Last week I presented at one of our client's offices. The subject was 'Effective Decision Making' and I covered:
- How to create a work-life balance that really does work
- A 7-step plan for determining priorities
- How to say no while keeping everyone happy
Those who attended the presentation said:
- An extremely valuable event
- Would like a longer session
- Very useful, very relevant to my work role
- Really helped me think about my prioritisation skills and new ways of getting things done
- Very useful resource material to refer to in the future
We covered a lot of material but there was one key piece of advice that was applicable to everyone. I'm happy to share it with you.
The ability to make effective decisions will be dictated by how energetic, focused, engaged and in control you feel. To ensure you remain in this positive frame of mind at all times, create clearly defined appointments in your schedule to review your effectiveness.
A simple pattern to follow is:
- 1 hour review time per month. At the beginning, end or in the middle of the month, you decide.
- 20 minutes review time per week. Recommended to be in the middle of the week rather than Monday morning or Friday afternoon.
- 6 minutes review time per day. This can be broken into three mini-reviews of 2 minutes each to keep you track throughout the day.
In total that's just 52 review / planning hours per working year. Less than 3% of your time if you work a 35 hour week. 52 hours invested in yourself that can make an enormous difference to every single minute you spend at work and which will also have a positive impact on your life outside of work.
With summer coming to a close and many of us heading back into the school run and busy work schedules, this is a crucial time to plan how you make the best decisions for your life.
What are you waiting for? Get reviewing and get effective.
image by davidyuweb at flickr
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