What do almost all successful members of the EC do, that all the rest know about?

sleep
Ever feel like you’re in a bad 80’s movie? That you’re stuck in a montage of you working furiously all day, possibly to Dolly Parton’s Workin’ 9 to 5, and you fall asleep on your desk, with your  glasses crooked, and wake up with an important contract stuck to your face?

Then you need your 90 minutes. It’s a habit that Nige developed years back and is something that he credits the growth of his businesses to – it’s all been built in 90 minute chunks.
This month, The Behaviour Expert Jez Rose is sharing some of his secrets to making his 90 minutes super productive.

1. Always be prepared

Wasting our protected time by planning what to do with that protected time is like spending so long wondering what to have for dinner that before you know it the 10 ‘o clock news is on and you’re no longer hungry. So, in order to maintain our appetites, we need to plan what we’re going to do the night before we do it. We could use it to compose emails, write letters to customers, reactivate old customers, do some CRM segmentation, plan sales pitches or presentations… it doesn’t really matter WHAT we do but it should be important things that are going to help make a difference,  whether that be to our day, our customer, our task list, our job, our career or our life.

2. ‘Av an art attack

You can even have a bit of an art attack when it comes to your To Do List, if you’re that way inclined – draw a box next to each task and colour it in once you’ve completed it. It might give you flashbacks to school, but research shows that we get a greater sense of achievement and accomplishment when colouring in a tick box as a result of having achieved the task, instead of simply ticking it or crossing out the item.

3. Stay away from the ‘biscuits’

Emails are like chocolate biscuits – you only intend to deal with one, but before you know it you’ve got to the bottom of the pack and have lost an hour of your time. Honestly, emails should come with a health warning.
It’s important for us to understand that emails are a demand for our time based on someone else’s schedule, not ours. Regaining control of our time and developing a higher performance is about creating our own schedule. We deserve to be fully in control of our lives and it begins by taking control of our time.

4. Is this email really an email?

The first thing to ask yourself when composing an email is: can this be a telephone call? Telephone calls save you getting dragged into a game of email ping pong, and increase productivity, as it gets you to a resolution quicker. As the famous phrase goes: it’s good to talk.
Before we open up that inbox and get sucked into an email time warp, we need to plan. Yup, open up our laptops or grab a piece of scrap paper and plan. Who do we need to email and what do we want to say, just roughly. This helps us to remain focused and gives a clear outline of how to approach our email writing.
If you feel like sharing some of the nuggets that help you to make the most of your 90 minutes then get in touch with the Circular’s editor-inchief Alice at [email protected].