The weekend just gone was a busy one for me.
Saturday in particular. I had a long list to do, people to meet and places to be.
Now I’m not saying this to be all ‘woooo, look at how popular I am’. Far from it.
I managed to get everything sorted, got round to seeing everyone I’d committed to and wasn’t late for any of it – which if you know me well you’ll realise is quite a feat itself.
Saturday was so busy that it needed to be planned down to small details to make sure I wasn’t late. I had to set deadlines for myself.
In the morning I went into the office and caught up on a pile of work – most involved responding to people who I promised I’d get back to by the end of the weekend. Knowing I wasn’t available to work on Sunday meant this stuff had to be done and dusted on Saturday.
But I’d also agreed to meet an advertiser at Borehamwood Football Club at 2.30pm to discuss a potential sponsorship deal. So I knew by 2pm everything had to be finished.
That deadline focussed my efforts so much that I had completed everything with 15 minutes to spare.
I drove over to Borehamwood FC, had a lively and productive meeting while watching the home team play Torquay United but I was still on the clock as it were. I needed to leave at 5.30pm, no later.
That was because I knew that I had to be at an advertiser’s birthday party by 7.30pm. It was a surprise party so there was no casually bowling in whenever I liked. Another deadline that couldn’t be missed and wasn’t.
The day ran to plan, not because of luck, in fact I was stuck in traffic for a while but had built in a little time buffer to the day. It went smoothly because I had deadlines for everything I was doing.
It’s the same in business. Without a deadline projects can go on and on never getting sorted properly. One of my reporters used to always say how deadlines sharpened the mind and focussed the energy. He was spot on.
My close friend Mike Cole from Imagine Estate Agents spoke recently about viewing your time as a precious commodity not to be wasted. He used an analogy that if you looked at hours in a day as individual gold bars you’d be less likely to fritter them away watching crap TV or surfing blindly on the internet.
He said spending one of your gold bars exercising was a good investment in getting future gold bars as it helps you stay healthy and live longer.
Using spare time in the evening to meet clients was another valuable and worthwhile use of a ‘gold bar’.
And of course our families and friends are THE most important things we have and spending gold bars with them is absolutely priceless.
Thanks for reading.
Nik
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