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S I G N & D I G I T A L G R A P H I C S • June 2017 • 31 Time Investment Practices Made Easy If you've bought into the notion that you ought to invest your time from now on, here are some tips you may want to employ to prove to your business colleagues—and yourself—that you are serious about getting more out of the resource of time: • Find out where you're wasting time. Many of us fall prey to time- wasters that steal time we could be using much more productively. What are your time-bandits? Your smartphone? Time on the computer checking email or social media posts? Tracking daily activi- ties and occurrences can explain how the things you do impact your productiv- ity and could possibly help you predict when "prime time" is for your enterprise. It's the first step to effective time man- agement. • Create time management goals. Remember, the focus of time manage- ment is actually changing your behav- iors. A good place to start is by elimi- nating your personal time-wasters. For one week, for example, set a goal that you're not going to take or make per- sonal phone calls, or check your personal email account or Facebook during work- ing hours. You'll be amazed how much more you will accomplish. • Implement a time management strategy. The objective is to change your behaviors over time to achieve whatever general goal you've set for yourself, such as increasing revenue or the number of orders, or decreasing your stress level. So you need to not only set your spe- cific goals, but track them over time to see whether or not you're accomplish- ing them. • Use time manage- ment tools. Whether it's an app on your phone, a color-coded to-do list on a white board near your desk, or a software pro- gram on your computer, the first step to invest- ing your available time is to know how it's being spent now and planning how you're going to spend your time in the future. You will make quicker and bet- ter decisions about how to invest your time wisely if you discipline yourself to write down, prioritize, update daily, and refer often to a "to-do" list. This is not a waste of time—it's an investment that will reap immediate dividends. A software program such as Microsoft Outlook, for instance, lets you schedule events easily and can integrate your contacts, tasks and email in one convenient place. • Be relentless in prioritizing action items. You should start each day with a time management session prioritizing the tasks for that day and setting your performance benchmark. If you have 20 tasks for a given day, how many of them must you accomplish? Throughout the day, ask yourself, "What is the best use of my time right now?" This is particularly important after an interruption or unexpected phone call. Select "to-do" items that are important, opportunistic toward goal accomplish- ment, and/or urgent before ones that are just "quick and easy" to get done. • Learn to delegate and/or out- source. No matter how small your business is, there's no need for you to be a one-person show. For effective time management, you need to let other peo- ple carry some of the load. Determine your personal ROI of time. Ask yourself often, "Could someone else, in or out- Many of us fall prey to time- wasters that steal time we could be using much more productively. What are your time-bandits? Call now for a FREE MEDIA PACK (800) 468-4782 A world leader in way-finding signage