Are you allowing TIME to be the enemy in your family business?
Anny and I are working from home today and several things are happening. We have an ongoing ridiculous situation with our comms in the office, it's nearly lunchtime and we are hungry, and the rain has just come down meaning a quick visit outside by both of us when we really need to be doing something else.
We could easily get tetchy…
The back end of November is for us a very busy time and frankly can be stressful if we let it.
We have two of our children’s birthdays and a grandson's birthday this month and of course the whole rigmarole of Christmas shopping for three children and their partners, six grandchildren, parents, friends, neighbours etc.
And of course, it’s silly season for our family business. Now the good news for us is that we are not in a sector where Christmas is the number one time. Even so, it is still busy especially when you are attending networking events, Christmas bashes (including our own), and the now never-ending response to social media etc.
To my knowledge for the last three-plus decades, Time Management courses are invariably quoted as being the most popular of all self-development programmes, invariably listed as number one. The irony, for many people, is they feel they don’t have time to attend one! (Think about it… come on… get with the programme…)
Lack of time means the standards of many businesses go down (I have two cases of this right now) response times seem slower, answers to queries seem to take longer, calls are not returned, faceless holding pattern emails, etc.
All at a point in the calendar when we need to be running faster than ever it appears everyone else might be slowing us down…
What’s the point, Peter?
The one thing in life that is constant is time. We all have the same designated amount, and we all choose what we are going to do with that time.
Remember one vital thing – WE CAN’T GET TIME BACK!
No matter how hard we try once it’s gone it's gone, just like the latest offer in Aldi or Lidl!
Except it's far more important than that.
Let me ask you this question - ‘Seriously how much time has been wasted in your life today?’
More importantly - ‘Was it you that allowed the time to be wasted?’
In my experience we are our own greatest time wasters because we allow things to distract us, however small, we lose focus and become less productive. If you have staff and multiply the lost time and lost opportunity cost, it would probably frighten both you and them!
A couple of things you can do…
Go on a Time Management course.
Stop being scared to say NO to keep space in your diary.
Breathe: take a few seconds and ask yourself is this really helping me, or do I need to take a different course of action?
Just think if you could save one hour a week of your life, that would be 3,120 minutes and 187,200 seconds a year.
What could you do with that?
In my case I am going to call our son and wish him a happy birthday today – how about you?
Just sayin’
Until the next time...
Peter Roper
