Sometimes you can accumulate all of your phone calls up to eleven in the morning, and then return them all between eleven and twelve o’clock. Or you can accumulate them up to three thirty in the afternoon and then return them all between three thirty and four thirty.
6. Plan Your Calls In Advance
Plan your calls in advance. Think about a business call as a meeting and write out an outline or agenda for your telephone meeting or discussion.
Don’t waste time by picking up the phone and calling, and then forgetting why you are calling and the things you wanted to discuss.
7. Take Good Notes
Take complete notes of telephone conversations. The power is on the side of the person with the best notes. Never answer a telephone without a pad of paper and a pen in your hand. Keep careful notes of the things that you agree to. Write down what the other person agrees to, including the numbers, times, dates, amounts and so on that are discussed on the phone. These notes can be extremely important to you in the future.
Dealing with Drop-In Visitors
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Here are five ways to deal with the next of the major time wasters, drop-in visitors.
1. Create a Quiet Time for Work
First, specify a quiet time during the day where you will concentrate on your work. During this time, allow no interruptions. Get yourself a “Do Not Disturb” sign from a store or a hotel and put it on your door. Make it clear to everybody that when that sign is out, you do not want to be disturbed for any reason by anyone, except in an emergency.
2. Stand Up Quickly
Deal with unwelcome visitors by standing up when they come in to your office. Some years ago, I worked in a company with a manager who would go from office to office making conversation. He was one of the most boring talkers in the world. He was a nice fellow, but when he came in, you knew that, if he sat down, he was going to be there for half an hour.
I finally learned how to handle his unwelcome visits. The instant that he came in the door, I would immediately stand up and come around my desk as though I was just on my way out.
I would say, “It’s nice to see you, but I am just leaving. I’ll walk out with you.” I would then walk him to the door and lead him back out into the hallway. Then, I would keep on going myself. I would go to the washroom or to some other office until he was gone, and only then would I go back.
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This saved me an enormous amount of time that the other executives in the company were unable to avoid.
3. Bring the Discussion to a Close
When the meeting has gone on long enough, say, “There’s one more thing before you go.” You then stand up and lead him to the door. Finish off the conversation with anything you can think of, shake hands, and then go back to work.
One variation of this technique is to say, “One more thing before you go; I want to show you something.” You then take him out of the office and show him a plant, a book, a new piece of furniture or anything that you can think of. Then, turn around and go back to work leaving him there to carry on.
4. Arrange Specific Meeting Times
To deal effectively with drop-in visitors, you can arrange specific times to meet that are convenient for both of you. Make appointments to get together with the people in your office. Make appointments with your staff and let them know that at certain times of the day, your door is open and you will be available.
5. Avoid Wasting the Time of Others
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Make every effort to avoid being a drop-in visitor on others. If you do drop in on someone else, always be polite enough to ask, “Is this a good time, or can we get together later?”
Encourage others to say the same thing to you: “Is this a good time or should we get together later?” It is amazing how many people unconsciously waste the time of others, and are unaware of it.
Saving Time in Meetings
Meetings are a major time waster in the world of work. As much as 50% of working time is spent in meetings, either group meetings or one on one meetings. In the estimate of almost everyone, at least 50% of this time is wasted. This means that as much as 25% of all working time is lost in meetings of one kind or another.
However, meetings are not an evil. Meetings are a necessary business tool for exchanging information, solving problems, and reviewing progress.
Determine the Cost of the Meeting
Each meeting costs the hourly rate of the people attending multiplied by the number of hours spent in the meeting. Meetings should therefore be treated as an actual dollar expenditure with an expected value, or rate of return on investment.
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Imagine that you have ten people in a meeting, and the average person is earning $20 per hour. Ten times 20 equals $200 per hour. This is the cost of that meeting. If you were going to spend $200 on something in your business, which is exactly what you are doing in this meeting, you should have a very good reason for it.
Think through in advance the justification of spending this amount of money. Why are you bringing these people, at these hourly rates, together for this period of time?
Continually think of meetings as an investment with an expected rate of return. Treat them exactly as if you were spending the company’s money, because, directly or indirectly, that is exactly what you are doing.
Seven Ways to Make Meetings More Efficient
Here are seven ways to increase the efficiency and improve the results of meeting time.
1. Is It Necessary?
Ask, “Is this meeting necessary?” Many meetings turn out in retrospect to be unnecessary. There are other ways to achieve the same goal. Sometimes you can achieve it by circulating a memo. You can have a conference call. You can speak to people individually. You can even postpone it to another meting or another time altogether. If a meeting is not necessary, avoid holding it whenever possible.
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If the meeting is necessary, ask, “Is it necessary for me to attend this meeting?” If it is not necessary for you to attend, don’t go in the first place.
If it is not necessary for someone else to attend a particular meeting, make sure that he knows so that he does not have to be there.
2. Write an Agenda
If you have determined that the meeting is necessary, establish a clear purpose for the meeting and write up an agenda. An excellent time management tool is for you to write a one paragraph statement of purpose for the meeting. Complete the sentence, “We are having this meeting to achieve this specific goal:” and then write out the objective of the meeting.
This is a tremendous discipline. Make out an agenda or a list of everything that has to be covered in the meeting. Next to each item, put the name of the person who is expected to address that particular issue. Distribute the agenda, if possible, at least 24 hours in advance so that each person knows what they will be expected to contribute. They will know what the objective of the meeting is and what will be discussed. This applies to one on one meetings with your boss, with your subordinates, with your customers, with your suppliers and whoever else.
Create Agendas for One on One Meetings
One of the most helpful techniques you can use in business is to draw up an agenda for each meeting with your boss. I learned this many years ago as a 195
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junior executive. Prior to using this technique, we would spend an hour talking around in circles with no clear beginning or end. Once we had an agenda to work from, we could cover more information with greater clarity in fifteen minutes than we used to cover in sixty minutes.
Sometimes I would type up the agenda before the meeting. On other occasions, I would just write it up by hand, photocopy it, give him a copy, keep a copy for myself and then say, “These are the things I want to discuss with you.” We would then go down the list, item by item, and get resolution of each point. I would them be out of his office and back to work. My boss really appreciated this approach. As a result, he was always willing to see me because I took up so little of his time.