How to get 80% more done with 20% of the time !

“You want to know how you’re going to win this year? Crush short term operations, and maximize your long term strategies!” — Matthew Gourley

Immediate and Tremendous Action

One of the best ways to begin your ultimate productivity journey is to begin taking tremendous action starting right now! Begin today and figure the rest out as you go!

Many Business Owners, Sales Professionals, and people looking to build something great wait for the “perfect” time to begin. The reality is, there is no perfect time to begin!

Everything I have learned has been a lesson from failure, tweaking, failure, tweaking, failure, tweaking, and then success! It’s a process, and a long process at that!

Get out there, begin your journey, stumble through the cave until you find light and come out the other side a champion!

The 80/20 rule and the task list

Creating task lists every single day is by far one of the most productive methods of staying on track, on topic, and relentlessly focused.

Staying on task by deciding what it is you need to do, and then choosing the things that are going to get your there the fastest is one of the best productivity methods of any productive individual!

Picking from your entire list the top 20% of the most effective “to-do’s” in your day is going to have a tremendous impact on your days results!

Decide what is most important, and do exactly that!

What earns you the most free time? Do that.

Anything that is going to free up the most time in your day needs to be a priority.

If you stay focused on your hardest tasks, which are often the most time consuming first, it’s going to give you the free time to tackle other, smaller projects that are starting to build up in your week!

Train others.

Delegation is an effective method of getting anything done! If you’re in some kind of Management position, delegation is what sets good Managers from GREAT managers!

However, the single greatest thing you can do for your time as a Manager is training someone else to do your job for you!

Cross training is not only a tremendous way to award a hard working employee, which improves morale in that team member, but giving them an expectation is an incredibly fast way to free up the time you need on far more important topics!

Make targets and work toward them daily

Goal setting is paramount to success, writing down those goals makes targets a real thing, tangible to the eye, and something that will sit in your subconscious for years.

The reason you want written targets is simply because they’re always going to be in the back of your mind! They will present themselves in every one of your actions and will allow you to strive for something greater than simply making a couple of bucks in the day or on the fly “spending time with your loved ones.”

Keeping them top of mind requires that you either read them or write them down daily (I find keeping them taped to my bathroom mirror is a good way of doing that).

Sell your television.

Running through 1000 episodes on the never ending supply of great shows Netflix has come out with is a great way to relieve boredom, but it’s not a great way to ANYTHING done.

The temptation can be tremendous, we’re creatures of habit and comfort. We don’t want to reach outside of our comfort zones and screen addiction is the number one cause for lost productivity.

Sell your TV so that temptation is completely gone! Not only are you going to get more done, but it’s going to force you to spend more time on your physical well being and more importantly, it will give you more time to focus on things outside of your productive role… like your family.

Get out of the inbox.

Checking your emails is a necessary part of your job. Checking them once or twice a day will keep you focused on getting everything else done!

Too many people consider scrolling their email box, waiting for something to pop up, doing “actual work”.

This simply, and unfortunately isn’t true. Your inbox is not going to complete what you need to complete in the day and needs to be prioritized at the bottom of your to do list as a 12PM activity and an end of the day activity.

Get yourself “out” of your “inbox” and I promise your mind is going to find a tremendous resource of better things to do.

Systems, Systems, and more systems.

Creating productivity systems so that you can get things done faster is a tremendous way of making your day the pièce de résistance of ultimate productivity. Examples might include:

Writing things down in lists for you to do.

Writing things down in lists for others to do.

Scheduling out your day once you’ve determined your most productive tasks.

Getting into the habit of doing something daily so you might exercise the muscles you’re using to accomplish your tasks.

Systems are ultimately going to allow you to create “patterns of focus” so that you can have a more successful day and, as a result, the best weeks and years you’ve ever had!

Avoid time vampires

There are people that will want to sneak a “minute or two” from your day. These people, unknown to them, also throw you off track in the most effective way possible.

Don’t be afraid to raise a finger and tell them to wait a minute until you can accomplish what it is you’re doing.

I’ve taken time to tell my staff in the past, that I have an open door policy, unless the door is closed. It’s rarely closed, but when it is, they know that I’m doing something that requires a tremendous amount of focus from me so they don’t disrupt.

You should be accessible as a Manager especially, it builds morale in your team knowing they can reach out, but a physical barrier is a fast way to let those around you know that you aren’t allowing time to be “sucked” out of your day!

Start saying “No” a little bit more

Becoming a “Yes” person, is a fast way to get absolutely nothing accomplished!

Try saying “No” a little bit more unless you know that it is within the realm of things that you are truly the best at, you know, those tasks we enjoy doing, are fast at, and excel in?

The ares that you are the best at are going to be tremendous focal points for your days overall success. Not only because you enjoy them. But people are going to get to know why you’re good at them!

You enjoy them more, people know what you don’t like doing and what you’re really not good at, and pretty soon you’re only doing the things that you excel at above all else!

Routine Bedtime

I don’t personally believe in the “Early bird gets the worm” mantra. But I do believe in a routine bedtime!

Everyone has their own circadian rhythm (the areas in the day where they are the most energetic). If you’re able (and most of us aren’t — I’ll get to that in a minute) focus on a sleep routine that suites you best.

Personally, I don’t like getting up until about 8:30AM which is a far cry from the 5AM start time preached by many of the gurus I’ve listened to over the years!

I can’t even function until I’ve a had a good breakfast and a coffee in me and then I’m ready to rock and roll until well into 2AM! That’s when things start to slow down again!

If you can’t do this because of a work schedule, learn to pay attention to when you have the most energy in the day, and tackle the most important task during those windows!

60/15 Rule

The 60/15 rule of productivity is a “Time Block” strategy I have used since I was in University. Focusing in big blocks with short breaks in between, is an incredible way to get more than you’ve ever thought accomplished!

The process is simple, work like a dog, no distractions, no Social Media “Not-working” no emails, just the tasks that are going to help you focus on the most important things in front of you first.

Taking short “mental breaks” where you allow yourself non-productivity gives your mind a break from the things that you need to accomplish most.

Use every hour of everyday

The strategy is simple, create a task list for the day. Figure out what you’re going to do. Prioritize them with letters or numbers from most important to least important and then go into your journal or day planner and map out your day as to the estimated amount of time a certain task is going to take.

Want to take a step up? Try to beat your times so you can allow yourself to get to the next things on your task! It challenges you in a way that your boss or co-workers never will, you get more done, and you free up time to accomplish even more of the things you want to do!

Learn from others

“Everyone you will ever meet, knows something that you don’t!” — Bill Nye

Learning from other peoples lessons and knowing the pain and the success that they had to go through in order to accomplish something great allows you to do a couple of things.

The first, is that it allows you to emulate them. Pablo Picasso said “Good artists create, great artists steal.” Now, I’m not encouraging outright plagiarism here, but I am encouraging that seeking inspiration from others who have traveled the same path as you is an incredible way to put your own “art” into the things you are trying to create!

The second, is that it’s going to help you avoid the mistakes that they have also made. If you know there is oncoming pain at some point, then you’re significantly better equipped to either avoid it, or hit it face on!

The person before you is trying to share their lessons. Go forth and conquer without all of the loss!

Be bold, have courage.

Sometimes the biggest challenge is the first step! Taking the first toward something new is oftentimes the most terrifying thing we do as human beings! It tears us outside of our comfort zone and puts us into a state of paralysis.

Being bold, having 20 seconds of unreal bravery is often all it takes to unlock new and exciting challenges in front of us! Taking a chance and just “doing it” is sometimes the best advice we can possibly hear.

Yes, it’s that simple. No, it’s not going to be easy! But I’ve got you! :P

Time to unload

Make sure that you’re making some time for yourself!

Not spending enough time, or really making any time for the things that you enjoy the most is a tremendous way to many mental dysfunctions later on down the line and losing your path!

Even if it is just taking 30 minutes at the end of your day to read, it’s something that you truly enjoy and will keep you refreshed during the longer hours where procrastination creeps up!

A method that I’ve used in the past is simply not allowing yourself to take “you time” if you know that you were “slacking” a little bit that day. That you didn’t really do your full potential and maybe took a little more time scrolling through Facebook than you should have!

Just make sure that if you notice a trend of repeated neglect on doing the things you enjoy most, can lead to a lack of productivity that you need in order to accomplish everything in your greater vision!

Check out our FREE E-Book “30 Sales and Marketing Mindset Hacks” on the home page of www.salestraininc.com for more great tips on how to maximize your sales, and crush your competition!

Matthew Gourley is the Owner of Salestraininc and has been teaching Salespeople & Business Owners how to dominate their marketplace, grow their incomes, and crush their competition! Contact his office at 403–331–5229 to do the same!