By Spike Santess From All Access Music Group

• July 22, 2019

• Welcome to the first in a new series of articles at All Access explicitly written for the Market Manager/GM and those who aspire to that position. The goal of these articles is to help you hone your skillset so you can work smarter, get more done, and make your personal life, family life, and professional life better than it is today.
• The format will be succinct with actionable content that you can start using immediately. Among the major themes will be leadership, communication, motivation, decision making, and creativity. Please join in the discussion to help us make this a valuable resource for the high-performance leader.
• Priority #1 – Take Back Control of Your Time!
• Your time is your most valuable, non-renewable resource. Before you can become an effective leader in your organization, you must be in control of your time. There is no way you can excel in other areas of leadership if your time is out of your control.
• In the coming weeks, we will be discussing The Four Formal Methods of Communication in the High-Performance Organization:
  1. Paperwork; e-mails, memos, call reports, CRM, etc.
  2. Private meetings
  3. Group meetings
  4. Special meetings
• Don’t look at that list and immediately think to yourself, “That’s a lot of meetings!” Because it won’t be when you control the time.
• We will also be discussing the Eisenhower Time Management Grid, popularized by Dr. Stephen Covey in “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.” Learning about the Eisenhower Time Management Grid will teach you how to identify your most significant time wasters and refocus your time on your most important priorities.
• Here’s how you get started.
• Regardless of what time management system you use, no matter what you have on your schedule for this week, write down your daily schedule or print it out, so you have a hard copy. Tape a copy of your plan to the door to your office so that your team can see what your schedule is regardless if your door is open or closed. Give a copy to your assistant. Keep a copy on your desk. Then be prepared for the interruptions that will try and take you off your schedule. Be quick to recognize that disruption is not on your calendar for the day. What you do next is critical to your success as an effective leader. If you fail to do this one thing, you’ve lost control of your time.
• If the person walked into your office, casually stand up as they are trying to tell you about their issue. As you look them in the eye, make your way back to the door to your office and step into the hall. Point to your printed schedule on your door and say, “I’d love to help you with your issue, but right now, I’m in the middle of something else.” Point to an open spot on your calendar and ask, “Could you come back at 2:30? We could work on it then.” If your day is full, point to the end of the day and ask if they could come back then. That is an example of Formal Communication Method Number Four – The Special Meeting.
• However, stop and review what just happened. You politely ushered the interruption out of your space and back out into the hall. You set up a special meeting to handle the issue, and now you can get back to controlling your time. Some managers ask me what to do if the interrupter doesn’t get the hint. I tell the manager it must be a good time for the manager to take a bathroom break. Who is going to follow you into the bathroom?
• Next week we’ll discuss how to handle telephone and e-mail interruptions.
• In the meantime, post a response with one of your time management suggestions.
• Talk to you soon.Spike

For more on this story go to: https://www.allaccess.com/lessons-in-leadership/archive/30252/take-control-of-your-time