Time: Your Most Valuable Commodity

Regardless of our company, product, or services, what we are really selling is our time when we are in free enterprise. Most people don’t have a true concept of money, and they don’t realize that time is money, and so almost everyone gives their time away.

We hear in corporate America and in investing the term ”ROI” a lot which stands for “Return On Investment,” but what is much more important to an entrepreneur is our “ROTAE” or “Return On Time, Action, and Energy.” These are our strongest resources and we cannot afford to waste time. Most people view that time works against them as an enemy. Successful people use time as their ally. There are 86, 400 seconds, or 1, 440 minutes, or 24 hours in every day.  Success is not really about what we do, but what we do daily. Time is our most precious resource and everything we produce is a byproduct of how we manage ourselves in the time we are given each day.

            On a daily basis, I devote 14 to 16 hours to my craft, which I truly love, personal development and self-empowerment. I have never for one minute considered devoting this much time to my freedom as work. When you love what you do it is a pleasurable endeavor, not a painful one. When I sit down to do my tasks I know what I desire to accomplish and I make good use of my time.

            As I stated earlier, most people don’t have a concept of time or money.  Mention money and people become very uncomfortable. Mention time management and you get similar responses. When it comes to time, the average person equates time with work and that they have to “work hard.” In free enterprise, we don’t get paid for time. “Trading time for dollars,” is what most Americans do over and over, which is called a job, and jobs usually keep people broke because they are paid what the job is worth. The average person then brings a $10 - $15 an hour job mentality to their enterprise and is under the misconception that if they ‘work real hard’ they will get rich. Occasionally this philosophy works, but not very often. To be successful in free enterprise, our thoughts about time and time management must change. We get paid for ‘results’, not ‘time,’ and if we want to make more money here we have to become more ‘valuable’. How valuable we become through the service we perform is a real key issue. The key question we should be asking ourselves is, “How do I turn time into money?” How we manage our time effectively is going to have a direct reflection on our overall long-term results. I have found through my numerous years as an entrepreneur that there are four phases of the way people manage or mismanage their time: 1. spare time, 2. part-time, 3. full-time, and 4. all-the-time. Unfortunately, most people confuse themselves and think they are doing one of these last three phases when really they are spare time because that is the kind of effort they are devoting to their freedom.

            Let’s look at time management. The term ‘time management’ is really a misnomer because time itself is really unmanageable. It is a resource constantly being depleted at a predictable rate – 60 minutes an hour, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.  What we have the ability to do is manage ourselves in a way that will make effective use of time. There are two key components to managing ourselves that have to be understood. The distinction between them can assist us to take stress out of our lives and put more productivity, satisfaction, and freedom into it. These components are efficiency and effectiveness.  The distinction is efficiency is doing a task correctly, while effectiveness is measured in results, and when we are in free enterprise results are everything.

            A big mistake I see people making is trying to make better use of their time by trying to do what they are currently doing more efficiently. It is a good idea, but the wrong starting point. It doesn’t matter how efficiently we manage our time if we aren’t spending it pursuing the results we desire. Our most effective use of time is the action part of the process, and 80% of our time should be spent prospecting and attracting new accounts, not shuffling papers, reading books, listening to tapes, gossiping, procrastinating, getting ready to get ready, and a multitude of other excuses people use to divert their attention from the very physical activity that will pay them. Do the right tasks inefficiently and our businesses will survive. Do the wrong tasks efficiently and we will go broke. Take the right action efficiently and someday we will be set for life. Efficiency is only valuable when it contributes to effectiveness.

            Do what is urgent first, not what is important. Becoming successful requires a mindset that creates urgency in numbers, in action, in task, in leadership, and in all areas. Successful people get tasks done now – that is self-motivation. Average people don’t take on this sense of urgency; they ‘get to it’ when it is important, and usually too late; the train has left; they procrastinate. The ability to distinguish between urgency and importance is crucial to creating and living successfully because the inability to distinguish between them gets many people in trouble and ultimately results in broken dreams and shattered lives.

            Every day we have situations that arise – situations happen, and we have things to do. Some are urgent and some are important, some are both, and some are neither.  We have to understand that urgent situations are seldom important and important situations are seldom urgent.  Most people spend 80% of their lives responding to the urgent as if everything that is urgent is important. You have to learn to separate the two. It is important that you take the proper action with a sense of urgency but not with a panicked or fear-stricken mindset. For instance, closing a sale or enrolling a client to use your product is urgent, but developing a flourishing organization is more important. Having a new car and wardrobe is urgent for a lot of people, but saving, investing, and developing a prosperity consciousness is much more important to becoming financially independent.

            If we spend our time overreacting to the tyranny of the urgent, our lives will be far less successful than they could be. This is the very reason so many people today are working harder, living poorer, and feeling more time starved. They allow urgent situations to dictate how their time is spent and important situations go neglected. I am sure you can imagine what happens when important situations are neglected. Sooner or later they become urgent and important. They end up becoming crisis, i.e. money crisis, health crisis, enterprise crisis, family crisis, etc. Most would be preventable if we chose to spend our time doing what is important instead of overreacting to what is urgent. We have to learn that we are the sum of our choices and decisions. One of the most important choices we can make is to decide what is important, then commit ourselves to spending your time achieving important results, rather than responding to urgent and unimportant distractions. Procrastinating and getting ready to get ready is the main thief of the dreams of the average entrepreneur.

Turning Time into Results is a Three Step Process

Step One: Stating Your Mission

            It is imperative that you create a mission and vision statement. If you don’t know where you are going, how are you going to get there? This step tells you what is most important. The purpose of your mission statement is to remind you of the values your enterprise is built on.  Since time is your most valuable commodity, your time must be spent in effort in line with your values. This will assist you in turning time into results, i.e. prospecting, recruiting, teaching, training, developing leaders, growth, change, and letting go simultaneously. You’ll also begin to enjoy the process. This is why it is important that you have a well – defined mission and vision for your enterprise. If you don’t have a mission and vision statement yet, do it now.  Once you have a clear picture of how you plan to create value for your customers and associates and you know where you desire your vehicle to take you, you will begin to turn time into results.

Step Tow: A Game Plan for Results – Your Daily Method of Operation

            Develop a plan of action and stick to the plan – hold yourself accountable. Set specific goals and priorities. Develop a daily method of operation and put it on paper. Know exactly what your plan is and follow through. Put your specific goals and actions on paper and go over it nightly to hold yourself accountable. This will assist you to stay on track. Chart your time. I ask my clients all of the time to tell me what they have done in the past few days, and very few can ever recall what they have done. When you put your game plan down on paper and follow through on your intentions, then your productivity and the way you manage your time will greatly improve. In the time you a lot to propel you to your goals, do what will bring you the greatest results long term. At least 80% of your time should be devoted to prospecting and recruiting new customers in the early going. Entrepreneurship requires momentum to create compounded results. Momentum is created through simple disciplines factored consistently over a long period of time. In the beginning, your weekly goal is usually to recruit one person per week to your products, services, and opportunity.  This would be a total of 52 clients per year that you personally enrolled, not counting how your organization produced. Eventually, your weekly goal will increase to two new people per week, totaling 104 new people per year you personally recruited. This only happens with consistent effort seven days a week over a period of time. It doesn’t happen over night. It is a process to collect the payoff. Don’t seek perfection; seek efficiency at what you do.

Step Three: Develop New Thought Patterns and Creative Habits

            The books you read, the tapes you listen to, and the people you spend time with are all components of your reality. As you go through the process of success, the people you meet and situations you create will change as you change and grow. It is important to begin spending time with people that empower you and to detach from those who are disempowering. It is difficult to soar with eagles when you rest on the ground with turkeys.  Start studying successful people and watch what they do. Interview successful people whenever and wherever the opportunity present itself. I have spent the last fifteen years pouring through books and tapes on self-help, motivation, investing, money, spirituality, and have attended hundreds of seminars and workshops all for the purpose of becoming a better person.  I have learned to let go of old self – limiting thoughts and doubts, forgiven myself for past failures and challenges, and most importantly, forgiven others who may have harmed me. The thoughts you think today will be a large part of what dictates your future.

Setting Your Goals and Establishing Your Why’s

            Your vision and mission statement will give you a view of your destination and a general picture of what you desire to achieve and become. Setting your goals and priorities is going to be very important, especially when it comes to determining where your time is most effectively spent to achieve the results you desire.

            Set goals that are your own, not someone else’s. It is your enterprise, your career, and your future. Take charge and do what is meaningful and best for you both short term and long term. It is not selfish to think of you first. You are in the process of change and as you change you will be able to assist others with change also. Don’t operate from the advice of your family and friends unless they are successful entrepreneurs and have succeed in what you are doing. Remember, your ultimate success is going to be up to you. Make sure and put your goals in writing because this increases clarity and commitment. Your goals should be challenging, yet attainable. Don’t set down a $500,000 a year goal if you have never made a penny in your industry. You want your goals to be reachable and to allow you to stretch and grow in order to attain. When goals are set that are impossible, most people give up way too easily, and when they are too easy, most people get bored. Worthwhile goals are the ones you can achieve by pushing yourself to perform better than you have previously. It is okay to think big, but you have to act big. My father once said to me, “Son, it ain’t braggin’ if you can back it up.”

            All goals should have deadlines. If it doesn’t have a target date for completion, then it is really not a goal; it is a daydream. You have to have dreams and you have to set goals, but what is much more important is to be a goal getter not a goal setter. As an entrepreneur, it works out best that you monitor yourself and you have performance or qualifying terms that will enhance you to measure your progress. Your daily goals should have a performance indicator and criteria for success at the start of your endeavor. Major goals should be measurable so that you have a way of keeping track of results for a month, 90 days, 6 months, and one year. 

            Every major goal should have performance criteria for a particular success. If you are vague or unable to see what you desire to achieve, it isn’t clear enough in your own mind to be a goal. You have to set your priorities to attain your most essential goals. Some goals are more important than others. Some you must do! Some you should do.  List your goals in order of importance and make sure you achieve the most important ones. Great time management means doing the difficult things first.

            Turning time into results begins with investing a large chunk on you and also stems from action. You always want to be asking yourself this key question: “What did I do today that moved me closer to my goals or further from my goals?”  A daily inventory list lets you know how much progress you are really achieving. Most people value their time so little that when I ask them what they did two days ago they can’t recall. Successful people once again understand that time is their most valuable commodity and they don’t waste it – they make time work for them. I can recall what I do every day because I know how to turn time into results. I keep a daily planner of all my activities. Be fore I go to bed I list out everything that I will accomplish the following day. All of my appointments are listed in my day timer that I follow rigidly. I’m very thorough on my call backs and follow ups. I’m always preparing for my next events, speaking engagements, etc. As an entrepreneur, you should always have next week’s leads in place and your ads placed. You should have a list of your organization with phone numbers and email addresses to communicate.