You can then work out what are the important things that you should be doing and shouldn’t be doing. Some of the important things that you are going to be thinking about doing are:

• Thinking
• Visioning
• Learning, research and personal development
• Planning and policy setting
• Promoting yourself and your company
• Looking after your top clients, but most probably not the tail of your clients
• And probably most importantly, spending time networking

Next you need to start planning your time and you do this first of all on an annual basis, working out in particular when you are going to be holiday, which is probably the first thing you should actually do, and then look at your primary areas of concentration in each month. Take note of the concept of “bunching” - doing similar activities all together in one block. This tends to make you much more effective and efficient.

Then go down to a monthly basis and look at what you are going to do in each week in a month. For example, it maybe that in week 1 you will concentrate on looking after your senior clients; week 2 could be dealing with your marketing; week 3 could be dealing with your strategic planning; and week 4 could be dealing with business development. Precisely what you do in each week will depend very much on your own business and what you have decided are the priorities for the way you spend your time.

Next, obviously, you take it down to a weekly basis, and look at what you do each day of the week. So Monday maybe you spend planning your activities for the next two weeks on a rolling basis. The following days may be, for instance, client meetings or client work in the morning, and working on marketing and promotion in the afternoon. Friday could be reserve time, free time, thinking time, especially if you decide you only want to work four days a week. Precisely how you set this out will obviously depend on your own personal preferences, and in particular, in the way that you think you work well. Some people do activities in the morning but think better in the afternoon, and vice versa. And you will need to work your own particular way of living your life and your business life. Finally, of course, you need to take this down to a daily basis and it is arguable that you should to limit your working day to five productive hours, and you will know in your own mind which of those five hours during your day are your most productive. Although this may go against the grain, particularly if you have been part of a corporate environment in the past, five hours is the maximum that you can really think and work at 100 per cent in any particular day; after that you start doing things without really achieving that much.

Next time we will dig deeper into discussing your Time Policy and how you can make it work for you and your business.