The Implementation Coach
What stops people getting more done?
Ash ran a survey and found the main reason was distractions with 70% of respondents!
Ash pointed to several reasons for not getting things done in the podcast…
You have no clear direction
You say yes to things too easily
You have no structure to your diary
You fail to plan ahead
You’re looking for the big win
You multitask (stop that)
Not understanding the difference between being Efficient and being Effective
You place very little or no value on your own time
You allow people to interrupt you
You work too many hours
You delegate poorly
You don’t have any accountability
You’ve never seen success so it seems out of reach so what’s the point anyway?
Ash has turned over 20 years of tennis coaching into coaching small business owners so they get better results. Ash walked us through the things he sees repeatedly in his one to one consultations.
One startling revelation was 7 or 8 people out of 10 do not have goals!
Here’s how Ash describes his approach.
Set goals (meaningful goals)
There is a very simple reason that I am as effective and productive as I am. I set goals. I have a long term vision of where I want to be in a year’s time and that is further broken down into smaller goals for each quarter, month and then each day. I know exactly what activity is required to achieve those goals and prioritise on that activity. It’s incredibly liberating being able to just ask yourself “is what I’m doing right now moving me towards one of my goals?” and if not STOP IT.
I am assuming you have clear written goals and therefore should have a good idea of what activities are required to achieve these goals. If you don’t have goals, go set some.
Plan your day in advance
I always plan these activities into my dairy each day on the night before. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that every minute of planning can save you 10 times the amount of time in execution. That’s a 1000% return. Just spending 6 minutes planning your day the night before will therefore save you a full hour the following day. Make sure you plan the things that are important to you for first thing in the day.
Planning the night before is essential for a number of reasons
It allows you to review any accomplishments whilst still fresh in your mind.
It gives you an opportunity to download any thoughts you might have which will
enable better quality sleep
It lets you start the following day without any time wasted in planning or
You can sit down, open your planner and start work
You can diarise the imperative activities into your schedule first before anything else
disturbs you.
It creates focus for the day ahead
Get organised
Two thirds of people spend up to 30 minutes every day looking for stuff in order to complete or start tasks. This is the same as 15 hours a month or two whole days just looking for things! Disorder has also been proven to have a negative effect on focus and therefore productivity.
It’s the little things such as:
Having a tidy desk or at least knowing where everything is
Keeping most used files to hand
Having a storage system that you know works
Organising the files on your computer
Planning any travel routes in advance as part of your planning the day before
Having your wardrobe organised and laying out clothes the night before
Always keeping your keys, wallet/purse, phone in the same place
These are all small things but added up can make a big difference and just knowing where things are will take away much of the stress that surrounds you.
Eliminate interruptions
It can take you up to 20 minutes to get back into an optimum productive flow every time you are interrupted. Even if you are only interrupted three times a day that’s 60 minutes or 1 hour just lost in interruptions. If you’re anything like most business owners I know then you’ll be allowing yourself to be...
