It seems that everyone is intently focused on money. And not so many people are focused on time.

It seems to me that money – for individual purposes – is all but infinite. Time – on the other hand – is not.

If we do what we should be doing we will find ourselves possession enough money. We may however find that we run out of time. The amount of time we have not something that we can accurate foresee. Therefore, we must be ruthlessly efficient with the time that we have.

Take a moment, to think about how you spend your time. I do mean spend. Once you’ve done so, it’s gone forever. You cannot get back the time that has already passed.

Do you really spend your time efficiently? Could you get more done if you planned and executed better than you do right now and have done in the past? There’s no use worrying about the past or the future (a topic for another post) but you can learn from what has passed and improve your future.

So, what can you do to get more done in the finite amount of time that you have? Here are a few ideas:

• Listen to audiobooks in your car or on the train – You probably spend about an hour a day travelling. Use this time wisely. Listen to self-improvement books, business advice, biographies, industry podcasts … whatever will increase your understanding of you and your business.
• Complete the toughest tasks first - Lots of us procrastinate and avoid the tough tasks but these are often the most important (read: mission-critical). Don’t do the fluffy, easy stuff. As Brain Tracy says, “Eat That Frog“.
• 80/20 everything - Use the 80/20 Principle to ensure you only complete the most important tasks (you can delegate lesser tasks to others). Learn more about the 80/20 Principle in Richard Koch’s excellent book.
• Remove distractions - Don’t read personal email, don’t answer your phone, don’t get distracted by colleagues, close your office door … do whatever you must do to focus solely on the task at hand. See my previous post.
• Redefine meetings – Ask “do we really have to meet?”, “is there a better way?”, “will an email suffice?”. If you have to meet have a clear agenda, set a finish time and stick to it, never meet longer than 30 minutes and act on the results.

How long did it take you to read this post? Was it worthwhile? If you got something from it then come back for more. If not, then don’t return because it’s not worth your time, spend it doing something more important. I won’t be offended because it would sho you did learn something.

Be ruthless! Be efficient.