Are you constantly struggling to find more time to finish your work?
Do you constantly lose focus and get impatient when things are slow?
Do you feel that you are ineffective sometimes and do not bring results to whatever you do?
If the answer YES to any of these statements above, this article might just change your life!
Everyone is busy nowadays. There are more things to do and problem is that we still have the same 24 hours! Being an entrepreneur and a business owner, I constantly find myself doing a lot of different things that demand my attention.
Everyone and everything seems to be so important or urgent that I almost felt that I was going to break down. There was even a time when I could not sleep for four days in a row, thinking about work and the stress of not getting enough sales.
However, when I understood the following principles, my life started to re-stabilise and I felt in control of things. These are some of the things that are taught in my training and let me share with you my experience and lessons learnt:
1. Decide On what NOT to do
Most people know there are many more things that they have to do, however, not many actually know what NOT to do. Time is limited and therefore we must always ask ourselves, what is something I can do less?
For me, I seek to eliminate ineffectiveness in my life (this was what I was), eg. checking emails 8-12 times a day, doing little or no value work, writing ideas on loose sheets of paper instead of putting everything in a note book, constantly finding things. I realised that elimination is important to remove clutter in my life.
One great way I saved a lot of time is to only check emails thrice a day. Morning at 10am, 1pm (after lunch) and 4pm. This helps to clear things in a quick matter and not being constantly distracted and seeing if anyone has emailed me.
2. Outsource part of your work
Once I got rid of the inefficient things in my life, I started to look at the quality of work that I am paid to do. I decided that anything repetitive could always be outsourced. Anything that was logistics and administration in nature (preparing files, name tags, attendance confirmation of participants and etc), I tried to out-source them to part-timers to do simple filing and even hired someone to look after this portion of my business.
Consider using strategic partners to help you in your work as well, eg. courier services, programmers, marketing collaterals, design work. I realised that successful people often outsource work that are not within their core business, while ineffective people often want to do everything! The internet offers a large variety of options and good prices for out-sourcing options. Check out elance.com or getafreelancer.com or ideas on what can be out-sourced. Almost EVERYTHING can be out-sourced, including bathing your cat or buying flowers for your wife!
3. Master The Art of Delegating your work
Delegation is an important art that most people do not understand. We delegate work out and monitor results and not actually how work is to be done. People that we delegate to should always have the freedom to choose how they want to do it without being micro-managed by their supervisors.
Decide on what results you want and be clear about it. One simple question I constantly ask myself is “What are the signs that I have to see in order to know whether he/she has achieved the results?” This forces me to be clear about my expectations and also manage people according to results.
Conclusion
Outsourcing and Delegation has become the buzz word of the 21st century. The question is not why, but when. Take charge of it right now so that you can be effective and concentrate on what you do best! This will result in more satisfaction in your life and money pouring in!
Remember, the DOD principle: Decide-Outsource-Delegate!
Photo credit: Janet Sharp, Flickr
