We all have a finite amount of time: 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
But successful people get better results most of the time. Their outcomes are very different from the average person.
That’s because they’ve found a way to multiply their time: get 10x results in the same amount of time. The same hours have been put to excellent use. Their inputs are very different from ours.
With so much to do and not enough time in the day, many people often find themselves over-committed and under-motivated.
You can’t do the same things every day and expect a different outcome.
Harvey Mackay once said, “Time is free, but it’s priceless. You can’t own it, but you can use it. You can’t keep it, but you can spend it. Once you’ve lost it you can never get it back.”
We all have a finite amount of time. This means that we have to know how to prioritize our time to accumulate better wins.
There’s so much you can do in a single day, but you can improve your inputs, automate better and double down on what’s working.
But you can’t get to that final stage without measuring how you use your time now. What takes your most time in a single day? Does it deliver 80% percent of your results?
For anyone with a massive or life-changing goal, time is of the essence. It’s finite, so you want to make sure every minute spent or invested delivers the results you expect.
The critical question is: how can we multiply our results with the same amount of time?
Most people prioritise and do their most important tasks in the first half of the day. That way they leverage their energy in the morning to accomplish more.
Others choose to prioritise but take it a step further. They set up productivity systems to reduce the number of decisions they have to make tomorrow.
That means they eliminate some tasks to free up time for actions that move the needle. For example, instead of three meetings in a week, they may hold just one.
Instead of trying to get so many things done in a single day, they focus on one or two actions that make tomorrow a lot easier: they focus on subtasks that get them closer to the bigger goal.
Successful people don’t rush to cross everything on their lists or respond to every email they receive. They are constantly reviewing how they invest their time to readjust how they spend their time.
How you spend your attention is how you spend your time
The key is in not spending time, but in investing it. — Stephen R. Covey.
To multiply your time and make good progress every day, you don’t have to check off everything on your to-do list.
Some things are necessary. Others are urgent but not essential. And other tasks are important but not urgent.
Find a way to automate many of your repetitive but not necessarily high-value tasks that still require your attention:
- Email management and organisation to find important emails.
- Publishing social content daily/weekly
- Making presentations and browsing dozens of apps for daily news
These tasks may not directly impact your bigger goal but maybe still important.
Multiplying your time is about building better filters to prevent too many tasks from taking over your precious time: and using your time for a few essential tasks that accelerate growth.
If any task makes it to your daily to-do list, it’s a priority that helps you make real progress. Or it’s the most optimal use of your precious and finite time.
Don’t rush to do things because they have to be done. Do them because at that very moment, it’s the very best use of your time.
Procrastinate some tasks on purpose.
Things that rarely move the needle can be done close to your downtime. That’s how you multiply the impact of your actions.
Tasks like reacting to emails, organising tasks, planning your day or responding to social messages should be done when you are less active.
Doing more doesn’t necessarily make you productive. If your actions don’t get you close to your end goal, you are wasting time.
Everyone’s time is limited. You may not realize how much time is spent on unimportant tasks until you actually sit down and do an hour by hour breakdown of your day.
Multiply time by focusing on the essentials, eliminating unnecessary tasks and procrastinating on purpose. Get more value by spending less time. Double your efforts on high-value tasks, and you will achieve more in less time.
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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.
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