The Inefficiency Assassin. Helene Segura

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the midnight oil and becoming sleep-deprived — and maybe gaining weight from stress eating or grabbing fast food because there’s no time to cook. And getting into a tiff with a loved one because you snap, since you’re in a foul mood. Mmmm. That’s not a joyful way to live.

      If you don’t create presentations as a part of your work, no worries. You can apply this same thinking to developing the company budget, writing a book, rolling out your company’s marketing plan, gearing up for the holidays if you’re in retail…It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in; developing a timeline will save you. And if you have similar projects throughout the year, you can reuse your timeline template.

      You’re reading this book because you’re tired of operating in hurry-up frenzied mode. So, if you want to lower your stress levels, you’ll need to change how you operate. This means investing time in your health and mental well-being by planning out your projects. Taking 15 to 30 minutes of your time to map out the steps for a project will save you hours of wheel-spinning and gosh-awful stress down the road.

      It’s crucial for you to schedule time blocks for every step of a project into your calendar as soon as you know that this project has become yours to complete. By operating in time blocks, you’ll be able to shift work times around as necessary, but you’ll still allow yourself enough time to complete each stage of the project without working yourself into a frenzy.

      NEXT STEPS

      Susan implemented a great deal of change. It wasn’t all at once, but it was a concerted effort over a six-week period.

      She applied the strategies and tactics from the C in CIA — Create Clarity.

      Next, she worked on the I in CIA — Implement Structure and Flow.

      In particular, she focused on the A and T in AGENT. She began to create timelines for what was being asked of her, so that she could either accept or decline offers. For the offers she did accept, she scheduled the steps from the timeline into her calendar. If other requests arrived or opportunities arose, she’d check her calendar before adding to it.

      Generating revenue should not come at a cost to your well-being.

       — Helene Segura

      She realized that her fear of losing out on income was driving her to say yes to an unrealistic schedule and an impossible list of tasks. This crush of to-do’s was actually costing her income because of the physical, mental, and marriage side effects that forced her to seek — and pay for and lose time to — medical assistance.

      It soon became clear that she could obtain the same or better profit level by slowing down.

      You have to take your time to save time.

      Implement Structure and Flow.

       PLOT YOUR NEXT STEPS

       • How has not using a detailed timeline affected you?

       • How will creating a timeline for your long-term projects help you?

       • You probably already have deadlines set for various projects. Have you already completed task timelines for each one and scheduled time blocks into your calendar? If not, which project will you start with in creating a timeline?

      Tim is a financial planner who works for a large national firm. There are rules and regulations he must follow, and deadlines and quotas he must meet, but he has the freedom to decide his schedule each day.

      He knows what he needs to do. He has to make cold calls to total strangers. He has to make warm calls to people he’s been referred to or folks he met at networking events. He needs to go to those networking events to meet contacts. He needs to prepare quotes and examples for those with whom he can schedule appointments. He has to follow up with his current clients to make sure that their needs are being met. He wants to do more than a yearly review with his clients; he wants to get to know them.

      That’s a whole lot that he needs to do. His to-do list usually has 20-plus items.

      Yet, on a morning when I spied on him, he spent a total of two hours answering fellow planners’ questions or just shooting the breeze with them while being sociable and playing pool in the employee break room, as well as piddling around in his email inbox while filling out various forms.

      In the back of Tim’s mind, he knew exactly what he needed to get done. Yet he didn’t do it. He said he didn’t have enough time in the day.

      GOAL

      Accept the fact that as long as you have a full life and thriving career, at the end of the day, you will always have something still left to do.

      Accept the fact that you can get done what you absolutely need to do because you are in total control of how you handle your day. Total.

      TACTICS

      At the end of each workday, choose the top three tasks you need to complete the following day. You’ll also want to choose the next three most important tasks you can work on. These are your 3+3.

      1. On your paper or digital calendar, schedule in your personal priorities for the next day.

      2. Have within your view your calendar for the upcoming week.

      3. While reviewing the project timelines you created in the previous chapter and looking at your next five to seven days of activities on your calendar, add in any tasks you must complete into open time blocks.

      4. Choose your 3+3 for the next day. Number them on your calendar 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, in order of priority.

      5. Block off two half-day CHOP sessions per month to clear the annoying crumbs from your plate. See page 65.

      STRATEGY

      There is time in the day to do what truly needs to get done.

       The Philosophy behind My 3+3

      It’s time to take a step back and take a deep breath. In and out. In and out.

      Our lists of everything we need to do will always be long. If we have a full life and successful career, there will always be something else to do. That is a fact of life we must accept. The day we have nothing on a to-do list means our job has become obsolete. So rejoice that you have a lot to do!

      If the long list of tasks to do is overwhelming, are you willing to go to a 3+3 for each day? You see, when we try to work from one long list of everything we need to get done, it’s not motivating to see the list never shrink. And it doesn’t, because as we cross off things we finish, we also add tasks that have cropped up. There’s nothing wrong with having one master task list to capture all the things you need to do over time. But having a short list to complete

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