We regularly tell ourselves that we don’t have enough time when we actually do. We just are choosing to spend it in different places. You first have to know if it is your plan or your discipline that is holding you back.
When I started working with one executive, he told me that it was impossible to take control of his time as the CEO appeared to love long meetings that meandered slowly through laborious updates, with as little direction as a paper sailboat in a pond on a windy day. He had given in to what he thought was the norm and allowed others to knock his plans off course so then he stopped planning. I gave him some ways to take back control and he immediately identified he had created over eight hours of free time each and every week by not allowing others, (even his boss!) to encroach on his plans.
I can always quickly determine which of my executive clients will rapidly achieve results, by observing how disciplined they are. The most successful do what they say they are going to do when they said they will do it. They have a high Promise Achievement Ratio or PAR. No follow up, reminders, excuses, or multiple new missed deadlines. You can quickly calculate this by paying attention to how many promises you make that you actually deliver. I asked this question at an executive leadership meeting last month that I was running for a technology company. The results ranged from 20 percent to 95 percent with some rapid feedback in the room from executive to executive about the perception and reality of each other's PARs. Since then everyone of the executive team has told me they are seeing faster delivery of results from their peers because they increased their discipline.
I am certainly no golfer but I rapidly get executives playing above PAR by how they are inventing more time.
Dedicated to growing your business,
Val