1DayLater - The Blog

Time Management Tips - no.1 

Aggressive Prioritizing / extreme time management

Here’s one of the most effective ways to boost your work productivity. I do this every day and seriously - it works!

Bend time to your will…

Step 1-Create a to-do list every morning

First thing in the morning (after you’ve had your morning cuppa of course) spend 15 minutes constructing a to-do list of activities you feel should get done that day. This won’t be wasted time.

You now have a list of activities

eg.

• 20 activities

• 5 really need doing

Step 2-Use aggressive prioritizing.

If you had to pick just one of these to do today - which one would it be? That is your number 1. Repeat this exercise to find number 2, and so on.

Step 3-Get working!

Stick to the order of your list and make sure you complete each task as much as possible before moving onto the next.

Now if you only get some things done in your day, they will have been the most important ones. Simple but truly effective!

- coming soon: time management for programmers

Developing a business mindset - Mental activity modelling

In order to start acting like a businessman you need to start thinking like one. A neat idea we picked up from one of our excellent mentors, Richard Hanage is to create and follow a mental activity model. The reason I love this is that it’s proactive rather than reactive!

The idea is that you create a complete list (or mindmap) of things which are necessary to the general running & development of your business. Depending on the nature of your business, your tasks might be something like:

• Make an appointment
• Make a sales visit
• Write a proposal
• Take an order
• Deliver some work
• Raise an invoice
• Update finances

Then SET SOME TARGETS & commit them to memory

For example: You could aim to complete one thing off your list every day, and all of them in a normal week. Or devise some practical targets for your own business.

Following this mental model will help you improve cashflow, organisation and working efficiency in the long run. If you’re focused on doing it properly it can also prevent you from neglecting those less fun but important aspects of your business.

I would love to hear about the kinds of mental activity models you all operate. Including any personal experiences with them!

Later!

Paul

Book review - “The beermat entrepreneur”

Having seen the inspirational Mike Southon at this years software-orientated conference - Thinking Digital, it was great to finally get round to reading his book “The beermat entrepreneur”. Anyone who knows me and my brother will see how appealing that book title is. Who doesn’t love having business ideas down the pub - hairbrained or not!

His book describes the journey from a “whimsical idea in the pub with your mates” to a “seedling” company (5 people) then a “sapling” company (20 people) and finally a “mighty oak” (50+ people). It details the key steps and milestones of each stage and the radical change in culture within the business as it grows. It also talks about motivation, mentoring, getting the right skills pool, and lots of other invaluable topics.

I recommend this book to anyone starting a business as we are. I’ve currently got it on loan from the city library - pretty convenient as the library also doubles as our office and meeting rooms - hoorah, bootstrapping ahoy! Now I’m forcing my brother to read it in order to help us avoid the many pitfalls we might face.

Mike Southon writes for the Financial Times and when he’s not writing books and for newspapers, is also a great motivational speaker! He delivers his live talks with loads of energy (and occasionally air guitars and Beatles lyrics as we saw at the Sage recently).

Until next time

Paul

:)