It is time to stop multitasking, if you want to get more work done.  A study by Stanford University showed that multitasking could actually be detrimental.  According to researchers, multitasking impairs your ability to operate efficiently.  The self-proclaimed multitasking participants of the study, which included 100 students, had a harder time paying attention, switching tasks and remembering things than the non-multitaskers.

Apparently, the brain has the ability to process only one stream of information at a time.  It takes the brain time to get reoriented when switching between tasks. That means the results of your hard work will be more about quantity than quality.

According to an article posted on Forbes.com, Quit Multitasking (And Start Getting More Done), “perfect isn’t possible when your attention is scattered.”

Avoid multitasking and instead plan your time carefully, so that you can become more productive and efficient with your work.

To find out where the smart Northern Virginia business owners are gathering, visit Glazer-Kennedy-Virginia.com.

Too often, we don’t keep this same mentality as we progress in our careers.  We become more reactive than proactive and fail to focus on what is important.  Our days start to fill with meaningless events and there is little time leftover to do the things we want.

If this sounds like you, it is time to change.

It is imperative that you approach everything you do with a purpose.  That means that you need to spend your time on the things that are going to help you reach your personal and business goals.  If an activity doesn’t align with your objectives, it is either not worth your time or is something that you need to drop.

Approaching everything with a purpose might also mean that you need to become more selective on who you will take on as a client.  Choose only the people you want to work with and don’t feel like you have to say “yes” to everyone who approaches you.

When you keep the mindset that you need to have a purpose in everything you do, it won’t be long until you realize that you are living the kind of life that you have always wanted.

Find out where the smart Northern Virginia business owners are gathering, by visiting Glazer-Kennedy-Virginia.com.

If you work in a profession where you bill for your time, you are already in the habit of tracking how you spend your hours.  However, the technique, “block-and-clock,” is something that will not be familiar to you.

Block-and-clock refers to blocking time and working to the clock.  That means that you determine in advance how many hours you will spend doing a task.  Your to-do list will look more like a script, as each task will have a set beginning and ending time.

With this method, you are basically pre-planning every minute of your day. For example, you might allocate two hours for a particular project.  If you are not done with the project after those two hours, you stop. You then move to the next task.

Why does this technique work? You don’t have any room to waste time.  You have already put thought into your schedule and know how you need to spend your day.  While it might seem restricting to have to stick to a schedule, it will actually have the opposite effect.  You will know for certain that you can meet your family for dinner or attend your child’s soccer match.  Going back to the office that night won’t be a consideration.

Find out where the smart Northern Virginia business owners are gathering, by visiting Glazer-Kennedy-Virginia.com.

Another huge time stealer is meetings.  It is amazing that people love to go to meetings.  However, usually these people are not the boss.  Meetings can fill your day and take away from other important tasks that you need to attend to.  If you get in the habit of participating in daily meetings, you are looking at 1 to 3 hours of your day being taken away from you.

Determine How Much Meetings Are Really Costing You

Read the blog post, Put a Dollar Figure on Your Time, to calculate the value of your time. Multiply this number by the amount of hours you spend in meetings.  Now, you know exactly how much money these meetings are costing you.

Stop Having Meetings

Here’s a revolutionary thought – don’t have meetings if you don’t need them.  If you need to communicate with your staff, write memos to each person.  Use conference calls and email.  If you absolutely have to schedule a meeting, schedule it right before lunch or at the end of the day when people are anxious to leave the office.  Also, create an agenda for the meeting, so you can stay on track.

Find out where the smart Northern Virginia business owners are gathering, by visiting Glazer-Kennedy-Virginia.com.

One of the first steps to guarding your time is understanding its value.  When thinking about the value of your time, it should not be some abstract number.  Dan Kennedy created a formula that will give you an actual dollar amount of what your time is worth per hour.

Here is his formula:

Base income target (the amount you plan to take out of your business this year) ÷ work hours in a year (220 days x 3 = 1,760) = what your time is worth/hour

The calculation takes into consideration that you will only have three productive hours in a day. While that might seem outrageous, it is probably closer to reality than you would care to admit. In fact, studies that track executives’ time have continuously come up with this same number.

After calculating the dollar value of your time, you will probably be a little more careful on how you spend it.

Find out where the smart Northern Virginia business owners are gathering, by visiting Glazer-Kennedy-Virginia.com.

You might have the best intentions to tackle your daily projects, but when you sit down at your desk, you decide to quickly check your emails.  Maybe you grab your smartphone to see if anyone has sent you an email message.  You start to reply to one email, when another pops up, then another.  Now, a good hour has gone by and you still haven’t gotten any of your work done.  Even worse, you might end up losing an entire afternoon to emails.

Resist the urge to constantly check your emails!  Instead, set aside a certain block of time where you will read and reply to messages. Also, stop checking your email once your workday is done and that includes viewing messages on your smartphone.  This will allow you to have better control of your day.

To find out where the smart Northern Virginia business owners are gathering, visit Glazer-Kennedy-Virginia.com.

Time is one of the few things that you will never get back.  Recently, a four-year-old child asked his mother, “Mom, when will it be July 2010 again?”  It seemed like a logical question to this young child, but the answer only caused some confusion and a tinge of sadness.

Watch out for time vampires.
You have to fight hard to protect your time from the “time vampires” who want to steal it away.  These are people who stop by your office and want to chat or call you on the phone and ask, “do you have a minute?” A minute turns into 15 or 30 minutes.  The next thing you know, it is dark outside and you still haven’t finished your work for the day.

How do you protect yourself from these so-called time vampires?  You have to set rules and let everyone know them.  For example, establish certain hours where you will take phone calls. Let your employees know that when your door is closed, you are not to be disturbed.

You are in control.
As a small business owner, you are pulled in many different directions and the additional hours you spend at the office or store, are hours taken away from your family.  You are the controller of your time – don’t let anyone take it away from you without your permission.

To find out where the smart Northern Virginia business owners are gathering, visit Glazer-Kennedy-Virginia.com.

Answer: Well, proper mindset is so much more important than being the best lawyer in town. For me, it’s even more important. Having a proper mindset allows you to assess and value your own time and then guard it with ferocity. People say I’m a jerk with my time.

I am.

Quite simply: I don’t tolerate people wasting my time.

Here’s something else: I’m a huge fan of my personal mindset coach, Rem Jackson. He’s taught me more about managing my own personal life and managing three businesses than I ever learned in my first 45 years or so of life. Not just taught. Anyone can teach. I’d say that Rem is a “nudge” or a “nagger,” constantly in my face to keep to good habits and shun both the old ways of doing things and, frankly, old friends that I now view as Eeyores.

So Rem plays a major role in my lawyer marketing conferences because neither (1) marketing nor (2) mastery of the law will get you to the goal line without effective and ruthless management of yourself and your staff. Rem is the nation’s expert on this. He is the “coaches’ coach.”