Manage Your Disneyland Hour: Create Magic in Everyday Life
Disneyland was built in 366 days, from the moment the first shovel broke ground to the day the first admission ticket was sold.
Imagine how many dreams you could accomplish if you made every hour a Disneyland hour!
A Disneyland hour isn’t time spent with Goofy. The expression relates to the philosophy of Disney’s founder, Walt: “If you can dream it, you can do it.”
But dreaming and doing are two completely different things. If you’ve got more dreams than time to make them happen, where do you start?
‘A boer makes a (time) plan‘ (a farmer makes a plan)
Shifting your focus lies at the heart of time management.
Concentrate on results, not on being busy.
If you manage your time better, you control your life, your stress and your energy levels.
You make progress at work, create a better work/personal/family life balance and respond to the unexpected with more flexibility.
Start with identifying the most common obstacles to time management.
If you know the causes, you can address them and start to see an improvement
20% in, 80% out
Typically, 80% of unfocused effort generates only 20% of results.
You can tap into the 80:20 rule if you know what you want to achieve and by prioritizing your goals. You only need to put in 20% of the effort to achieve 80% of what you want to achieve.
Go for the goals
When you set daily, weekly and monthly goals you can open up time for new opportunities.
Make your goals tangible by breaking them down into strategies. From there you can break each strategy into smaller actions. The smaller actions become your to-do list.
What to do!
Make a to-do list and set priorities against each item so you know where to start first. Do this for each new action that comes on to the list.
If you continually find it difficult to plan your day because unexpected actions always come up, make a point of expecting the unexpected. Set aside some time each day to deal with these unknown actions.
A fast game isn’t always a good game
Imagine you have a hundred $10 notes and ten $100 notes in your hands. A sudden whirlwind whips them out of your grasp. What would be your strategy to get them back?
If you moved to pick up the closest notes, working your way toward the rest, you’d be efficient. But you’d be more effective if you went for the ten $100 notes.
Being efficient is getting something done fast, while being effective is getting the right thing done. It’s better to do the right thing slowly than the wrong thing quickly.
By working smarter, not harder, you can feel a greater sense of progress, accomplishment and fulfillment. You’ll be less stressed because you achieved your most important goals.
Some examples
Email: take a zero inbox approach. Check your emails at specific times only. Write fewer emails. Give them an obvious subject line. When they come in, process and file them immediately. Most importantly, deal with them only once.
Stop solving problems: spend time preventing them in the first place.
Telephone calls: be goal specific on the phone. Set time limits and plan the timing of your calls. Stand up while you’re talking. Using a speaker phone and headset could save you hours.
Say no: by saying no you empower yourself to do what’s important to you, not letting others decide for you.
Delegate: using the skills of others you can free your time for planning and other more important matters.
Commuting: use this time as an opportunity to make calls (wireless of course).
Technology: use it to your benefit, from apps to electronic calendars, whatever is available.
Opportunity cost
Time is the only thing that’s completely your own.
Defend it ruthlessly: you may find one day that you have less than you think.
Next time you leave the office at 8pm, consider the cost. If you’d planned your time better, you could have had more time with family and friends.
Coaching and time management
Coaching is a very effective tool when time management is a challenge.
Working with a professional coach helps you to address your personal circumstances head-on, changing the way you deal with your time.
Once you’ve changed that, you’ll be able to build your very own Disneyland.
As published in leading business journal Accountancy SA in May 2011.