Brian Tracy, Time Management and the 80/20 Rule

1. Brian Tracy, Time Management and the 80/20 Rule And ManagePro the software to help you make it happen at work By Performance Solutions Technology, LLC and RBCo Consulting

2. Summary • This is a short video recapping Brian Tracy’s approach to time management and to explain how to use software technology (ManagePro) to implement Brian Tracy’s recommendations on how to double your productivity through using your time well and the 80/20 principle.

3. The Myth of “Getting Caught Up” • Brian starts with facing reality and we all should. Part of the reason we all feel some of the overwhelm, is because we can never catch up and get it all done. That’s just reality. • Some reports have found that we regularly all have at least 15 hours on unfinished work waiting on our desk at work. • Brian suggests that when you step back and look at life at work and home, the average person has about three hundred hours of projects to take care of right now, … and that few of us make a big dent in the backlog. • So he simply states the fact is you will never get caught up.

4. One of the Greatest Secrets • Given that getting all caught up isn’t a realistic option for time management going forward, Brian goes on to say that one of the great secrets of time management, is that you only get your life under control to the degree to which you've stopped doing things. • So what does he mean? • Well first think of it as “Stop trying to do everything.” • But there’s more to it than that, as Brian wants you to stop doing certain things. Let’s take a deeper look.

5. The “Secret” revised. • Actually, if we take the liberty to translate what Brian is saying for you, we think the “secret” is best restated in two parts: • 1. Stop trying to do everything. Let go of that expectation and pressure, it’s unrealistic. • 2. Stop doing the things that don’t create high value, and focus on doing the things that create high value first or add to the quality of your life and others.

6. Living, Deciding, Based upon Results • Brian suggests the best way to do that, to determine what to do, and what to not do, or let go of, is by prioritizing based upon the idea of what will create the most results. • Now you can think of results in all sorts of ways. At work it might be in terms of any of the following examples: • What task will do the most to move the project forward? • What task will add the most to the bottom line today? • What will make your boss happiest, ease their work load, or meet your customer’s expectations? • What will create the most value, given the time you have remaining?

7. The 80/20 Rule • But ultimately Brian suggests you use Pareto’s 80/20 rule to help you decide how to spend your time, a rule which states that: “Roughly 80% of the results come from 20% of the causes.” • Brian suggests that to improve at Time Management, you need to recognize which 20% of the stuff on your list delivers 80% of the value. And then prioritize getting those tasks completed first. • If you’re having trouble identifying the 80/20 split, if all your tasks seem to be of similar value, then Brian suggests prioritizing in terms of what needs to get done today versus within a month.

8. First things first • Brian goes further to say that if you boiled all of his time managing training down to one thing it’s this:“Everything comes down to one thing, selecting your most important task right now and starting on that right now, until it's done.“ • If you’re making the mistake of trying to clear up the small things first, you’ll find out the small things multiply and, pretty soon, you spent your whole day doing those (small) things (not what’s most important). I bet we’ve all had that experience before. • But it gets worse.

9. Eat that Frog • When we have several tasks that are priority #1, Brian suggests that we tend to do the easiest or least discomforting first. • That’s backward, but understandable. He suggests we tend to treat the biggest, ugliest priority tasks as a frog and we put off touching it, much less eating it. • Instead he says, “Do the worst first.” Do the most important thing, the biggest thing the ugliest thing, the hardest thing, but the one that could have the greatest impact on your day. Do it first and stay with it until it's done. • This is what he describes as “Eating the Frog.”

10. Double Your Productivity • And, if you can develop the habit of doing that: • make a list, • organize the list by priorities, • start on number one and complete number one. • You'll double your productivity the first day and from then on, you’ll double your productivity for the rest of your career. • Now let’s show you how to support yourself in applying this process using ManagePro. Honestly, it makes it a lot easier to manage your time so that you get the best results.

11. Here’s how technology helps you • One quick side note. Just in case you were thinking of writing out your priorities on paper, or sticking a post-it note on your pc. ;) • Remember if you write it down on paper somewhere, it’s easy to lose and ultimately just adds to the stack. And you’ve probably already got enough paper to choke a camel on your desktop, so it’s not a great use of your time. • Plus using paper to track priorities, get’s the process to be something separate from all of your other work. Knocking out priorities works better if it fits visibly within the flow of the rest of your work, so let’s show you how you can do all of this in ManagePro in 3 easy steps.

12. Step 1 – Keep it all in one place • First, think of throwing all of your projects, your tasks, your goals, everything into ManagePro … Dump it all into the left side. You’ll start feeling the relief immediately, plus it sets you up to easily assign priority.

13. Step 2 – Make Your Calendar Reflect Your Priorities • Keep your calendar & priorities very visible on the right side. • You may have thought of your calendar as primarily only to keep track of your appointments, but actually it’s critical to helping you manage time well and get the double your productivity that Brian talks about. • So start by first identifying what’s priority #1 today in your list of projects and tasks, or add it directly to your calendar if it doesn’t already exist in your list of projects.

14. Step 2 – Make Your Calendar Reflect Your Priorities • Then tell ManagePro to display your #1 priorities at the top of your calendar each day. They’ll stay up there until you finish them and replace them with your new # 1 priorities. Drag them to where-ever you have time in the day. It makes it super easy each day to stay focused on what’s #1.

15. Step 3 – The Bread Crumb Trail • And finally, be sure to leave a brief comment on each priority #1 task as you complete it. You’ll be amazed how helpful that will be for future reference, plus it adds to the satisfaction of knocking out #1’s!

16. You can find out more about ManagePro at http://www.managepro.com • Use the ManagePro technology to implement Brian Tracy’s techniques and improve: • Your time management • Your ability to generate results • And raise the productivity level of your entire team using this one simple approach.Call us at (707) 487-3000 we’ll help you demo ManagePro and get started today on managing your time better and doubling your productivity.