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EXECUTIVE TIME
MANAGEMENT
Twenty-one ideas you can use immediately to gain
two or more productive hours each day.
by Brian Tracy
MCMLXXXVIII
Nightingale-Conant Corporation
www.nightingale.com
1-800-525-9000
752pg
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THE EFFECTIVE MANAGER SEMINAR SERIES
This fast-paced series of 14 management seminars on DVD, with CD and workbook
accompaniment, has been designed to convey the greatest amount of usable information in the
shortest possible amount of time. The material in each program is based on management
seminars that have been developed for and presented to leading corporations for several years.
Each program is a condensation of 21 valuable ideas, methods, and techniques drawn from years
of practical experience. More than 100 hours of reading, research, and planning have gone into
each mini-seminar, giving you just the essential material that you need to be more effective
immediately.
Since people learn in three ways visually, auditorially, and kinesthetically these mini-seminars
are offered in DVD, CD, and workbook format to assure maximum learning and retention.
The learning process is flexible. You can take these seminars alone in your office or at home, on
DVD and then on CD, to review and reinforce the key ideas. You can follow along with the
workbook and use it as a planning tool for internalization and implementation.
As a busy executive, your most valuable resource is your time. With these DVD-based mini-
seminars, you can learn in one hour what might take you two or three days in a seminar or
workshop and save the cost of time off, travel, and other expenses.
Because these programs have been developed as presentations for live audiences, they are fast-
moving, entertaining, informative, and enjoyable to watch. Brian Tracy is a master of the video
medium; thousands of people in several countries attend his DVD seminars every month.
The idea behind this series was the discovery that 80 percent of the value of the information on
any subject is contained in less than 20 percent of the material available. In this series, you get
only the top 20 percent of ideas the techniques you can begin applying today to be more
effective and achieve better results.
You save time, you save money, and you get high-quality, low-cost professional instruction in the
key management areas where you must be knowledgeable if you want to fulfill your potential in
your organization.
The Effective Manager Seminar Series is a production of the Institute for Executive Development
and Nightingale-Conant Corporation.
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HOW TO BENEFIT MOST FROM THIS PROGRAM
The Creative Manager has been designed to save you time in learning the things you need to know
to be more effective.
Research in accelerated learning suggests several ways to learn faster and remember more. This
program is based on advanced learning techniques that can help make you a mini-expert in the
principles of effective leadership in a very short period of time.
You remember only about five percent of what you hear. You remember 20 percent of what you
see. You remember 40 percent to 50 percent of what you see and hear. You remember up to 80
percent of what you see, hear, write, and review. After six exposures to the material, spread
over a period of time, you can achieve almost total recall.
You also learn and remember more if you have a clear purpose for learning, a purpose that
affects you personally. If you set goals for applying what you learn, you will remember more.
You also learn faster if you discuss what you are learning and how it can be applied to your
personal situation.
Finally, you reinforce and expand upon what youve learned when you teach others.
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CONTENTS
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5
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INTRODUCTION
Your ability to manage your time, as much as any other practice in your career as an executive,
will determine you success or failure. Time is the one indispensable and irreplaceable resource of
accomplishment. It cannot be saved, nor can it be recovered once lost. Everything you have to do
requires time; and the better you use your time, the more you will accomplish, and the greater
will be your rewards.
Time management is essential to maximum health and personal effectiveness. How much you feel
in control of your time and your life is a major determinant of your level of inner peace,
harmony, and mental well-being. A feeling of being out of control of your time is the major
source of stress, anxiety, and unhappiness. The better you can organize and control the critical
events of your life, the better you will feel, moment to moment, the more energy you will have,
the better you will sleep, and the more you will get done.
It is possible for you to gain two productive hours each working day, or even double your output
and your productivity, by using the ideas and methods taught in this program. These techniques
have proved successful for many thousands of executives in every field of endeavor, and they will
prove successful for you as long as you have what we call the four Ds.
The first D is desire; you must have an intense, burning desire to get your time under control and
to achieve maximum effectiveness. The second D is decision; you must make a clear decision that
you are going to practice good time-management techniques until they become a habit. The third
D is discipline; you must discipline yourself to make time management a lifelong practice. The
final D is determination; you must be willing to persist in the face of all temptations to the
contrary until you have become an effective time manager.
Time management is really life management. The payoff for becoming an excellent time manager
is high. It is the outwardly identifiable quality of a winner versus a loser. All winners in life use
their time well. All losers in life use their time poorly. One of the most important rules for success
is simply to form good habits and make them your masters.
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TWENTY-ONE IDEAS YOU CAN USE
B. Act as if you were already a good time manager; think of yourself as being well organized. If
you already were excellent in time management, what would you be doing differently from
the way you do it now?
C. Affirm over and over, I am an excellent time manager; I am superbly organized. Repeat
this affirmation until it is accepted by your subconscious mind.
D. Who do you know who is extremely well organized? What could you do to be more like him
or her?
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2. Determining Your Values
Time management begins with an examination or your values.
C. What changes could you make to bring your time usage and your life priorities more into
alignment?
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D. What would your ideal outcome look like?
E. Mentally project forward one, two, three years. What does it look like? What would you have
to do to achieve it?
4. Thinking It Through
Take 30 minutes each day to review your goals, your plans, your progress to think,
plan, dream, create.
C. One good idea can save months, even years, of hard work.
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5. Program Evaluation and Review Techniques
Determine the goals and objectives you must achieve to enjoy the outcomes you desire.
A. Start with determining your goals, then work backward to the present moment.
E. Draw a chart with each of your objectives or goals plotted backward from the required date
of completion. Lay it out on paper so that you can see when you have to accomplish each
part of the task in order to have the entire job completed on schedule.
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6. Making Plans
Make detailed plans to accomplish each goal or objective.
A. List every activity that must be engaged in and every minor task that must be accomplished
to achieve the main goal.
B. Organize the activities in terms of time and priority. Which must be done first, and which is
most important?
C. Review your plans over and over; revise them regularly with new information.
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C. Keep a time log record your time usage, and relate your actual time usage to your
priorities.
8. Setting Priorities
Use the 80-20 rule that is, 80 percent of the value of what you do comes from 20
percent of your activities. What are the top 20 percent of your activities?
Put a letter next to each of the tasks on your to-do list. Then take your A tasks and organize
them by priority A-1, A-2, A-3, etc.
Begin on your A-1, and refuse to work on any other task until it is completed.
9. Staying on Track
The most important question in time management is: What is the most valuable use of
my time right now?
A. Ask this question over and over until it becomes a subconscious guide to your actions.
B. Your top-priority tasks will always be both vital and urgent. What are your most vital and
urgent tasks right now?
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C. Learn to say no to any demand on your time that takes you away from your most vital and
urgent tasks.
A. Why are you on the payroll? What key results have you been hired to accomplish?
B. What can you and only you do well to make a real difference to your organization?
C. Every person at every level of the organization should know what his or her key result areas
are. Is everyone who reports to you clear about the most valuable contribution he or she can
make to your organization?
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B. Do things one at a time, and stay with them until they are completed.
C. When you complete an important task, you gain energy, enthusiasm, and self-esteem. What
is the most important task you have facing you today?
B. Salami-slice that is, to get started, do one small part of the task.
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D. Repeat, Do it now; do it now; do it now, over and over.
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D. Possible blocks of time:
1. Early morning
2. Lunchtime
3. Close office door in the morning, 10:00 to 11:00 a.m.
4. Close office door in the afternoon, 2:00 to 3:00 p.m.
5. Get to work one hour early, before others arrive
6. Stay one hour later, after others depart
7. Air travel one uninterrupted hour is worth three normal office hours
What steps can you take immediately to begin creating blocks of time?
B. Stand up and move to leave when an unwelcome visitor comes into your office.
C. Meet unexpected visitors outside your office; set a time limit at the beginning of the
discussion (say, for example, I can speak with you for eight minutes).
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15. Telephone Techniques
Control telephone interruptions, and use the telephone more effectively.
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16. Effective Meeting Strategies
Twenty-five to 50 percent of management time is spent in meetings. Meetings are
unavoidable; they are also a key management tool and must be used effectively.
B. Have a good reason for calling any meeting. Look upon each meeting as an investment of
money with an expected return.
1. Does this meeting have to be held?
2. What is the purpose of this meeting?
D. Start and stop on time. Assume that the latecomer is not coming at all.
E. Summarize the results of the meeting, the actions agreed upon, who is responsible, and
when action is to be completed.
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F. Hold stand-up meetings whenever possible.
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18. Reading Faster
Keep current with your reading requirements.
A. Learn to speed-read; take a course in which you can learn how to read faster and more
efficiently.
C. Read magazines selectively; review the table of contents, and go straight to the article.
1. Have the article torn out and assembled in a file to read later.
2. Read articles during transition time traveling, waiting.
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19. Personal Development
This must be an ongoing, continuous part of your time usage every day.
B. Listen to educational audiocassettes while youre commuting (the average person spends 12
to 25 40-hour weeks each year in his or her car).
C. Attend seminars and workshops given by people with practical experience in their fields.
D. What one step could you take toward self-improvement that could make a difference in your
career?
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B. Assemble all necessary materials before beginning work (pen, calculator, stapler, files, other
materials).
C. Use a dictating machine whenever possible (become a dictator). Save 80 percent of your
time on correspondence.
21. Delegating
Delegate everything you possibly can to others.
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D. Delegation expands your output from what you can do to what you can control; resolve to
learn to be excellent at delegation.
Summary
If you practice the methods, ideas, and techniques in this workbook, you will become a
master time manager. However, there is more to life than simply increasing its speed.
Remember to keep your life in balance. The main purpose of learning and practicing time
management is to enhance and increase the overall quality of your life, the amount of
pleasure and happiness you experience.
Take good care of your health. It should be your most valued treasure. Eat the right foods,
get regular exercise, and be sure to get plenty of rest. Sometimes the best way to use your
time is simply to go to bed early and get a good nights sleep.
Finally, guard your relationships carefully. The quality and the quantity of your relationships
are, or should be, the single most important thing in your life. Take time each day to
communicate with the people who mean the most to you.
A wise, old doctor once observed, I never spoke to a businessman on his deathbed who said
that he wished he had spent more time at the office.
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SUGGESTED LISTENING FOR FURTHER HELPFUL
INSIGHTS BY BRIAN TRACY
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SUGGESTED VIEWING FOR FURTHER HELPFUL
INSIGHTS BY BRIAN TRACY
10 Keys to a More Powerful Personality
64 Minutes Viewing Time
Enjoy Brian Tracys dynamic and forceful personality on video as
he shares a lifetime success system with you. Its the 10 Cs of
success: clarity, competence, concentration, common sense,
creativity, consideration, consistency, commitment, courage, and
confidence. Learn to put them to work in your life, and
accomplish more than you ever thought possible.
One Videocassette (or DVD when available) 5711V
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