Effective Time Management Strategies
(A.K.A. BraveHeart’s Seven Steps To FREEDOM!)
We’ve all been there…busy all day but somehow we didn’t get a damned thing done.
Don’t you hate that?
It seems to be a common frustration for most Fitness Businesses I know. Up early, home late, and you weren’t able to get one thing done to move your business forward because you were so busy doing all the little stuff that needs to be done to keep your business going and to put food on the table.
The simple truth is that if you could just avoid and/or properly manage the following list of TIME WASTERS and ENERGY KILLERS better you would be free to grow your business the way you had always planned:
1. Phone calls
Phones (in particular your iPhone or Android Smart Phone) are the BIGGEST culprit in stealing valuable time from you! I very rarely answer my phone when it rings. I have it on silent 95% of the time, and typically what I do is I check phone calls twice a day at the same time I do e-mails (which I will come to in a minute). I’ll do my e-mails, and then return my phone calls.
This way I can pre-screen my calls, know who I’m calling, know what it’s about, and it can be on my terms.
In today’s society, many of us run around with mobile phones in our hand or pocket and we act like those mobile phones are for everybody else’s convenience.
The strategy that works best for me is to have my voicemail message let people know that I will be returning phone calls during a set time of the day. The time slots I have are 10.30am to 11.00am and 2:30 to 3:00.
Another thing that I find very useful is to let people know, when you get on the phone, that you only have 2 or 5 or 10 or 15 minutes. Use whatever time frame you think you need to get that phone call done.
So typically if I have a call that I know will take eight or nine minutes, when I get on the phone, I’ll tell the person, hey I’ve got nine minutes, let’s get to the bottom of this. That gets the small talk and the dilly-dallying out of the way so you can take care of business.
2. E-mails
E-mails are a close second to phone calls as the biggest time wasters. They can be an important and valuable tool that can be used to get business done more efficiently but the sad fact is that most people let their inbox rule their workday.
I have a set time daily where I respond to my e-mails, typically late in the morning and late in the afternoon, because earlier in the day I want to deal with the biggest most urgent tasks of the day – things that will move the business forward. I recommend you do the same.
To resolve the issue of someone expecting an instant response from you I suggest you set up an automated email response that informs the sender that you check your emails twice a day and you will respond to them shortly.
3. Text messaging
I admit that sometimes text messages can be a valuable resource when you need to get a quick message to somebody but they quickly become a nuisance and a huge time waster when you get sucked into text messaging back and forth with your friends, employees, and family members.
Only use them to send a quick message and that’s it.
4. Internet/Facebook/Twitter
When talking with a number of coaching clients and reviewing their day I find a large part of their time is taken up with checking the footy scores on the internet, touching base with friends on Facebook or seeing what the popular tweets are on Twitter.
Both Facebook and Twitter can be very effective marketing tools for your business but the key is to use them appropriately.
The best way to do this is to have a plan of what you are going to post and then set yourself a time when you are going to visit the sites to place your post.
Avoid the temptation to aimlessly scroll through your news feed because valuable time will quickly be goggled up and you can’t retrieve it!
5. Multi-tasking
Luckily guys are generally useless at this and for good reason! Every time you have to switch your focus to work on something else, you’re not giving the original thing you were working on your full attention.
It is very important to absorb yourself with one thing at a time, give that thing your fullest attention and complete it (at least the part you were planning to complete now) before moving on to the next thing.
Give the tasks you work on the attention they deserve so that you get that task COMPLETED.
6. Time Vampires
These are people who just want to sit and chat, waste your time, and drain you of your energy.
Avoid these people at all costs if you want to have a productive day!
I used to work at a gym and most of the trainers who I knew would spend a large portion of their day hanging out talking, wasting time, and would do anything to get you into a conversation with them so they could waste your time too.
They did this at a sub-conscious level but nonetheless, they were doing it and I was not going to have any part of it. What I found that works really well for me was I would look busy. Typically I was busy, but even if I wasn’t, I would look busy. People generally don’t bother a busy person.
Make sure your staff don’t suck you into a “got-a-minute” meeting. Back in the day before I organized myself with effective time management my team members would ask me if I had a minute to talk and all of a sudden a “got-a-minute” meeting would break out. This would suck up precious blocks of my time.
This means you are in a reactive mode and are unable to move your business forward.
Make sure your staff knows that all non-urgent items should be made a note of and then addressed during the regular team meetings.
7. Not Using Time Blocks
This is possibly one of the BIGGEST success strategies you can adopt.
If you don’t have a planned schedule of what you’re going to do with your time, that time will get taken up by little things that won’t necessarily move you any closer to your goals, but will seem urgent and like they need to get done.
The truth is, most of these things aren’t important, but they will fill your time if you allow it to.
I strongly believe that it is extremely important to have your day blocked out in a set schedule of time blocks so you know what’s going to get done at what time, and it is very important to stick to that routine.
When you have allocated amounts of time per task you are now in a position to plan your day ahead. It is important to have a time slot for everything including your 6 main tasks of the day along with time to make phone calls, meet clients and to reply to emails.
An example of your day might be as follows:
7:00 – 8:00am Client Training Session
8:00 – 8:30am Update client records and check emails
8:30 – 10:00am DAILY TASK #1
10:00 – 10:30am Meeting with Trainers
10:30 – 12:00pm DAILY TASK #2
12:00 – 12:30pm Lunch
12:30 – 1:00pm Miscellaneous Items (check email, make phone calls, staff queries)
1:00 – 2:00pm DAILY TASK #3
2:00 – 3:00pm DAILY TASK #4
3:00 – 3:30pm Miscellaneous Items (check email, make phone calls, staff queries)
3:30 – 4:00pm DAILY TASK #5
4:00 – 4:30pm DAILY TASK #6
4:30 – 6pm Miscellaneous Items (check email, make phone calls, staff queries)
This is purely an example of how a day might look for a manager of a Fitness Studio.
The key point is that you make time for your main tasks (no more than 6 main tasks!) so that you get them completed and then you fit the rest of your day around those tasks.
DO NOT start your days with e-mails or responding to people’s phone calls.
Like I said, this puts you in the reactive mode, responding to other people’s needs and values.
What you want, is that by the end of the day, when you’re done working, that one thing you did in the morning for 90 minutes to 2 hours, if that’s all you did all day and you got off work at the end of the day and weren’t able to accomplish anything else, you know you moved towards your goals.
I used to start my day off with e-mails and phone calls, and this was a huge mistake.
Now I start my day off with something that moves me towards my goals.
Bottom line:
If you own a health club or a personal training business, manage your time or it will manage you.
Properly managing and/or avoiding these 7 activities will free up your work day so you can work on the task that will truly help your business evolve.
If you’d like more tips on how to improve your business, speak with one of our Success Coaches today!
ANDREW WALLIS, SUCCESS COACH, NPE ASIA-PACIFIC
Andrew comes from a strong finance background, having been brought up in the Isle of Man, UK and then moving to Australia and running his own successful fitness business for 6 years. It’s no surprise that he credits his success to the systems he learned as a client of NPE! Andrew focuses on coaching other fitness professionals to achieve the same career highs as he has by mastering fitness sales, marketing and management.