How Important is a Diary for Entrepreneurs

 

Hi, it’s Mike here from M Business and Marketing Solutions. Today on Mike’s Marketing Minutes,  we are talking about: “How is your diary today.” 

 

We’re going to talk about time themes and we’re also going to talk about how to set things up, how to prioritize your day. Here we go. 

 

CONTENT

Today we’re talking about: Did you get everything done in your diary today?

 

 So what does that mean? 

 

Well, it’s four o’clock it’s four o’clock and the day is nearly over. How did you go with getting all your priorities done? How did you go with getting all the really important things done for your business? 

 

Today, I want to talk to you about a few things, but firstly I want to talk to you about time. A lot of people feel that they just don’t have enough time in the day. And you know, it’s like you get to now four o’clock and you start thinking, uh, you know, where did the day go?

 

Where did the time go? I never have enough time. 

 

 

You cannot get more time, but you can allocate more time. And this is, especially for me, I’m a major creative. I find time just disappears. I start daydreaming out the window and the next thing you know it’s lunchtime. 

 

Don’t get Olivia started on that if you know us. But you know, she’s definitely the expert in time management. But I’m learning and the most important thing is I think it comes back down to four areas. 

 

 #1 MAKING A LIST OF YOUR MOST IMPORTANT THINGS

 

The first thing is really about making a list of your most important things. So you have to identify what’s most important that you want to achieve in a day. And people go, Oh, I’ve got so many different things I have to achieve. Think of it like this.

 

If someone kidnapped your family, put a gun to your head and said, “I’m going to give you two hours just today, to get everything that you need to do for your business that would normally take you 10 hours.” What would you start with first? What is priority? What’s your priority list? Your must do’s! Because once you get your must do’s done, then you can start moving onto the next part. 

 

#2 ALLOCATE YOUR MUST DO’S IN A DIARY

 

So the next thing you need to do once you get to the must do’s. You then go to work out the best time of the day to achieve them. The best way to do that is allocating time on your diary. Now, you know, some people are all skilled. I go back to the news agency. They get a physical diary and they allocate that time step-by-step and write it down.

I use outlook. Some people got some pretty crazy stuff to do things. Diaries, I use outlook. Outlook is fantastic. I love outlook because we’re a Microsoft 365. So outlook for me is diaritised.

 

 

What I try to do  is I try, and this is something that’s really important, is I don’t have any spaces in the diary. That’s a really big thing because if you have a space, you could have done something that was ideal, something that was really important. So that’s the first thing to make a list of all your priorities. 

 

Number two, start thinking about the best time of the day to achieve those priorities.

 

#3 SCHEDULE YOUR ESSENTIAL ACTIONS FIRST

 

Number three, schedule your essential actions first. 

 

 

#4 SCHEDULE THE HIGHER PRIORITY ACTIVITIES

 

Number four, then schedule the higher priority activities after that and then number five, then everything else.

 

 

So you know that’s pretty much it because you know sometimes when you start making a list of your must do things that you do for the day, sometimes it’s not that bad and you can really pump out those essentials really, really quickly.

And I’m telling you now, you know it’s the winning sign:

 

Win the morning; win the day. But it’s also win the start of the week; win the rest of the week. 

 

I do believe that if you can win Monday, you’ve got a good chance of setting up your week properly and believe it or not, guess what? If you’ve already prepared from Friday and you’ve diarized your time for exactly when you’ve come in: “what’s on the list, what you’re doing,”; then you have a better chance as well. 

 

 

I’m not just talking about the time to see your client appointments. I’m talking about essential business actions that are going to get you to work smarter and not harder and prioritizing times in your diary, so you don’t waste time. I mean I know delivery wise or I know when you’re seeing clients and stuff sometimes can really waste time.

 

Sometimes you can go, Hey, I’ve got one here and then I’ve got another one on the other side of town and then I’ve got another one on the other side of the town and I got another one on the other side. It’s always about making a plan. 

 

The final thing I want to talk to you and this is really, really important. Did you know that there are apps out there to steal your time? They are that time thieves, they’re everywhere. And sometimes they look really familiar and they often come in and just the most irregular times, or  they call you up and they want to chat and they want to do things. And the most annoying times of the day, that is our time faves.

 

And guess what? It’s not their fault. You’re the one that has allowed them to come in and steal your time.

 

 

So something else I would like you to do is make a list of those time-wasters. Your interrupters might get interrupted. Who are the main culprits? Who are the main culprits that interrupt you and, and steal time from you? Well that you allow them to still turn from you because guess what? The time you’re giving them instead of using  your time is that! Does that make sense? Yes, that’s right. 

 

CONCLUSION

 

So number one, get down to what’s important. So if someone is holding a bullet to your head and they’ve got your family somewhere, guess what? You’re gonna make time. You’re gonna make sure that you’ve got time. Secondly, what are the most important things of the day? That’s paramount. Then do everything else. Do the most important things first, and then step by step out of that. 

 

But you know what? It’s always about allocating each time. Putting it all in. You’re going to get everything that you need to get done in the time that you don’t make a commitment to yourself. That’s if you don’t get those priorities done. A lot of us don’t have jobs that you can actually do after work. But sometimes if you make a priority that if you don’t get it done in the daytime, you’ve got to do it at nighttime. There’s gotta be some sort of a bad thing that’s going to happen. 

 

What happens if you don’t get all those things done? You know what I mean? What’s the consequence? You need to consider these consequences in your life? I think that’s something that I’ve learned recently that it’s so important to have consequences. So they got high. We had a good one, and I’ll catch up with you very, very soon. Bye.