For the past 13 years, I have been working as a Business and Executive Coach, with hundreds of business owners, business leaders and managers and the most popular area of focus for personal and professional development...”what’s the secret to getting more done in my day”.
Therefore, this week’s business tip is about time management, how exercise can improve your work life and make you more productive.
Consider this, when having a conversation with someone, our brain can cope with around 1,200 words at any one time, while we speak at around 120 words….lots of time for distractions as you can imagine…no pun intended!
The trick to improved communication and time management is to create a distraction-free zone. When it comes to growing a business, it really comes down to how you interact with people with opposing ideas and getting those people to come together in some way.
So what's really keeping people from being more productive? I always thought the problem was time. But what I've realised over the past thirteen years is that there are three other resources, the most important being energy and focus. If I don't have the mental or physical energy, it doesn't matter how much time I have. The next factor would be focus. When a business owner or CEO sits down at his or her desk, what is pulling on his or her focus that's a distraction? Is it an email that can come in that's a distraction, but it feels good to work on that versus an invite that comes in but there might be too much work, time or energy involved in that for the time being.
Sometimes people busy themselves with low-level thinking tasks just to make themselves feel productive. We're starved for wins. People are looking for something to check off the daily “things to do list”. It's the idea that I can stay busy cleaning things up versus turning everything off and focusing solely on a problem, a situation, or an opportunity. Most of us can't read a document or book for 15 minutes without being distracted.
To minimise the distractions and change our behaviour, we need to turn to the fourth resource: ecosystem. I'm not going to be able to change what I do if I go to the same place where I was doing the incorrect behaviour before. For example, with phone calls. There's a room in my house where I take phone calls that is not at my desk. If I'm sitting at my desk, I can look at the book that I'm reading, my email; I can re-organise my desk. When I go into this room, it's my ‘thinking space’. Ask yourself: What can I shift in my environment so that my focus is enhanced, so that my energy can be used most appropriately in that limited time that I have?
The most common time management mistake business owners and executives make is not being conscious about where time went. If I could give one piece of advice to someone at the executive level it would be to minimise the number of times he or she is distracted while working.
We can become conscious of our distractions by going back to the ecosystem, recognise which ecosystem is the most distraction-free. Also, a business owner, executive must have some kind of assessment or checklist, that will raise a person's awareness of what he or she just did.
How does fitness play into productivity? I believe that if people were a little bit more aware, their focus would increase. Every meal is a conscious experience. Do I need to finish those last four pieces of steak? Do I need to order an entree and a dessert? Do I need to drink that extra glass of alcohol? When the alarm goes off, do I need to walk on the treadmill for 30 minutes? Should I get out one bus stop early and walk six blocks?
All of these micro decisions add up.
Business owners, CEO’s and executives are often so used to going big, that if they're not training for an Ironman event, they're likely to go in the opposite direction and not take care of themselves.
Finally, when it comes to behaviour change and improving you work life think of this question. “How do you eat an elephant?” Answer, “One bite at time.”
More information, Jason Womack,” Your Best Just Got Better: Work Smarter, Think Bigger, Make More”.
