Scott Simmonds - Insurance Newsletter

Helping Insurance Experts Build Great Businesses
www.ICMentor.com

March, 2007

Manage Your Time Like a Tightwad Manages Money

Thousands of books have been written about time management. I’ve read many of them. Still, I didn’t really understand how important the practice of time management was until I became a consultant.

As a solo practitioner, nobody cares about my hours or work habits. My clients just want the value I've promised. My time is my own, 100%. I have 24 hours to work and do the other activities I enjoy.

If I take three hours to finish my project, there is less time available for me to do other things that I might want to do. If I spend twenty minutes on a phone conversation that should have taken ten, I'm robbing time from other activities. I'm not just speaking of being able to do more work. Perhaps there is a TV show I want to watch or time I'd like to spend with my kids. Being tight with my time frees me up for other, perhaps more enjoyable, activities.

You have heard this before; time is more precious than gold. You can never get more of it once it’s gone. Real wealth is the freedom to spend time in exactly the way you want to.

I've found that if I act as if I have all the time in the world, those around me do too. I now start most of my meetings with, “I have 45 minutes. Sorry to rush things…”

It’s amazing what gets done when people have a time constraint. I promise my clients a return call within 90 minutes. This pledge helps me manage meetings - it's understood that after about an hour I'm going to have to return phone calls to my other clients.

Here are some ideas I have found helpful:

--Be an absolute tightwad with your time. Your frame of mind affects your approach.

--Always be on time for meetings and expect that others will be too.

--Insist that the leader of a meeting start on time. Ask how long a meeting will last at the onset or set the time limit. At five minutes before the end time, stand up.

--Every day have a firm idea of the one or two things that must be done that day.

--Track projects in a way that works for you - file folders, date books, computer calendars, notebooks.

--Don’t allow others to put monkeys on your back. It’s amazing how people will make their problem your problem if you let them.

--Here are some phrases I use to help me cut phone calls short.

“Tom, just to let you know, I only have about ten minutes, how can I help you?”
“Sue, I'm going into a meeting. Can we keep this short?
“Bill, I 've just realized how long we’ve been talking. Are you set?

--Let voicemail pick up calls when you're in mid-project. Interruptions create gaps in attention that can pull you off an effective train of thought and action.

--Learn to multi-task when appropriate.

--Always carry reading materials with you so you can fill in down-time between appointments.

--I enjoy watching TV with my wife in the evening. I skim magazines and newspapers while the shows are on. I tear-out articles that require higher concentration and read them later.

--Hire help with business and personal tasks you don’t enjoy. Use a bookkeeper and a house cleaning service. Have someone plow the snow in your driveway and care for your lawn. I used to do household repairs myself. Now I hire them out. It really is cheaper in the long run when you consider the value of your time. I remember spending hours trying to fix a broken toilet. Dumb. Call the plumber!

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Scott Simmonds, CPCU, ARM
Insurance Consulting
Phone 207-284-0085
Fax 802-992-4027
Scott@ScottSimmonds.com
www.ScottSimmonds.com

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