Step 1: Touch It Once: If you touch it, take action
Step 2: Make daily lists of the 6 most important tasks to accomplish
Step 3: Plan how long each task will take. Schedule everything - your reading of emails, returning phone calls, meetings, paperwork, etc.
Step 4: Assign time slots for accomplishing each task. Allow yourself some time for the unexpected things that come up. The got-a-minute meetings, say a half hour in the morning and again in the afternoon. But the main thing is to stay on your schedule.
Step 5: Focus on difficult projects first. You will feel better and far more productive in all your efforts.
Step 6: Ask yourself, "Will it hurt me to throw this away?" If you are the boss there is a really good chance that someone will have this information.
Master these 6 steps and you won't believe the difference. Implement them company wide and you'll be operating at maximum productivity before you know it.
These are the same six steps Lee presented to Charles Schwab, when he was in charge of United Steel, the largest steel company in America in the early 1900's. Charles Schwab told Lee, he did not need any help in how to manufacture and produce steel. What he needed help with was how both he and his people could be more effective. Lee presented these steps to him and said to try them for 30 days and at the end of the 30 days to send him a check for whatever he thought it was worth. Charles Schwab wrote him a check for $10,000.00 which was a huge sum of money in those days. He said that these were the best lessons in time management that he ever learned and wished he had them at the beginning of his career.
When you actually learn and implement these six steps on a consistent and regular daily basis your business can literally explode, and it will also do wonders for your personal life.
