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Make This Your Best Year Ever
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by:
Jeffrey Mayer
With the new year upon us, I
would like to share some thoughts with you about how you can make this your best
year ever.
One Percent Better
Try to do everything you do just a little bit better each day. Now I’m not
suggesting you look for big gains just lots of little ones. Would it be possible
for you to improve the quality of your work by one percent each week?
That’s less than ¼ of one percent
each day. Would that be an achievable goal? I would think so.
Now look at they dynamics of
being just ¼ or one percent better each day:
At the end of the week you’re one percent
better.
At the end of the month you’re 4 percent
better.
At the end of the quarter you’re 12 percent
better.
At the end of the year you’re 50 percent
better.
In two years you’re 100
percent better.
Think of the benefits to you.
You’ll get more things done each day. The quality of your work improves. And
best of all, you’ll make more money.
Save an Hour a Day
Most people would like to save an hour a day. But they never save it. They make
the mistake of trying to find that one hour in a solid block of time, and it
isn’t there. Instead, they should try to find it in little pieces of time.
Jeff’s 30/5 Rule
So here’s another idea: Try to save 30 seconds out of every 5 minutes. By the
end of the day you will have saved an hour.
Look at each and every task you
perform during the course of a typical business day and ask two questions:
How can I do it a little bit faster?
How how can I do it a little bit better?
Once again, you’re not looking
for geometric increases in your daily productivity, just tiny incremental
increases.
Biggest Time Wasters
For most people these are big time wasters. Pay more attention to how much time
you spend doing these activities and you’ll save yourself a lot of time. Here
are two big time wasters:
Telephone Calls that Never End.
Watch the timer on your telephone and keep
track of the length of each call. You’ll be amazed at how much time you
waste on the telephone.
Meetings that Don’t End.
Meetings are notorious time wasters. They should start and end on time. An
agenda should be prepared — and distributed — in advance. Everybody should
know the meeting’s purpose. And at the end of the meeting decisions should
be made as to what needs to be done next.
TimeSavingTip:
Always confirm your meetings and appointments. Over the course of a year
you’ll eliminate hours of wasted time that’s spent waiting in lobby’s and
reception areas.
Setting Goals
If you’re like most people, you set
long-term goals for yourself at the beginning of each year. Which is easy. But
the real challenge comes when you try to convert those goals into results.
I’ve found the best way for a
person to achieve their goals is to break them down into the smallest common
denominator. Here’s what I mean:
Monthly Goals. Break your annual goals into
monthly goals.
Weekly Goals. Break your monthly goals into
weekly goals.
Daily Goals. Break your weekly goals into
daily goals.
Hourly Goals. Break your daily goals into
hourly goals.
Now ask yourself: What do I need
to be doing at every moment of the day to be accomplishing my goals?
Using The Phone
Most of us make our living on the phone, so let me ask you a few questions: To
achieve your goals, how many telephone calls must you make — Each week? Each
day? Each hour? — in order to schedule enough appointments to achieve your
goals?
Who are you calling? Are you
calling customers with whom you’ve a long relationship — which is usually easy?
Or are you calling prospects with whom you’ve never spoken — which is
considerably more difficult?
SalesTip:
You’ll make lots more money by prospecting for — and calling — new customers.
And while we’re on the subject of
using the telephone, the purpose of which is to schedule an appointment, let me
ask you a few more questions:
How many face-to-face appointments do you
need to have each day in order to achieve your goals?
How many calls must you make to schedule an
appointment?
Most Important Day
Monday is the most important day of the week. And here are some tips that will
help you to have a great one.
Start planning your work week on
Thursday or Friday. So when you arrive at the office on Monday morning, you know
exactly what you need to do. Sit down at your desk and go to work!
Have a great Monday morning, and
you’ll have a great Monday afternoon. And before you leave, start planning your
Tuesday. Have a great Tuesday, and before you know it you’ve had a great week.
Repeat the same steps every day,
and before you know it you’ve had a great month. A great quarter. A great year.
Do it over and over again, and you’ll have a
great career. And just think it all happened because you just tried to be ¼ of
one percent better each day. Reprint permission granted in part or whole when the following
credit appears: "Reprinted with permission from "Jeffrey Mayer's
SucceedingInBusiness.com Newsletter. (Copyright, 2004, Jeffrey J.
Mayer, SucceedingInBusiness.com.) To subscribe to Jeff's free
newsletter, visit http://www.SucceedingInBusiness.com."
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