instead of being productive

Mitch Tublin is an advanced certified coach, trainer and speaker based in Stamford, CT.

Filed Under: Business Planning, Life Balance, Time Management Tagged With: , , , , , ,
August 13, 2015 by

Is Productivity In Your Vocabulary?

post-it-noteSomething needs to be done. It must be completed. You started it and now you must finish it. What does it take for you to get it done?

Let’s back up a bit. Let’s take a look at something personal. And let’s take a look at something related to business.

You have always wanted to learn another language. For example – Mandarin or Spanish – how long would this take you to accomplish? How much effort would you place upon achieving this personal goal?

Maybe you need to touch and feel the personal project. For example – your garage has become unmanageable. There are so many boxes and items in the garage you cannot pull a vehicle into it. The project is to clean it out completely. How long would this take you to accomplish? How much effort would you place upon completing this project?

In your business or job there is a project which needs to be outlined – described in detail – written up with an estimated budget. When it was passed over to you for your part last week you were told there was no rush. You know it must be done. How long would this take you to complete? How much effort would you place upon completing this project?

Maybe you are the leader of the project? Same questions for you?

Every single one of us has the same 24 hours each and every day. How we choose to spend our time is where everyone creates their own path.

Generally how would other people, who know you, describe you? Would you be described as a workaholic? A Go-Getter? A person on a mission? A procrastinator?

Do you consider yourself a productive person?

Here are a few ways to make certain each project stays on track and is completed.

The first item is as much as possible complete one project before taking on another one. This is where you are doing the work. Complete the work on the garage before you add in clearing the path by the side of the house from weeds which are overgrowing in the garden.

Secondly is write down the project or goal and how much time on what days you will work on the project.

Third is to bring in another person or a group who will hold you accountable.

Keep the record. Review this record before the next project and then compare notes. Are you using your time more effectively and efficiently? Are there more items to list? Absolutely! Why stop here?

Do these three and do them well, consistently and without stalling and you are 90% there.

Mitch Tublin is an advanced certified executive and personal coach who resides in Stamford, CT.

Want to become more productive or do you know there is something else holding back? The Empowerment Mentoring Series is going to open soon. If you want to be one of the first to hear about it click here.

Filed Under: Time Management Tagged With: , , ,
July 16, 2015 by

Wearables – Do You Track Your Steps, Workouts, Sleep Patterns and More?

Some people are not participating in the current wearables epidemic. Others are certain that this is only the tip of the iceberg and there are way more products to come in terms of wearables technology. Different kinds of products to wear and more that they can track.

The Apple Watch has been getting a lot of attention as it has been rolled out and covered by the media extensively. There are a number of other wearables which are not watches exactly yet, they track many aspects of the life of the person who is wearing them.

Some of the more popular are

These are just a handful of the bands you can wear. There are also a number of shirts which contain the wiring within their material to track you as well. The majority of these devices will download your information into a program you set up so you may track yourself over time as well. A recent article stated women under 50 absolutely love these wearables to track their steps, their calories burned and their sleep patterns.

As you may have suspected, this article is NOT about wearables. At least not these wearables. It is about Daily Productivity. How do you keep track of your Daily Productivity? A person who recently became one of my coaching clients shared her story about lost time on Facebook as she was exploring a quality coach to work with.

She would check email and Facebook the first thing every single morning and the next thing she knew three hours would be gone! Lost forever!

To my knowledge there is not a wearable to help you track what you should be working on and what you should not be working on. However, by working with a coach and designing a method of working which is highly productive and utilizes your time to the maximum, now that is a great start!

My new client is completing her first assignment from me right now as she maps out what she is doing each day for a full week. Every fifteen minutes! What did you do? Have you ever tried this out?

You might take a try and you will be amazed or shocked at what you learn about yourself.

Mitch Tublin is an advanced certified executive and personal coach who resides in Stamford, CT.

Are you interested in becoming more productive or bringing your entire team to a new level of effectiveness and productivity? Connect with Mitch here.

 

Filed Under: Business Planning, Self Improvement, Time Management Tagged With: , , , , ,
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