Time to make time management sexy
I'm a sinner, I'm a saint, as Alanis Morisette sang AND I'm guilty as charged for poor time management and not valuing my time. Sound familiar? This week, however, the penny dropped. If I didn't change my wayward ways with time management and value my time – MORE – I wasn't going to get anywhere with my business.
That felt bad. That caused me pain and when something causes me enough pain, what do you do? You take action!
Something just clicked in my head.
So what did I do? Well I started to say no more often! And, whilst it was hard to do, it also felt great!
What help me? I heard a story….
Cue story…
The story involves Megan. She's a mum and bringing up 2 kids on her own. She's always been financially independent and successful in business. However, recently she decided to use her heart as her compass and follow her passion to be a coach. I'm sure this sounds familiar.
Perhaps not this bit though.
She did something that some people find either crazy or courageous… she quit her 6-figure job, that was making her ‘soul dead', without many savings.
Now Megan has a wealth of experience in business and people have been flocking to her for advice and training, which she's been giving away freely without a thought. She's even been meeting up with them in person. However, this has been at a cost to her business as she hasn't been able to reuse that time. Unfortunately too, the people she's been having meetings with were unqualified prospects and therefore mostly filled by free loaders, not prospective clients. It was more luck if they turned into clients.
Eventually she started to think about what she was doing. If she was charging herself out at $150/hour, whenever she gave up her time, it was costing her that. When she went through her days, she was horrified at how much money she'd lost!
So, it was this simple exercise that made it crystal clear for her (along with the bills that were mounting up!). As a result, she started to consider more fully what she was saying yes to, and she started to say no more often. She began asking for agendas before requested meetings and letting prospects know that some things were going to be chargeable exercises.
She found this sorted the wheat out from the chaff.
She also discovered that she'd subconsciously started to value herself more and as a consequence had attracted the sort of clients she wanted to work with.
Time is a statement of priority
Time is a statement of priority. Never forget that. We all have 24 hours in our day. We're all on a level playing field in this respect. It's how we chose to spend it that makes the difference.
Time is one of our most precious assets. We're all trading it. We can never get it back. So, what you say yes to undeniably means that you'll have to say no to something else. [Bummer!]
Whenever someone says I don't have time, what they really mean is “I don't value this as a priority.” And that's ok so long as you know. Incidentally there's more on dealing with a time management objection here.
Now, I want to hear from you…
Do you suffer from saying yes too often? Do you ever think you might be sabotaging your own business for the sake of others (subconsciously)? Have you ever performed an exercise like the one Megan did? Let me know your time management story in the comments below.
With love and gratitude – as always,
