HOW TO STOP WASTING PRECIOUS TIME by Mike Moore

Twenty four hours a day minus the eight hours we sleep leaves

us with 16 productive hours to accomplish things that need to

be done at home and at work. Of these 16 hours, a lot of time

is wasted due to distractions, interruptions and

disorganization. We just don't manage our

time well.


THE TOP SIX TIME WASTERS


1. Television: We average four hours a day watching

television. If we live to be 72 it works out to 12 solid years

wasted watching TV. This doesn't include time spent on the

internet. SOLUTION? Go on frequent television fasts.


2. Emailing back and forth: Email becomes time consuming when

you consider how often we check it and how frequently we are

involved in sending back and forth messages. A survey was done

by the American Management Association with these results: Of

the 400 business managers polled.....35% use email to

communicate with clients...26% prefer the phone...15% would

rather have face to face meetings. Interesting results when

you consider the time email consumes.


3. Junk mail of the traditional kind. Too much time is wasted

opening and then trashing unwanted mail.


4. Drop in visits: When you are in your office with the door

open you are an open invitation to those with nothing better

to do to drop in for a chat. When they do, they eat up a lot

of your precious time. SOLUTION? Keep your door closed. If you

don't want to close your door arrange

your desk in such a way that people passing by can't see you

and drop in for a visit.


5. Reading every word of every document that crosses your

desk. We are living in the age of information and it seems

that much of it ends up on your desk each day demanding your

attention. If you don't learn how to scan it quickly and

either discard it or place it in your " for further

study" pile you will end up overwhelmed and stressed.


6. Phone calls that are too long and too frequent. Some people

just won't get off the phone and let you get back to work.

SOLUTION? Let people know that it is a bad time and then give

them a better time to call when you can spare a FEW minutes.

Before they call back get an egg timer and put it on your

desk. As soon as their call comes in get the egg timer going

and then see if you are able to bring the conversation to a

conclusion within the three minutes provided by the timer.


The message is clear....TAKE BACK YOUR TIME.

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