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Some Simple Steps to Help You Take Control of Your Time
 Ours is a world of constant business meetings. Of clients wanting more of our time, phones that don’t stop ringing, inboxes brimming with e-mails that need answering, snail mail that keeps piling up and steady streams of calls from advertisers and marketers who want our attention…and our money.
I have learned that we feel out of balance if we give our time away and if we don’t learn how to properly manage and balance it between our professional and personal lives. What’s more, it can take months, even years, to regain the balance we desire in order to live productive lives.
Achieving that balance is a never-ending exploration. However, one area that I believe can assist you in this pursuit is to start setting realistic boundaries.
Prioritize, Prioritize, Prioritize
You control your own time, sometimes effectively, sometimes not so effectively. To control your time more effectively, you must prioritize.
I prioritize using simple, color-coded “time zones” that help me lay out what’s truly important to my business and profits. I divide my days, weeks and months using different colors to visually show me which time is most important.
- “Gold Time” is my moneymaking time.
- “Silver Time” is the time needed to work toward the gold.
I set aside “Gold Time” in my calendar. This is the time for appointments with clients, current and new. This is the time that is making me money.
“Silver Time” on my calendar is the time I devote to the important — but not immediate ― tasks that need to be done. Silver Time, in my calendar, is the time that feeds my pipeline to my Gold Time.
By setting aside Gold Time and Silver Time in my calendar and sticking to it, I know I am in better control of all my time and moving my business forward.
Plan Your Time, Plan Your Business
You must realize that you are the “owner” of your time and spend quality time planning your business at all levels. This can mean strategic planning sessions with your business partners or planning work sessions with your managers and team leaders.
I suggest doing your major planning in November or early December. This will eliminate not knowing what do to in January, normally a slower time.
With your plan in place, you will know what you need to do and your time will be spent more effectively working your plan and accomplishing your newly-set goals.
Accountability Matters
Many businesses make plans but then don’t continually “check in” to see if they are accomplishing what they spent time working on.
This is where I believe a business coach, or someone who can make you accountable to your plan, is invaluable to obtain success. If you don’t have a business coach, find one. Or create a board of directors that will meet on a quarterly basis to “check in” on the set goals.
All these steps — prioritizing and setting Gold and Silver time in your calendar, developing realistic business plans and holding yourself accountable to those plans ― will help you gain control of your time and obtain balance in your life.
Sharon Roberts-Meyer is a marketing representative for Linden/Bartels & Noe Insurance Agency in Ft. Collins, Colo., the 2006 chairman of the Remodelors™ Council of Northern Colorado and an associate member of the Home Builders Association of Northern Colorado. She is a “Best Year Yet” business and personal life coach and a 2005 Bryan Patchan Scholarship recipient. For more information, e-mail Roberts-Meyer, or call her at 970-229-9304.
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