Who's stealing your time?

Do you ever reach the end of the day and wonder where the time went? Have you been trying
to get a task completed or a project started and never seem to get round to it?

If so, you could have some time thieves lurking. Time thieves will thwart your best intentions. They sometimes wear different disguises to make them hard to catch but really they are all interruptions or distractions to your precious working time. They could be unexpected phone calls (from colleagues as well as telemarketing); people calling by ‘just for a chat’; time spent looking for a file or document; letting emails take top priority as soon as they ping in; or spending valuable time clicking links instead of doing what you should be doing!

One way of finding out how many time thieves you have is to monitor how you spend your working day. If you’re interested, I have a form all ready for you to use – just email me and I’ll send it to you. Try it for a week and unmask your time thieves!

Do you arrive early?

Are you always rushing to do ‘just one more thing’ before you leave for a networking event? Do you make just one more phone call or read one last email and then hope that the traffic is kind to you?

When you hurry in, are people already in small groups talking, or even taking their seats to listen to the speaker?

If you were to arrive earlier, preferably before the event is due to start, you could meet more people. You could have time to study the list of attendees and decide who you want to meet. You could stand near the registration desk and help to greet people as they arrive. You could introduce yourself to new contacts.

Networking isn’t just about showing up, it’s about planning to get the most from every event – and that means arriving early!

Ouch, that hurt!

Last week I did some long overdue housekeeping on my Ezine subscriber list. I deleted all the 'unsubscribe' request records and the hard bounces. I knew that doing this would reduce the total number on my list, but it still hurt to hit the delete button.

On the plus side, it does mean that those people still on the list are definitely in my target market and are interested in receiving newsletters and other notices from me.

It's taken me many years to realise that people unsubscribing doesn't necessarily mean they don't like ME! During my 'housekeeping' I also removed the email addresses of people who I know have moved on to take up new positions. There were also some who work in larger corporations - they're definitely not in my target market!

What would have made it easier for me would have been to send a little note wishing them well in the future - after all, I have met nearly all of them personally, but it doesn't seem very business-like somehow. After all, they have just told me they don't want to hear from me by email anymore!

Every now and then I have a purge of all my newsletter subscriptions, just to not end up with an overflowing Inbox. I know that other people must go through the same exercise (in fact it's something I tell my workshop students to do!).

I'm currently doing a lot of experimenting with Email marketing and will be sharing the results.

Now, I just need to replace those unsubscribers .......

Is talking going out of fashion?

When I first started out in business 10 years ago, I used the telephone a lot (nearly all day!) - and I sent out letters with stamps on them. Today I hardly ever send out letters - in fact I even sent out Ecards at Christmas, something I couldn't have imagined a few years ago.

Quite often I find myself typing a reply to an email, and then stopping because it's getting rather long and involved. At that point I usually decide to pick up the phone and speak to the person concerned.

I've noticed that, if I send an email asking a slightly awkward question, like "Will you be attending my teleclass?", I get an email reply when the answer is negative. I have to admit that I have been known to do the same!

It got me thinking that it is easy, today, to avoid speaking to people if we don't want to. But, while it can be useful to hide behind the computer screen (or a mobile phone text message) if we don't fancy a 'confrontation', it is a bit wimpish too!

All those years ago, I had to prepare what I wanted to say on the phone, how I was going to say it - and be ready to deal with what the other person might say in return. Although I didn't realise it at the time, these were very strong skills to learn and they have come in useful many times!

Emails can come across as abrupt and thoughtless (there's no tonality to soften the message) and relationships can be irretrievably damaged - just by pressing 'send'.

Some messages are still better delivered in person (by talking at least). Our electronic methods of communication just don't have that human touch.

New Challenges for the New Year

May I wish all readers and all bloggers a very happy 2008!

This week has been incredibly exciting and very busy for me! I've recorded a special introductory audio for the website and launched the Accelerate Business Club, something I've been dreaming about for quite a while. It's a bit nerve-wracking but great fun to see it become reality.

I've also decided that, instead of holding a physical workshop this month, I'm going to run my first Teleclass (all about using Emails to get more sales). Sorting out the logistics has been interesting! I've just announced the date to all my newsletter subscribers - I find that to be a wonderful way of focusing the mind and making sure it happens!

Next week, things should get back to 'normal' in terms of business. Meetings are booked, networking restarts, client work resumes. It's very easy to get caught up again on the busy 'hamster wheel' and forget what the actual plan is! So far I've managed to fill the diary for next week without setting aside the time I need for business development. Not a very good example to set my coaching clients - but I am only human!

So, I'm off to plan out the rest of the month, before that runs away with me too.

Emails out of control?

Earlier this week I read about people declaring 'Email Bankruptcy'. This is where they delete all emails in their Inbox and start afresh, telling close friends and family to resend any messages from the last few days.

I also read (in a separate article) that storing too many emails in your Inbox can cause the program to crash - and all messages will be lost. Still, I suppose that has the same end result!

I remember a friend of mine telling me (must be a couple of years ago!) proudly that she had just over 3,000 emails in her Inbox - three thousand!! How on earth could she expect to find anything?

Perhaps the question to ask is how do people allow their emails to build up to this extent? Do they also have piles of paper everywhere? Or is it an 'untidiness' gene?

Personally I believe that we all have to be really disciplined in dealing with all the electronic information we receive each and every day : Emails we've been cc'd on (do question the need to 'reply to all'!), Spam Emails (get an effective filter), Ezines we subscribe to (are there any we don't really want any more?) and all those interesting-looking links to explore on the Internet (a great way of spending a precious hour or more!).

I have a quick 3-second rule that I apply to each each of my emails. Open message, scan for urgency, if urgent move to next message, if not urgent - move message to another folder called 'action' or 'pending' and deal with later. Open next message, scan for urgency .... etc. By applying this rule, 300 new messages will only take 15 minutes to filter those you need to deal with urgently.