Wealth Building Express

Hello, and welcome to Part 4b of Personal Money Management for Wealth Builders!

This section continues with Part 4a’s theme: Manage Your Time Effectively. Here are some great tips to get you started:

Tip #1: List All Your Tasks And When You Do Them
The first step in effective time management is to increase your awareness of how you’re actually spending your time. Begin by listing all the things you do in a week, and when you do them. By making a list, you have everything laid out in front of you. It’s easy to see what you’re doing, when you’re doing it, and how you can do it more efficiently.

Start with a particular day of the week – whichever day you generally consider to be the “start” of your week. For most people this will be Sunday or Monday. Draw up your typical hourly schedule for each day, using a table format; you can do this by hand or on your computer, or you can use day timer or desk calendar inserts.

Fill in each day with the tasks and activities you typically perform, from the time you get up to the time you go to sleep. If you’re having trouble filling in your schedule, just think back to the past week and use that as your example. You want to create a clear, thorough list of:

• All the tasks and activities that you currently perform in a typical week.

• When you perform those tasks and activities, and how much time you spend on them.

Tip #2: Prioritize Your Tasks

After you’ve completed your weekly list, assign a level of priority to each item on it. Prioritizing your responsibilities and engagements is very important. As I mentioned, we often get caught up in doing low-priority “busywork” which distracts us from doing more productive things.

An easy, effective prioritizing method is the “ABC System“. Tasks/activities that are perceived as having the highest priority are assigned an “A“, those with medium priority are “B“, and the lowest priority tasks are labeled “C“.

The ABC Method can incorporate more than three groups if you wish, but it’s not usually necessary. Simply go through your list and assign each item an “A”, “B” or “C” according to priority. Next, rearrange your list so all the “A’s” are together, all “B’s” are together and so on.

Before we move on to Tip #3 and start creating your new schedule, I want to recommend these personal time management products again. They’re a great source of info and will really help you get organized. You’ll find them highly beneficial! Now, on to Tip #3…

Tip #3: Set Up Your Schedule

Once you’ve assigned a level of priority to each task/activity and grouped them accordingly, you can organize them into efficient, “do-able” time blocks that allow you accomplish all activities and concentrate on the tasks that are most important. Obviously there might be some “immovable” time blocks (such as working hours if you’re employed by someone else), but other activities can usually be scheduled more flexibly.

Plan your day so that you complete similar activities in the same block of time. This eliminates excess time in “setting up”’ and orienting yourself to each new task. For example:

• At work, schedule one block of time for computer work: e-mails, writing, Internet work, creating presentations and such. Schedule another for phone time: prospecting, networking, follow-up calls and the like. If your work or business involves travel and outside meetings with customers, clients, employees or partners and associates, do your best to schedule several meetings for each trip. This reduces the time you spend traveling and leaves you more time for other tasks.

• At home, schedule one block of time for domestic and personal tasks: cooking (many meals can be prepared ahead of time), cleaning, laundry and such. Schedule another block for outside tasks: grocery shopping, haircuts, workouts, health and dental visits, banking, and so on. Again, arrange your schedule so you can accomplish numerous tasks in the same block of time. You’ll often be amazed at how much extra time you create!

Going back to the Entrepreneur’s Example, if you looked at the schedule of a “typical” entrepreneur you’d see that he or she has taken care to arrange tasks, appointments and other activities in a logical, precise order, leaving plenty of time for each. Then - and this is important - she’ll make sure she sticks to her schedule as closely as she can. In other words, she identifies what needs to be done and she does it.

Of course it’s not always possible to stick to a schedule 100% - unforeseen things do crop up sometimes - but if she does alter her schedule she will still focus on priorities, rearranging her schedule to cause as little distraction from them as possible.

Again, I highly recommend that you check out these time management products as an additional resource!

That’s It For Part 4b; More Tips Are Coming In Part 4c!

In Part 4c - the final section of Personal Money Management for Wealth Builders - Part 4, we’ll offer more tips for managing your time effectively.

Time management is so important - just remember this: managing your time well is a huge part of managing your life well. Manage your life well and you can accomplish anything you desire!