How many times each day have you found yourself drifting off on an unproductive task? Do you realise that you are even doing it? Or, are you very aware that you suffer from elements of a virus known as The Magpie Syndrome? Perhaps a shiny object attracts your attention and you’ve diverted off of your productive path and are now on the road to…there’s no simpler way to put it…time wasting. Activity Logs are your solution.
Time is precious when you’re a business owner. You often hear people joking about how wonderful it would be if someone could invent a time machine, or wishing there were more hours in the day. The truth is, in reality neither of these things are likely to happen, so it’s time to take control and work out exactly where your diversions are happening.
Once you can identify your time wasting triggers, you stand a better chance of being able to implement strategies that assist you in avoiding those shiny distractions, resulting in your own re-invention of the time machine. You’ve just created more hours for yourself!
Have you heard of an activity log? This is a great way of keeping a record as to how you spend your time each day, both productive and of course, not so productive. It could perhaps be considered that creating this log is a form of procrastination itself, as it requires manually keeping a record and noting down every time you change a task you perform or an activity. Of course, if you spend unnecessary time creating this report (using fancy images or different font types and colours) then that could be considered time wasting. You simply just need to get the details down and the ‘evidence’ in front of you. Include the date and time, the activity, how long you spent on it and whether you consider it to be of value. It’s also worth noting down how you feel at the time of performance, because this could demonstrate certain patterns for certain tasks. You need to see exactly what you are spending your time on and how it is proving productive within your business.
View your activity log as a time machine and a way to change future events by looking at how they worked for you in the past.
You will come to realise that you could and should be spending time on many alternative tasks, which help to drive your business forward. You could also notice a pattern for those you find you are not enjoying or tie you down when you could be working on something else. Could delegating these tasks to a Virtual Assistant be a way to improve your time management?
If you are finding that you’re feeling low in energy or ‘flat’ whilst carrying out an activity, could it be that the time of day you are working on that specific job isn’t quite working for you? There’s a lot to be said about how you schedule certain types of activity and at what part of the day.
We would love to hear from you if you have utilised an activity log. What did you discover? Were you shocked by how much time you were spending making tea, sporadic invoicing, responding to emails or just simply getting lost in the world of social media?
How can you, use your activity log to time travel?
Busy business owners and successful trainers all struggle from time to time to get everything done in the working day. That’s why we put together our list of favourite tips, tricks, and real life examples that you can use to start doing more with the time you have. Download your free copy here
Learn how you can work with Virtual Hand; how your business can grow and how you can communicate better with your audience.
