The Art Of Effectively Organizing Schedules For Professional Salespeople.

What is time?

We each have on average 4000 weeks in our lifetime assuming we live to 80 years of age, some have more and some have less. Interesting thought - how many weeks have you got left?

How you use time will have a direct effect on how successful you are because it is the most valuable resource that a salesperson has. It is interesting that companies spend a great deal of effort in measuring and reviewing salespeoples' tangible targets and associated activities, but very few do any analysis whatsoever on their time management and use of time. I occasionally come across a sales manager who talks about territory management and suggests that you should not drive too far between meetings and so on but that is about it.

Nearly all salespeople I meet tell me that among their biggest challenges is time management - to do the things they want to do.

Commissions are a driving, motivating force among salespeople. However I would expand on this financial definition of wealthy to include all aspects of your life. So the meaning of being truly wealthy is to have enough money and time to be able to balance it between family and friends, cash and accounts, personal well being and real good enough time for yourself.

Here is a pictorial representation that really explains it. The ultimate goal is to have a balanced life between work, family and friends and you time. What happens for a large number of professionals, is that work can take a disproportionate amount of time putting a squeeze on time available for your family and friends and you, Surprise surprise - you make the personal sacrifices of your time on behalf of your family and friends, leaving no time to do the stuff that you like doing: Going to the gym, reading a book, going for a walk, riding your horse, going on a development course.

Despite earning a large amount of money, I meet a lot of salespeople who do not feel fulfilled.

On the other hand, there are people who are so consumed by their jobs that they never see their loved ones or friends or have any time alone. Top executives in the City are prime culprits of this type of behaviour. They are leading in some cases a very shallow life which is all focused on making money money money.

Take the example of Richard Gere in the film Pretty Woman. Burnout is an occupational hazard for City traders. It can really make you feel lousy and consume your life. Don't let this happen to you! Here are some tips on how to effectively organize yourself.

To do this effectively, you need to split up your time into 4 different designations.

1 - Not Important and Not Urgent
2 - Not Important but Urgent
3 - Important and Urgent
4 - Important but Not Urgent

Firstly Not Important and Not Urgent as Distraction A myriad of activities that do not contribute to the tasks we are supposed to be performing end up distracting us at work. Typical distractions are things like personal email that's constantly arriving on your computer along with the irresistable urge to drop everything else and take a fast peek! There are a few things you could do. For example, you could check on your eBay auctions, or you could look into a social networking website.

Secondly, Not Important but Urgent, as Delusion. Have you ever felt that you have been working too hard and yet achieved nothing. This can be called busyness and is caused by being purely reactive to others. Here are a few examples of what I mean: people showing up without notice, co-workers showing favoritism, time-wasting meetings, others just dropping their cares on you without thinking, etc., etc., etc. This is just something that happens to everyone at some time.

Thirdly Important and Urgent as Demand on your time. Here you are just working away. You meet with your customers. You present your findings. You make your necessary calls. And so it goes. These types of tasks should be taking up most of your business day. Your goal should be to divide your day in such a way that each area of your life is seen and attended to as an objective on the way to that goal. So who really has one and stays with it?

And lastly, Important but Not Urgent. The ZONE

This is the one subject most often neglected or edged out by other time-consuming tasks. This is an important item and we know we should all be doing these activities, but we come up with easy excuses like not having enough time. When you start operating your own company, remember to focus on tasks that fall into the category of working on your enterprise instead of in it.

For the salesperson, activities like account planning, personal activity plan, training courses for personal development and meeting with potential strategic partners. Working on a one-on-one basis with sales people and managers, I try to concentrate on these first.

To illustrate, if you saw some money on the pavement, how much would it have to be for you to stop and pick it up? How would you estimate the value of your time?

And how can we make sure we make good use of our time?

Let me tell you about something I heard about a French philosopher. He stood up in front of a large gathering ready to talk about priorities in people's lives.

In front of him on a table was a large glass jar. He took a bucket of rocks and poured them into the jar very carefully. After the rocks filled the ajr he inquired the gathering as to if the container was full and the group replied with the answer "Yes". He pondered the thought for a moment before pouring a bucket containing small pebbles into the jar with rocks and shaking it until the pebbles had reached the top.

"Do you think the jar is full?" he asked of the crowd again. A few people admitted so reluctantly, but not with certainty. There was a shaking of his head once again before he started pouring sand in the jar, shaking the jar all the while till all the gaps between the rocks and pebbles were filled.

Even after asking the crowd for an additional time, it was unclear if the jar was full or not. Once again he shook his head, brought out a big pitcher of water and poured it into the glass jar until he had filled it. He said "it is now full" as he turned to the crowd.

What was the lesson to learn? If you want to be a productive person and squeezethe most from every minute of your day, you need to prioritize your tasks correctly. You need to identify your rocks in order to link it back to time management. essential but not time sensative and list these on your agenda as priority or else the pebbles, sand and water will use up the available area and won't leave room for your rocks.

So the exercise I urge you all to do is write down what your rocks are and allocate time in your schedules to do them, and have the discipline to stick with this and not be distracted and deluded by other interferences.

At the end you can build up what is referred to as a default diary, which we will talk about another time.