Time Management Tips: How I Keep Track of It All

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One of my friends came over the other day. We meet every couple weeks, and being guys, we talk business.

I’ve never been one of those guys that talks sports (except Tour de France). I talk business (and geopolitics).

I’ve found it best to keep my geopolitical beliefs offline, but business, that’s another subject all together.

I love business, talking business and see business models in my sleep. While that may sound sad and pitiful, it excites me.

I have this knack for looking at a business, and knowing what needs to be done to grow profits. That includes cutting expenses, as well as, growing revenue.

Most businesses I work with have too much unnecessary expense.

In addition to growing up in a family business, where business was in my blood, I became formally trained in logistics in the military. One of the only ‘jobs’ I ever had  was with a global logistics company.

What’s That Have to Do With You

Bear with me for a little longer. Logistics is all about the doing, about action. A famous military quotation states; “amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics.”

This means that you can have the greatest plans, ideas and dreams (knowing what to do). But, if you don’t ‘do what you know’ and carry out those plans, ideas or dreams, you have nothing.

Business Models In My Sleep

I know what actions are necessary to grow my business. I know what will increase traffic to my site, increase subscribers, conversions, profitability and the myriad of other things I track.

I also know, that keeping track of all these things can make a grown man cry. I know this because I’m a grown man, and I’ve cried.
So, how do I keep track of all these things?

That brings me back to the other night and my “business buddy.”

Can’t Remember It All

For longer than I’d like to admit, I used to try and remember everything. I’d try to keep it all ‘in my head.’

For instance, I knew I needed to write articles on my website. I knew it was important to submit them to article directories, they had to be a certain length and comply with the signature guidelines, among other things.

I knew that making and submitting videos helped my exposure.

But, trying to remember all the steps to making, uploading and distributing the videos was enough to drive me crazy. And I learned that saying ‘just submit it’ to an assistant was not very effective for my relationship with them, nor an efficient use of their time, or my money.

Now Back to Guys Night

As we were talking about our businesses, our challenges and keeping track of all the activities, I showed him what I do. I pulled out a binder with my solutions.

Inside are simple, ‘Success Lists’ that guide my daily, weekly and monthly activities. I say simple, but these one-pagers represent years of experience and tens of thousands of dollars of investment.

Like many of you, I’ve purchased hundreds of programs, attended dozens of seminars and read more ‘special reports’ than I care to remember.

What makes me different than most, is that I turn around and do something with the information.

I create a Success List to follow the recommendations. And then I try out their recommendations. Sometimes they work, and sometimes they don’t.

From experience, I want to streamline these administrative tasks because I know that the more time I spend doing, or supervising, low hourly type work (like submitting videos or posting articles), the less successful my business is.

I also know, that the more time I spend on strategy and creating marketing campaigns, the more successful my business.

The Success Lists that I’ve created have several benefits:

One – they ensure ‘how’ things get done. They get done right, the first time. You’ve heard the adage,”if you don’t have time to do it right, how are you going to find time to do it again?”

Two - they keep me from forgetting ‘what’ to do. With my checklist, me or one of my assistants follow the steps. This ensures more consistency of output.

Three – they are essential when it comes to delegating tasks. I don’t want to be the person distributing my articles around the Internet. But, I do want to tell the person who is, how to do it well.

Four – they allow me to supervise others more efficiently. When I outsource a task, my checklists include; what information should be reported back to me, when, and in what format. Additionally, they include a provision of how to handle questions or uncertainty.

Five - they allow me to focus on what I do best, know that other tasks are being handled the way I want, and I can verify that anytime I want. They cover the who, what, when, where and how.

What Do You Think?

My buddy, who’s very right-brained, begged me to give him copies and suggested I offer them to my list. I’m more left-brained, and these satisfy my desire to follow a consistent process.

Just to give you an idea of some of the checklists I use for myself or to oversee someone else; article marketing, video marketing, social media marketing, accounting, analytics, testimonials, planning my week. And I have one Master Success List that aggregates them all.

So, do you like the idea of pulling out a sheet of paper and following a step-by-step list of tasks to consistently achieve success with a particular activity?

And if so, what activities would you like to have a Success List for?

Use the contact us page to share your request.

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Tags: Checklist, checklists for success, David Koons, Free Agent Coach, Marketing