How to be Disciplined and Prioritize Your Time (and yourself!)

Time Management for Business Owners Pt. III

“Time management requires self-discipline, self-mastery, and self-control more than anything else”

- Brian Tracy

Now that you know where you are SPENDING YOUR TIME, you can begin to segment and prioritize your tasks.

Chances are that after looking at your analysis, you are going to need to make some adjustments in order to hit your TIME TARGET.

How do I choose where to spend my time?

Use your goals to focus

Having a clear understanding of your goals and making sure they are measurable allows you to get laser focused on where to spend your time most effectively.

Think of it like this:

-  Your 3-4 big goals for the quarter are the RESULTS (outputs) that you are looking for.

So, what are the TASKS (inputs) that need to happen for you to get those results?

Make a list of these:

A’s Most important tasks, must be done by you

These are essential tasks that require your knowledge and abilities to be completed and must be completed to hit your goals.

These will be a combination of Not Urgent & Important tasks (being proactive about working ON the business) and Urgent & Important tasks (operational tasks that require your skillset).

B’s

These are tasks that need to get done, but are not imperative to be done today.

Think of the things on your to-do list that can be carried over.

Ultimately the longer they stay on your list, they will either become A tasks that you need to make a priority or a C task that you delegate to your employees.

C’s Automatically delegate to your team

This is where most business owners get bogged down. You know that you shouldn’t be the one to be doing these tasks.

They do not require your level of expertise and they do not help you to focus on the big picture.

You need to learn to let them go or create better systems so that your employees can take over these tasks more easily.

Discipline and Self-Development

Reallocating your time to maximize your productivity is a huge challenge, which is why so many of us struggle with it.

It will require stepping out of your comfort zone, understanding the areas that you need to improve and developing new habits.

There are many studies with different conclusions, but building a new habit takes between 30-60 days.

This means this is something you are really going to need to commit to if you want meaningful, sustainable change.

Understanding Yourself

This starts with understanding who you are as a person.

What are your strengths and weaknesses?

Are you the type of person to chase shiny objects or get bogged down with analysis paralysis?

Using assessment tools like DISC or Clifton Strength Finder can give you a lot of clarity on what structures and support you need to create to be most effective.

From there you can begin to craft new habits.

“Atomic Habits” by James Clear is a great book on building and sustaining habits.

HomeFUN

- Create a list of all the TASKS (inputs) that need to be accomplished for you to hit your 3-4 big goals for the quarter

- Segment where you are spending your time (and the additional tasks you identified above) in A, B, and C tasks

- Get clear on what you need to work on in terms of self-development

- Take the DISC or Clifton Strength Finder assessment (we can help with this!)