A Puzzling Work Week

Do you like to work on puzzles?

Both of my girls loved puzzles when they were young.  They would come up to me with those beautiful smiling faces.  In their hands would be colorful puzzles with pictures of  “The Little Mermaid” or “Bambi”.

“Can we do a puzzle?” they would ask.  I would smile and get down into the floor with them – and we “did” a puzzle.

My mother loved puzzles as well – although her idea of a puzzle would be one of those 1,000 piece varieties.  She would have that puzzle on the table for days as she worked meticulously to match all of the parts.

I am more of a mental puzzle kind of person.  I love to see the solution to a problem and implement my strategy to change things.

“If you aren’t carefully planning your work week, your productivity gets lost in the day to day chaos.”

 

Time management is crucial in sales.  There are so many different activities that you must complete each week.  If you aren’t carefully planning your work week, your productivity gets lost in the day to day chaos.

I suggest that you think of your work week exactly like a jigsaw puzzle.  Try the following steps to increase your personal productivity:

List Your Needed Activities:

• Make a list of ALL of the activities you do each week.
• Include your prospecting activities, presentations, follow-up, referral generation, sales meetings, emails, etc.
• If you need clarity – log your activities every 15 minutes for one week – just a short note about what you are doing at that moment will do.

Prioritize Those Activities According to the Pareto Principle:

• The Pareto Principle states that 80% of your productivity comes from 20% of your activities.
• Determine the 20% of your activities that generate your income – give those activities priority in your calendar.
• Delegate as much of the remaining 80% of your activities as possible.  Stop wasting work time on the things that don’t generate sales.

Make a Template For Your Work Week:

• Use a spreadsheet program such as Excel and build a template for each day in your work week.
• Make a space for each half-hour in your day.

Place The Puzzle Pieces Together:

• Color your highest priority activities (the 20%) in green.  Insert them into your work week template first.  Challenge yourself to add time doing the most productive 20%.  If you increase the time devoted to those activities from 20% to 40% – you may double your income.
• For other (80%) activities that you cannot delegate – plug them into your template with either a yellow or red color.  Give them only a minimal amount of your time.

Then work your week according to the template you make.

If you work the puzzle pieces together properly – giving the most time to the highest income generating priorities, you will find you spend less time looking at your bank statements… puzzled as to why you are not making enough money.

QUESTION:

What (or who) are the biggest challenges to your work week plan?