I decided to go through the titles in my bookshelf and take a look at what the experts had to say on the matter.  The two that were most useful were “The 7 habits of highly effective people” by Stephen Covey and “The 4 hour workweek” by Tim Ferris.  In part 1 of 2 of this blog posting, I will go over what Stephen Covey has to say on time management and in part 2, I will do the same for Tim Ferris.

In his book, “The 7 habits”, Stephen Covey sums up his view on time management in a single sentence: “Organize and execute around priorities”.  We should strive to prioritize and clarify our values and then “compare the relative worth of activities based on their relationship to those values.”  Put another way, in order to really move forward in life, we have to identify the things that are really important to us and focus our activities in those areas every day.

A concept I found absolutely amazing in the book is Stephen’s ‘time management matrix’.  Essentially, every single activity we do can be placed inside the matrix, which consists of 4 quadrants.  In Quadrant 1, we find all of the activities that are urgent and important (e.g. a  crisis, a deadline; any problem requiring our immediate attention).  For instance, completing an urgent report can be classified as a Quadrant 1 activity.  Quadrant 3 activities are urgent but not important (e.g. interruptions, an urgent but unimportant email, etc.)  Quadrant 4 activities are unimportant and not urgent (e.g. time wasters such as watching TV, talking on the phone for hours, etc.).

Activities that are directly responsible for our growth can be found in Quadrant 2:  the important but not urgent.  It involves things like nurturing relationships, exercising, long term planning, preparation, prevention, etc. For the small business owner, it can include things like maintaining a strong relationship with clients, attending networking events to make new contacts, reviewing and updating the business plan, additional training / education to further our knowledge, etc.  Deep down, we know that these things will make our business stronger but we don’t do them because they are not urgent.  However, in order to be effective in the long run, we must absolutely focus our attention on these Q2 activities.  And in order to make time for them, we have to learn how to say ‘no’  to activities in Q3 and Q4 (Q1 activities are urgent and important and thus hard to ignore).

The last time management tool at our disposal in the book is the ‘Weekly Planner’.   This is where you plan all your Q2 activities for the week.  Before you do so, spend a few minutes identifying the various roles you have in your life (e.g. parent, husband/wife, business owner, volunteer at a local organization, etc.).  This will help you establish your priorities.  Once this is done, think of a few activities you would like to accomplish during the course of the week.  The final step is to actually schedule the activities in your planner / calendar.  This will ensure that your goals for the week are more than just wishful thinking.  It ensures that you plan ahead and set a specific time during the week when you expect to accomplish each task.

I was never a fan of writing down goals, schedules, etc.  However, I recently realized that I have a tendency to want to do many things over the course of a single day or week and end up feeling that I haven’t accomplished enough with my time.  Identifying my roles and planning Q2 activities on a weekly basis forces me to be realistic in what I expect to accomplish.  In my next post, I will go over Tim Ferris’ view on time management, an interesting twist to what I covered today, but very much based on the same principles.

A recent encounter I had brought to light the importance of effective communication.  It also demonstrated how easily a simple problem can become complex when we use an ‘inflexible’ style of communication.  The  incident happened at the local post office between two sales associates and me.  A few weeks ago, I signed up for a P.O. Box for my company.   As is often the case, I misplaced the receipt a few days later.  Several hours of searching the house was unsuccessful and I finally admitted defeat.

So off I went to the post office.  I told the two associates my dilemma and that I needed another receipt for income tax purposes.  The sales associates were not impressed.  I was met with comments like: “We don’t that”, “we don’t just randomly print receipts”, and  “it’s the customer’s responsibility to take care of their receipt after the purchase”.  I wasn’t too happy either.  I replied with comments like:  “How complicated can it be to print  a receipt?” and “why can’t you just give me something in writing?”.

Despite my pleas, I could see we weren’t going anywhere.  Just before turning around and leaving, I tried one last thing.  I told the two people that my P.O. Box address was written on the receipt and I hadn’t written it down anywhere else.  Could they at least print something with the address written on it?  Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to use the P.O. Box at all.  This time, they saw some logic in my reasoning.  Sure enough, they had all my information on their computer and it took them less than a minute to print the sheet.  When I looked at the printout, I realized there was a lot more information on it than I had asked for.  In addition to the address, there was the type of P.O. Box I ordered (business / personal), the dimensions of the box, the expiry date,  and at the top, the transaction date and the amount I paid;  in other words:  a receipt.

Later when I thought about this curious incident, I realized what had happened.  The problem wasn’t that I didn’t  communicate clearly.  Rather, my communication only yielded results once I changed  the message to better suit the people on the receiving end.  When I first asked for a second receipt, the associates immediately became defensive.  The word ‘receipt’ to them represented something very official and sacred.  It was something that could only be given in certain situations.  I was asking them to do something outside of normal protocols:  print a receipt in the absence of a transaction.  Only when I changed my request from ‘printing a receipt’ to ‘giving me something with my P.O. Box address written on it’  were they willing to even consider a way of helping me.

The lesson here is this:  when communicating, we should always keep in mind the person on the receiving end.  We will have much better success of getting 0ur point across if we change our communication style to match that of the receiver.  If the other person is reserved and shy, don’t be too aggressive in trying to get your point across.   If they’re analytical, use facts and figures to give them what they need.  If they’re outgoing, strike up a conversation before saying what you had in mind.  In my case:  avoid using ‘official’ sounding words with a sales associate if I am requesting something outside of ‘official protocol’.  Keeping the person on the receiving end in mind makes the difference between communicating to express yourself and communicating to get results.

As a follow-up to my previous post on mind mapping, I am going to bring to light one of its great applications:  writing and delivering a speech.  Before going further, I should mention that I have some prior experience in public speaking.  In many of our business courses in university, presenting was a normal part of the curriculum.  In addition, I spent some time as a member of a local toastmasters club, a great organization for improving one’s public speaking skills.  However, I wish I had learned how to use mind mapping a few years back since I feel this simple technique greatly improves every part of a speech from writing / editing to memorization and delivery.  It also cuts preparation time by at least 50%.

The traditional approach to speech writing is exactly as its name suggests:  writing out the whole speech by hand and then proceeding to memorize as much of it as possible.  There are few problems with this approach:

1. Writing out a full speech followed by editing takes a great deal of time.  By editing, I mean anything from correcting spelling mistakes and grammar to adding and removing text.
2. Once the speech is finalized, the next step is memorization.  This a critical step in delivering an effective speech since the speaker needs to be fluid and avoid looking at his / her speech or cue cards every few seconds.  Otherwise, the speech becomes too robotic and rehearsed.  The audience also loses connection with the speaker and may begin to doubt his or her expertise.   I find memorization to be the most difficult and time consuming part of the whole process.  Although I had no problems in the past writing a great speech, I always ran out of time when it came to memorization, which naturally affected my delivery.  The lack of preparation time also meant that I often exceeded my time limit, sometimes by several minutes.

Replacing the traditional approach with mind mapping solves all of these problems.  Now, when I write a speech, I never actually have to ‘write’ out the full speech.  I use the following steps:

1. I create an overall mind map of the speech containing all of the different areas I have to cover.
2. Next, I create the speech in my head and add keywords to the mind map as triggers to the actual sentences.
3. Editing or making changes to the mind map is very easy.  I am replacing one trigger word with another (instead of deleting and writing new sentences / paragraphs).  With mind mapping software like Mind Manager or Free Mind, it’s  also very easy to move and re-order key points or subtopics.
4. Memorization.  This is the best part.  Because the speech was never actually written out, it only exists in the mind of the speaker with keywords acting as triggers to the actual sentences.  Furthermore, every time I look over the mind map, I am in fact memorizing and rehearsing my speech.  This is a tremendous relief since there is almost no chance of forgetting anything upon finalizing the mind map.  If  I forget a sentence, I’ll know the very first time I go over that part of the speech.  I simply have to pick a stronger key word that better represents the content of the sentence.

Compared to the other methods I learned in the past on speech writing, I find mind mapping to be far more superior and less time consuming.  When we deliver a speech, rather than repeating memorized words, we should aim to tell a great story to our audience.  The subject and speaker become one.  That’s what differentiates a good speech from a great one.  Mind mapping is powerful tool that can make this possible.

As an example, I attached a few of the cue cards I used to deliver a 10 minute presentation seeking seed funding for my business.  The whole speech took me approximately 3 hours to write and memorize.  The presentation was well received

View cue cards

Image by gideonking

Ever since I read the book “Use your head” by Tony Buzan a few years back, I have been using  mind mapping as a tool quite extensively.  For those unfamiliar with the term, a ‘mind map’ is an alternative and superior way of taking notes that makes use of both the left (analytical) and right (creative) sides of the brain.  You begin with a key concept in the middle of the page with secondary keywords ‘branching out’ radially around the key concept.

Research shows that the human brain works in very a non-linear way with associations and connections being key parts 0f the whole process.  A mind map is more conducive to this than traditional linear note taking.  A few advantages include:   a  clearly defined central idea, relative importance of ideas, links between ideas, and faster recall and review periods.

As mentioned in the book, here are a few guidelines for creating a great mind  map:

1. Start with a central idea in the middle of the page.  Preferably, use an image instead of a word.
2. Make use of images throughout your mind map.
3. Words should be carefully selected to facilitate recall.  A noun or verb works best.
4. Printed words should be on lines.  Each line should be connected to other lines.
5. One word per line.
6. Use color throughout the mind map as they enhance memory.

You can use mind mapping for many different things other than note taking:  summarizing an article, essay writing, meetings, problem solving, brainstorming,  setting goals for the year, and speech writing (I will cover this in a future post).

As an example, here’s a mind map I created the other day to help me reflect on all the different parts of my business.

View mind map

The concept of a ‘paperless’ life is something that I’m finding more and more appealing.  Lets face it.  We’re inundated with paperwork every day:  letters, bills, pay stubs, receipts, warranties, instructions on how to use your printer, etc.  We can sort all this information and file them separately using a file folder.  However, the process of going through each folder looking for instance, an old pay stub can be very frustrating and time consuming.

A better alternative would be to scan all your documents into an image or PDF and work with digital copies.  Double clicking a folder on your computer is much faster than physically looking for a tab in your file folder.  You can keep a physical backup of key documents (e.g. signed letters) and trash the rest.  I personally have a folder on my computer called ‘Administration’ where I save all my scanned documents.  Furthermore, I use sub folders in order to create categories and keep things organized (e.g. Automotive, Work, Medical, Housing, Income Taxes, etc.).

You don’t have to restrict the use of PDFs to just scanning.  You can also use it as a substitute for printing. Anything that can be printed can also be saved as a pdf.  All you need to do is install a ‘virtual pdf printer’.  Once installed,  click as if you were about to print the document and select the virtual printer.  You will then be prompted to save the document as a pdf file.  An excellent free program that allows you to install a virtual printer is CutePDF (http://www.acrosoftware.com/Products/CutePDF/writer.asp).  It’s easy to use and takes less than a minute to install.

Going digital is an excellent way to reduce your stack of papers, reports, etc.  It’s also very good for the environment.  In an age of information overload, less is better.

For the longest time, I kept the business cards of all my contacts neatly filed in a plastic business card holder.  Then one day, I realized how inefficient the whole process is.  There are some major drawbacks with using this method of information storage:

1. Storing something that shouldn’t be stored: How many of the business cards we collect do we really need to keep?  Do you really intend to develop a business relationship with every person in your card holder?  When I went through my card holder that day, I realized that I had no idea who half of the people were or why I felt the need to keep their contact information.
2. Information is poorly organized.  Every time I stored a card, I usually inserted it into first empty ‘pouch’ I found.  I’m sure you can get card holders that are sorted alphabetically but even that is pretty useless when you can’t remember the name of the person you’re trying to look up.
3. Physical space.  Those small cards take up space and that space will soon turn into clutter.  When one card holder becomes full, we have no choice but to go out and purchase another.  Soon, you end up with two or three card holders that will take hours to go through. There’s also risk of your precious rolodex being stolen.
4. Management.  Every once in a while you should go through your business cards to get rid of the unnecessary ones.  The only problem is that it takes a lot of time to go through each card, take it out of the pouch, discard it, and then fill the empty pouch with a new card.

So what’s the solution?  I say, use a program like Microsoft Access or its open source equivalent, Open Office Base to manage your contacts.  If you’re not familiar with these programs, do a google search to find free tutorials and learn the bare essentials (creating tables and basic queries).

You can create different tables for different categories of contact information.  Personally, I use two tables: Personal Contacts (friends & family) and Business Contacts.

I use the following column headings for my business contacts:  Contact Person, Company Name, Position, E-mail, Address, Phone, Fax, Website, and Comments.  The ‘comments’ column is where I add a phrase or tag to help me remember how I know the person (e.g. met at the ‘X’ event; specializes in financing).

I also make use of ‘queries’, which allow me to sort the information in the table based on criteria I specify.  Lets say I want to look only at  contacts who work in the field of real estate.  I create a simple query and sort the information based on the tag ‘Real Estate’ (inputted the ‘Comment’ column).

Here’s what the ‘Real Estate’ query looks like in ‘design view’.  When I run the query, it only gives me the records that have the tag “Real Estate” in them.

The beauty with using a database program to store all your contacts is that information can be very easily added, sorted, deleted, and manipulated  to retrieve the information you need.  It is faster, and much more efficient than using the old school method of a rolodex or business card holder.