There is one of those unwritten laws or rules of the universe called the 80/20 rule. It states that 20 percent of our efforts will produce 80 percent of our results.
Logically, this also means that the additional 20 percent of the results that we are after will require another 80 percent of our efforts.
The 80/20 rule also applies very much to the way that we use our time. 20 percent of our day will produce the majority of our accomplishments for the day and then the entire rest of the day will be spent tying up loose ends, spinning our wheels with few or no results, or working through distractions. For the average 8 hour work day, this means that less than 2 hours of work leads to the majority of our accomplishments for the day. Sound familiar?
Obviously we can’t just ignore the results that fall into this last category, we still have to get these things done, right? However, this area may be a great place to focus our efforts at improving our time management skills.
The following tips may help you as you evaluate and make changes to the ways in which you use your time.
- Plan your day. One hour of planning can save up to ten hours of doing. Simply starting each day with a to-do list can give us a big jump on our efficiency for the day.
- Declutter your desk or work space. Efficiency researchers say that the average worker who has a messy or cluttered work space or desk spends 1 1/2 hours per day either looking for things or distracted by things around them. The old “Out of sight, out of mind” adage comes into play in a very real way.
- Delegate to others. Delegation is the only real way to add extra hours into your life. Assign out tasks that don’t require your total attention. Assume a supervisory role and let someone else do the leg work when possible.
- Limit interruptions. The average worker gets interrupted about once in every 8 minutes. This works out to more than 7 interruptions per hour. The average lost time from each interruption is said to be 5 minutes. This works out to be 35 minutes of lost time from each hour of work… more than half of the day. While some of these interruptions may be needed and necessary, the vast majority of them go down as wasted time.
- Make the needed changes. If you keep on doing things the way that you have always done them, you will keep on getting the same results that you have always gotten.
One of my favorite audio programs is a speech given by motivational speaker Earl Nightingale, titled The Strangest Secret. In that speech, he tells us that in our lives, where we focus is where we will see results. Paying attention to where and how we use our time will bring about more efficiency and more success in the things that we choose to do.