1319: Six Ways to Invest Your Work Time Wisely by Laura Stack of The Productivity Pro on Work-Life Balance

[00:00:00] This is Optimal Work Daily, Episode 1319, Six Ways to Invest Your Worktime Wisely by Laura Stack

[00:00:07] of TheProductivityPro.com. And hey, I am Dan. I'm your host and narrator, and I'm with you every

[00:00:12] single day of the week, including weekends and holidays, bringing you this great work-related

[00:00:17] content. And right now we're going to jump into our post and hear from Laura, one of our

[00:00:21] regular authors, as we optimize your life. Six Ways to Invest Your Worktime Wisely by Laura

[00:00:31] Stack of TheProductivityPro.com. Quote, when you invest your time, you make a goal and a decision

[00:00:39] of something that you want to accomplish. Whether it's make good grades in school, be a good athlete,

[00:00:44] be a good person, go down and do some community service and help somebody who's in need,

[00:00:49] whatever it is you choose to do, you're investing your time in that. End quote. Nick Saban,

[00:00:55] American Football Coach. Even if you go flat broke, you can always make more money,

[00:01:00] as hard as it may seem for most people sometimes. If you lose everything you own,

[00:01:05] you'll eventually rebuild. If you move to a new city, you can make more friends. Give blood and

[00:01:11] your body replaces the plasma within a day, the platelets and red blood cells within two weeks.

[00:01:17] But one thing you can never, ever get back is lost time. And yet the average worker treats

[00:01:23] time as their most fungible resource, that is like it's infinitely replaceable. Where's the

[00:01:29] store I can go to to buy a couple of crates of minutes? I could sure use a cost code time club

[00:01:33] card. Though it can't be replaced, time does resemble money in one way. You can invest both,

[00:01:39] and if you do it well, the dividends can prove significant. You won't really get more time

[00:01:44] from investing your time. Wouldn't that be great? But you can save future time as you

[00:01:49] increase your efficiency, effectiveness, performance and productivity. Let's look at six ways to

[00:01:55] wisely invest your time. All these tasks take time to set up, but the ROI is very high.

[00:02:01] 1. Foundation Building Whatever you have planned, build it on a foundation of stone.

[00:02:07] Instead of rushing your plans into action, pause long enough to make sure you have the right

[00:02:12] strategy in place, your leadership team is rock solid, your due diligence and planning are

[00:02:17] sound, and you have the resources needed to do it right. 2. Organization

[00:02:23] Putting your house in order is never a waste of time. You need systems to track projects,

[00:02:28] open loops, action items and communication. Organization also applies to your exterior

[00:02:34] situation, your schedule, the organization of your office and files, even how you arrange

[00:02:39] your files on your computer. Always know what comes next and never take more than a minute

[00:02:44] to find anything. 3. Physical Improvement

[00:02:49] If you feel sharp and optimistic, you'll get more things done more quickly than when you feel

[00:02:53] sickly and sluggish. To some extent, you can control how you physically feel and increase

[00:02:58] your energy by taking care of your health, eating right, staying hydrated, sleeping enough,

[00:03:04] and ensuring your mental health. This may be your most difficult long-term time investment to

[00:03:09] maintain, but may well provide a longer life for you to maintain. 4. Refinements

[00:03:16] Spend the time necessary to improve on what matters, for instance to increase your ROI,

[00:03:22] taking refresher courses in your computer apps, learning to use the tasks feature of MS Outlook

[00:03:28] appropriately, going to conferences, attending college classes, learning more about your trade

[00:03:33] and training will nearly always help you improve your performance over time.

[00:03:38] 5. Prioritizing Getting your priorities straight may be one of the toughest things any of us do,

[00:03:45] but it's also one of the most rewarding in terms of time investment. Look, no one really wants to eat

[00:03:50] that frog first thing in the morning, even morning people. But knowing your top priority and tackling

[00:03:55] it first gets it out of the way so you can attack the rest of your to-do list. And don't make that

[00:04:00] daily list too long. If you have more than 20 items on it then you might be unrealistic. Add

[00:04:06] up the time it would take you to do them all and see if you have that much time available

[00:04:10] in your calendar. And 6. Let go

[00:04:14] In her book Thrive, Businesswoman Ariana Huffington wrote,

[00:04:18] quote, you can complete a project by dropping it, end quote, delegate as much as you can and if a

[00:04:26] project is low priority and getting you nowhere let it go. Even an expensive long-term time drain

[00:04:32] can and should be abandoned if it goes beyond any possibility of profit. Don't throw good

[00:04:37] money after bad. Don't let sunk costs sink you. Time in a bottle? If only. Money is a commodity.

[00:04:45] Time is not. But with some thought you can wisely invest both. In fact, it's probably easier to

[00:04:51] invest time well since you need not worry about the ups and downs of the stock market.

[00:04:56] All of us must learn to manage time but learning to manage it by investing it wisely

[00:05:01] is something many never learn. Master it now and it will become a habit that lasts and may extend

[00:05:08] a lifetime. You just listened to the post titled Six Ways to Invest Your Worktime Wisely by Laura

[00:05:18] Stack of theProductivityPro.com. When it comes to hiring, don't go searching for the one,

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[00:06:22] And a big thank you to Laura for sharing her work with us regularly. She is an award-winning

[00:06:27] keynote speaker and the best-selling author of eight books. Her engaging personality plus 25

[00:06:32] years of experience helping organizations achieve results have made her one of the most sought-after

[00:06:37] experts and keynote speakers in her field. Laura has been featured in The New York Times,

[00:06:42] USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, Entrepreneur and Forbes Magazine, and has been a spokesperson

[00:06:48] for Microsoft, Danon, 3M, Office Depot, Xerox and more. And if those credentials aren't enough

[00:06:54] for you, her client list includes top Fortune 500 companies like Starbucks, Walmart, Bank of America

[00:07:00] and Wells Fargo plus government agencies like the US Air Force, the Census Bureau and the US Senate.

[00:07:06] So there's a lot to learn from her and you can come by the productivitypro.com for all of that.

[00:07:11] She's got her videos, books, store, newsletter and blog all there in one place. So check it

[00:07:17] out at the productivitypro.com. And with that I wish you a great rest of your day and I'll

[00:07:22] see you back here tomorrow for The Sunday Show where your optimal life awaits.