A few months ago I committed myself to writing a blog post every day for the professional enrichment it provides, in that you don’t really know what you know until you write it down.
The interesting part of the process is that it forces you to focus on the most important things in your day, and eliminate time-wasters. Here’s what I’ve learned to change:
- Email – only look at your messages and respond at certain hours of the day. You may say, “That’s impossible, I need to be on email all the time.” You’ll be amazed at the hours and productivity you lose every time you check your email.
- Meetings – focus the conversation, and start and stop on time.
- Writing – lead with what’s important, make it easy to scan, keep it on-subject. Some posts used to take me 1-2 hours to write; I can now write them in 45 minutes or less.
Over the years, numerous ad agency presidents have told me that they don’t have time for proactive new business. I’ve nodded my head in understanding and then pushed them to find it.
I am now experiencing first-hand a similar time challenge, and have discovered that while there are a limited number of hours in every day (for all of us), if there is sufficient time to write a blog, there is sufficient time for proactive new business.
