Ann Rusnak’s latest ‘Simple Time Management’ articles titled “Time Management Strategy #1 and 2” are reprinted here. [Article]


Ann Rusnak’s latest ‘Simple Time Management’ articles are reprinted here.

Time Management Strategy #1

Stop The World and Get Off

We live in a 24/7 global world. Connected by pagers, cell phones, email, internet and faxes. Information coming at you faster than the speed of light. It seems like you never get a moment for yourself.

The natural boundries once enjoyed by humankind dissapeared with each technological advancement. Private “me” moments are almost non-existant in this era when just about anybody can “intrude” on you anytime of day or night.

Time to Unplug and Establish Some Breathing Boundries

Phone: Don’t answer it. Last time I checked, no law existed that requires you to answer it. Yep… no need to pick it up “everytime” it rings. Let it go into voicemail.

Establish business hours and don’t pick up the business phone after those hours. Sometimes it hard to resist this temptation. One of my coaching clients found this difficult because she though she would miss a valuable call. She kept answering her phone at all hours. Leaving little time for herself.

Once she started applying this strategy, she found it a great tool for screening out time wasting calls and ended up with a $20,000 deal for her company. (read more about her story)

Car: Put your cellphone in the trunk. Listen to personal development CD’s instead or music. Keep your car time for yourself… a private space.

Computer: Turn it off. Then you won’t be tempted to go on it and starting working on something.

Downtime: Very Important – take at least once day a month off. 24 hours of no business related activities. This includes reading a report or business magazine. Go to a hotel room with your significant other and spend time together.

Become selfish with your time. People will respect your time when YOU begin to respect it.

Time Management Strategy #2

The Time Bank

This time management strategy will definitely give you a better way to manage your time.

They say time = money. Well if that’s true then let us starting thinking about time in that fashion.

Every 24 hours consist of 96 fifteen minute blocks. No more … no less. Imagine the universe set up an account in your name at the “time bank.” The beginning of each day you get 96 time blocks deposited into your account.

Through out the day, 1 block of time gets deducted from your account every 15 minutes. This keeps happening all day long until all the time blocks get deducted from your account.

It doesn’t matter if you did something or not during a 15 minute time block, it will get deducted regardless. At the end of the day, all the time blocks for that day are now gone

But… you start fresh again at the beginning of the day with another 96 time blocks.

The time management shift for hours to time blocks allows you to really think about how you use your time. .

Our clients found that when they put this perspective on their time, they gain better control over how they used their time blocks. You can schedule your activities in specific time blocks

Email provides a great example of how to use time blocks. Lets say you dedicate 2 time blocks a day to handle your email. On your weekly schedule, you block out those 2 time blocks every day.

At that time, you do nothing but deal with your email, you respond to your email, delete it, file it etc. You don’t answer the phone, work on another project… nothing except email.

Now email doesn’t keep interrupting your day because you know you set aside a certain amount of time blocks to deal with it. You can schedule several time blocks during the day to handle your email. You set up the time blocks to best fit your life and business.

Time blocking takes some practice and a shift in your mindset. But once you become more effective at blocking time, the more control you gain over your day.

Ann Rusnak “The Time Diva” developed a simple 10 step system that teaches busy solo-preneurs to increase their profits by 30% by taking time off. Receive the free report “How the Time Management Industry Rips Off the Solo Entrepreneur” when you sign up for Focus on Success Journal ezine at: www.SimpleTimeManagement.com

*IMNewswatch would like to thank Ann Rusnak for granting permission to reprint the latest articles.

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