How To Define What’s Important.
How do you know what needs to be done today? What is it about a task that informs you that it should be done before another one?
While it is straightforward to build a task list and schedule your appointments on a calendar, if you are new — or even a seasoned professional — to productivity and better time management, the difficulty comes from defining what needs to be done and when.
Let’s say you have a project that has to be “moved forward” what exactly does “move forward” mean? Unless you clearly define what that means, you will either procrastinate or ignore the project until someone starts shouting about it.
Defining your core work.
Having a clear definition of what your core work is is a must if you are to get yourself on top of your work. For this, you need to figure out what that core work is. For example, a salesperson’s core work is selling. This means any activity that puts the salesperson in a position where they could sell something would be a core work task. Similarly, a teacher’s core work is to teach, and any activity that involves teaching or preparing teaching materials would be their core work.
But I would go deeper than this. The words; “any activity that puts the salesperson in a position where they could sell something “is too vague. For example, it could be argued sitting in your sales manager’s office and being told how to do your job could be considered “an activity where you could sell something.”
What needs to happen for you to be at risk of selling something? Contacting customers and prospecting would be a place to start. How many calls, in absolute terms, will you make each day? That number of calls must become a priority each day.
When I was in sales, the top salesperson in our car dealership, Claire, made ten calls every day. Nothing would stop her from making those calls. No matter what tasks needed doing, such as moving cars in and out of the showroom or lining cars up outside, if Claire had not made her calls, tough, she was not going to help.
I remember once complaining to our sales manager that Claire rarely helped us, and his reply was: “that is why she’s a better salesperson than you.” — A valuable lesson learned. Claire got exceptional results in what she was employed to do. I struggled to reach my targets each month. It was pretty clear why Claire was the best salesperson in our organisation. She was clear about what her core work was.
I might have been a master at lining cars up, but that wasn’t my core work, and my monthly pay packet reflected that.
Defining what your core work needs to be written out as an absolute. For instance, when I look at my weekly core work, I see this list:
1 x blog post
2 x newsletters
2 x YouTube Videos
1 x podcast.
These are my absolutes. Six pieces of content produced each week. Except for holidays, these are my absolutes. They are non-negotiable.
My daily core work activities are:
Email and communications
Client feedback writing
Coaching calls
The great thing about knowing in absolute terms what my barest minimum work each day and week is, I can schedule my week around these core activities.
The problem for most people is they have no idea what their daily and weekly absolutes are. When you don’t know what these are, you soon build up overwhelm and stress. If these activities are tasks that need to be done, and you have not scheduled any time for doing them, these will be the activities you have to do in the evening or at weekends.
If you work long hours and weekends, it’s time to ask yourself where you are spending your time?
Absolutes must be done. You’re either fired if they are not done, or your business goes under. You cannot escape them. It’s what you signed up for when you accepted the position you are in.
This all comes back to defining what something really means in basic terms. For example, I have a routine task to clean my office each weekend. To know what that means, I need a definition of a “clean office”. Likewise, my “write client feedback” requires defining. That means I write a minimum of two feedbacks each day.
Having clear definitions of my essential work makes life so much easier. It reduces the number of decisions I need to make each day — I know what must be done — and I can ensure sufficient time for this work each week, so I never feel stressed about time.
And the bonus?
It means you know what to say “no” to. When you are unclear about what must be done and what you might need to do, you will say yes to everything. However, saying “yes” to everything is not sustainable. It will sink you into a pit of backlog and overwhelm you with no way out.
Saying “no” isn’t literal. It means if an influential client asks for a meeting at 2 pm this afternoon, and you have a core work task scheduled for that time, you suggest an alternative time. Perhaps 1 pm or 4 pm the same day if it is urgent.
Show me a salesperson who prioritises meetings with their boss and doing admin over meetings with potential customers, and I will show you a poor salesperson.
If you want to remove the anxiety of long hours and overwhelm, define your core work and prioritise that work over everything else. Make sure you schedule it and be clear about your daily and weekly absolutes.
Becoming better at managing your time and being more productive is not complex. However, it does take time to think about what must be done and what can be eliminated. Only you can decide that.
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