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So how much time do you spend sharpening your axe?

Written by Adrian Caruso, CEO/Master Business Coach of TA Fastrack

"If I had six hours to cut down a tree, I’d spend the first four hours sharpening the axe.” - Abraham Lincoln

Do you spend any time at all planning how and when you spend time on your business? Do you actually spend any time on your business? If you are struggling with the answers to any of these questions it’s time to get refocused and get organized. It’s the start of the new financial year, a fantastic opportunity for each of us to look back at what we have achieved in the last year and move forward with our planning as to what we are going to achieve this year. The key to achieving anything is getting organized and her are a few tips on how to achieve this.

* Spend some time looking at how you spend your day.

* Fill in a timesheet for yourself for a whole week measuring each day in 10 minute blocks.

* Once you have this information cast a critical eye over the information you have collected, be honest with yourself and what you see.

* Remember this is not about impressing anyone, it’s about being honest with yourself about what you do and don’t achieve.

* Now measure everything you have on your sheets in terms of productivity. i.e. how much money did I make as a result of time spent on each action?

* The next step is to use this information to get organized for the following week.

* Draw up a schedule for each day. Always start with the most productive items first.

* Plan in time to spend on your business (remember Abraham Lincoln recommends spending two thirds of your time on this for optimum results!)

* Group similar tasks together.

* Plan time in your day for all those ‘unplanned items’ that crop up in our world.

* Give yourself a fair and realistic workload each day. Once you have planned a day stand back, look at it and ask yourself “I am really going to achieve all this today?”  If the answer is no change your schedule straight away.

* Remember there are at least 5 working days in a week, spread your tasks across all 5. Not everything has to happen on a Monday.

Now you are able to see at a glance what has to be done, where you time is spent productively and when you are going to spend time on your business.

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email, 07 3630 1298, http://www.tafastrack.com