Living Life by Design

Have you ever sat down and calculated how much time you spend checking and responding to emails, texts and voicemails at work? With smartphones, it’s not uncommon to feel like your job is email! This can put you in a vicious downward cycle of inefficiency – a message, even if it’s not urgent, will suck from 5 to 45 minutes of your time, taking you away from your main goals for the day.

A study by Proudfoot Consulting studied sales force effectiveness across multiple western nations. They learned that the average sales person only spent 20% of their time on activities that actually put dollars in their or their company’s pocket.

The truth is that most emails, texts and voicemails can wait. Rather than responding right away to inbound communications, set aside specific times each day to manage your inbox. If you’re high-control, a modest boundary may be to set aside the first 15 minutes of every other hour. Or maybe just select three slots a day for this, and dedicate the other parts of your day to moving your business forward.

Try this for 30 days. I will guarantee that your productivity will increase by 200 percent. Really…