Start Stop Continue - A time management tool

Everyone is busy. In the day and age of technology, we are always trying to do more things in the same amount of time. The blessing of technology is that it has given us many tools to save time and be more efficient. The bad news is that all too often we try to cram more things into our time to use up all of this time we are saving.

I think it is important for us to review our time periodically and examine how we are spending it. I try to emplement a process in my time management called "Start, Stop, Continue". I have been using variations of this technique for ten years. The process is simple. Periodically, write down everything you do for a week and try to keep track of how much time you are spending on each task.

Once you have a good sampling of how you are spending your time, sit down in a quite place where you will be uniterrupted and ask yourself these questions: 1. What am I doing that I could stop doing? 2. What am not doing that I should start doing? 3. What am I currently doing that I must continue doing?

Sometimes, in order to start new things, we have to quit doing things that we have been doing out of habit or because someone told us to do them and the reality is those things are not the best use of our time. The key is to make sure you don't wuit doing the things that you need to do to keep generating leads to drive your business. Too often we do the things we need to do until they work, then we quit doing them. Don't fall into that trap!

Our time is the most important thing we have. When you boil down our lives, it is really all we have. The decisions we make on how to use it are the most important decisions we can make.