“Productivity isn’t about being a workhorse, keeping busy or burning the midnight oil. It’s more about priorities, planning, and fiercely protecting your time.”
I am absolutely certain of one thing when it comes to rendering travel services to the rank and file: Although you can try to be many things to many people, you can’t be all things to all people – if you have any intention of accomplishing your financial goals.
I am betting you are as busy as a one-armed paperhanger, and you do not have enough hours in the day to complete all the tasks on your to-do list. You did not invent this “time warp,” but you do have to find a way to deal with it.
Try these two strategies for ten days and see how your life changes for the better:
First, spend the first 15-minutes of every day “thinking” and “planning” about the day ahead. This simple exercise will help shed light on your most pressing obligations. Determine what work is important and what work is urgent. There is a difference. (Remember an earlier missive when I introduced you to the WIN Formula. What’s Important Now.)
The distinction between the two is referred to as The Eisenhower Principle. Dwight D. Eisenhower was quoting Dr. J. Roscoe Miller from Northwestern University when he shared with his audience, “I have two kinds of problems: the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent.”
Always do what is important at the expense of the urgent.
Next, and this is the most important advice I may ever give you, practice at saying “no” more often.
I purposely implied “practice” because you are likely to fail at this in the early going. You must however, become more comfortable with your decision to say “no” to outside requests for your time.
“Priorities” is another key word to introduce to your daily routine. Or, to turn this into an action word, you can adopt the practice of “prioritizing.”
Mike Marchev is a down-to-earth motivating sales trainer, author and business coach who specializes in the travel industry. Mike’s column is made possible by AmaWaterways.
