each one of you is the hero of your own super-agent story, and you’re about to receive the options to use for your strategic and tactical solutions. All of us have the capacity for a Time Management Revolution inside us. We just need to bring it out from deep cover and into our consciousness. (For dramatic effect, this is the part where you stand up, throw your cape behind your shoulders, and declare, “Oh, yes, I will be my own hero!”)
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
— Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Ulysses”
As I alluded to earlier, after meeting with Dr. Say, I changed my mind about becoming an undercover law enforcement agent. Instead, I started my adult career by becoming a change agent as a teacher in a Title I school. Teaching my kiddos time management skills by improving their critical-thinking skills is how I wound up starting my productivity consulting business years ago. It was then that I became an agent of change by helping clients to find work–life balance. I teach people how to be more efficient. I help them to lower their stress levels. I bring peace to people’s lives — and more profit to companies’ bottom lines — by slaying wasted time. I’m blessed to be able to speak all over the country as The Inefficiency Assassin. (Please know that I do not condone violence. However, I am all for battling lost time!)
I grew up reading Nancy Drew mystery novels, competing with my best friend, Amy Epman, in elementary school to see how many we could check off our reading list. You’ll find that the love I still carry for agent and detective books and movies is reflected not only in my job title but also in the examples and themes that I use in my keynotes, as well as in this book.
HOW THIS BOOK IS SET UP
The beauty of what I’ll teach you in this book is that anyone can do it! While I will throw in some science here and there to explain why things happen, what you as a business professional need to do to be productive is not scientific. It’s a choice of mind over matter — making better decisions and implementing them.
In order for you to become an agent of change in your own personal and work life, we’ll be massaging your brain at two different levels as you read this book: strategic and tactical. What most people want is to be handed tactical information — a checklist of what to do. It’s catchy. “Top 5 This” and “Top 10 That.” It’s short and sweet. It’s easy to digest. However, to successfully implement the tactical over the long term, it’s important to understand the strategic — how the tactics fit into a long-term strategy — which is why I will share both strategic concepts and tactical tips with you.
Implementing organization and productivity is very similar to planning a mission. So, before you dive into action, it’s important to map out the big picture. The heart of this book is set up in three parts, which contain 30 approaches for working smarter, not longer — my CIA framework for your Time Management Revolution:
| Create Clarity | Part 1 |
| Implement Structure and Flow | Part 2 |
| Assemble Your Team | Part 3 |
Each chapter of solutions contains the following sections:
Goal: Should you choose to accept this mission, this is the lowdown on the mind-set you need to apply in order to make your life better.
Tactics: If you’re limited on time and need a quick fix, and/or you’re screaming, “Just tell me what to do!” implement these solutions. These are the ever-popular top five or top seven things to do — the how-to tactical solutions for the situation. They are the weapons that will get you out of your time deficit.
Strategy: When it comes to time management, thinking is doing. If you’re saying, “Just tell me what to do!” it’s important to realize that recommending how you should think — how your brain should operate — is telling you what to do. Just because it’s mental doesn’t mean it’s unimportant. In fact, it’s absolutely critical that you take more mental action than physical action. If you want to truly understand how you got into your current situation, why the aforementioned tactics are recommended, and how to prevent getting into the same situation in the future, read this section too. These are the overall strategic-thinking concepts and mind games to apply. This is your protective armor and your battle plan, both of which lead you to more success on your missions.
Next Steps: To aid you in successfully completing your mission, debrief the chapter with these questions, and plot your next steps.
Those of you who feel that self-discovery and learning the reasons behind what works and doesn’t work is just a bunch of hooey can simply read the “Goal” and “Tactics” portions for your how-to tips — and skip the rest of the chapter. Those of you who want to dive deeper can read the “Strategy” and “Next Steps” sections. If you’re ready for deep undercover work, you can utilize the activity guide that complements this book and is available as a download at www.HeleneSegura.com/30tactics.
After the chapters that explain my CIA framework, I’ve also included part 4, “Situational Solutions.” These chapters provide “troubleshooting” assistance for the most common pitfalls that busy professionals face.
STRATEGIES AND TACTICS: NAMES AND ACRONYMS
For the best possible learning experience, I encourage you to read the chapters in order so that you can fully understand the complete CIA framework for better time management — or, should I say, mind management. However, I realize that because you’re struggling with finding time, you may not have that luxury just yet. Therefore, the book has been formatted so that the various situations that busy professionals face are divided up into individual chapters to enable you to pick and choose which situations apply to you and hop directly over there to get the tactical tips you need. I do encourage you, though, to read the “Strategy” sections when you’re ready for that information. It’s mind-bending knowledge that will truly help change the way you view time.
Many of the concepts in the book are interrelated, so you’ll find that I do repeat strategies and tactics here and there. The repetition will help those of you who decide to skip around — you won’t miss anything. The repeated information will also serve as reminders and will help you learn and remember what to do. After all, humans must read or hear ideas four to seven times before we synthesize them. After all, humans must read or hear ideas four to seven times before we synthesize them. (Repetition. Get it?)
If you have an important point to make, don’t try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time — a tremendous whack.
— Winston S. Churchill
If you read the book in order, each strategy or tactic will be discussed in full at its first mention and then referred to multiple times throughout the book. Just in case you skip around from chapter to chapter — or you return to this book later for a refresher — here’s a location guide for my interestingly named strategies and tactics:
ONLINE RESOURCES
If you wander over to www.HeleneSegura.com/30tactics,
