Book: No B.S. Time Management for Entrepreneurs
- Read: March 2012
- Rating: 7.5/10
No B.S. Time Management for Entrepreneurs by Dan Kenney is a very practical book on time management for entrepreneurs. That said, I can’t say that the book is for everyone. While I enjoyed it, Dan isn’t exactly all there in terms of what’s going on today (Internet, smart phones, etc) and he can come across as very unequitable. But I’d be willing to bet he is extremely productive due to ignoring said technologies, and he doesn’t make up excuses if and when life isn’t fair to him. Enough about Dan, let’s get into some notes from the actual book.
My Notes
You need your own philosophy of valuing time
Is what I’m doing worth $XYZ an hour to do it?
It helps you quantify what is going on in your life
Leverage is the difference between the base cost for your hour and the amount of money you get for it or from it
Base earnings target / 1,760 hours worked per year = base hourly number
Base hourly number x times productivity vs nonproductivity = what your time must be worth per hour
Times productivity ~ 3x
Most people will find ways to avoid confrontive productivity and will waste their time, even if they have to work at it
Put a stop to interruptions: multiply your productivity
- Get lost
- Be inaccessible
- Have a closed door policy
- Don’t answer the phone (or text, email, or IM)
- You have absolutely no legal, moral, or other responsibility to answer the phone or take a call unless you want to
- If you take inbound calls as they come, you are constantly stopping work on a task of known priority in favor of something or someone of unknown priority
- Train your clientele
- Fix the fax (or email)
- You are not obligate to respond to inbound email (or other communication) instantly, quickly, or ever
- With each easier, faster means of communication, the quantity of dumb, junk communication has multiplied
- Set the timer on the bomb
- When someone communicates with you (via phone), let them know you have a meeting in 15 minutes. Then they’re forced to get right to the point
- Be busy and be obvious about it
“There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full” - Henry Kissinger
Be punctual
You cannot reasonably hope to have others treat your time with respect if you show little or no respect for theirs
People who can’t be punctual, can’t be trusted
Self-discipline is the magic power that makes you virtually unstoppable
Take few, if any, incoming calls
Minimize meetings
Make and use lists:
- Schedule
- Things to do
- People to call
Fight to link everything to your goals
The only real reason more people do not become millionaires is that they don’t have enough reasons to
Block your time
Minimize unplanned activities
Focus on work that directly produces wealth
Decide what “wealth” means to you. Find your “enough is enough” number
Establish yearly, monthly, and weekly targets and benchmarks (for your wealth)
When dealing with information overload, get only the information you really want and need
You must read a lot to succeed
Set aside and bulk material that is not time sensitive
Don’t let noninformation consume your time
Answer these questions weekly:
- What do you know this week, that you didn’t know last week, about…
- Your business?
- Your industry as a whole?
- Your competitors?
- Your customers?
- Your top 1, 5, 10, or 20 customers?
- A client, individually?
- One of the top leaders in your field?
- Societal, cultural, or economic trends that may affect your business?
- A “success” topic, such as personal finance, self-motivation, or time management?
- A marketing topic, such as direct response advertising, direct mail, Internet?
- A person, event, or topic in the current news of great interest or importance to your clientele?
- A method, a means, process, or technique of doing something useful to you?
For information, the trick is to be able to quickly find what you need when you need it
Seven steps to proper delegation:
- Define what is to be done
- Be certain the delegatee understands what is to be done
- Explain why it is to be done as you are prescribing it to be done
- Teach how it is to be done without the micro-micro-managing
- Be sure the delegatee understands the how-to process
- Set the deadline for completion or progress report
- Be sure you have agreement to the date or time and method
Who you hang out with matters
Work expands to fill the time available to do it
Determine what NOT to do today
Some people just can’t stand prosperity
If you can’t control your thoughts and manage your mind, you can’t control or manage your time
Set up psychological triggers to help you think a certain (productive) way
What we are after is effectiveness, not necessarily efficiency
People manage to focus their time, energy, and resources on everything but the few vital things in their business that really have to do with directly making money
If you’re having trouble getting focused, identify and write down the three most important, most significant, most productive, most valuable things you can do to foster success in your particular enterprise
Translate these into three actions you can take each and everyday
I’ve never known or met a successful entrepreneur who wasn’t a list maker
In order to sell, speak to someone’s self-interest
No B.S. Time Truths:
- If you don’t know what your time is worth, you can’t expect the world to know it either
- Time vampires will suck as much blood out of you as you permit. If you’re drained dry at day’s end, it’s your fault
- If they can’t find you, they can’t interrupt you
- Punctuality provides personal power
- By all means, judge. But know that you too, will be judged
- Self-discipline is magnetic
- If you don’t manage information, you can’t profit from information
- Good enough is good enough
- Liberation is the ultimate entrepreneurial achievement