other two major sources of value in the world of work today the first is time and the second is knowledge today time is the currency of modern business the most important measure of time is duration or speed the most important quality that you can develop with regard to time is a sense of urgency a sense of urgency is the habit of moving fast when an opportunity presents itself to you develop a bias for Action fast tempo is is essential to success all successful people not only work hard hard hard but they work fast fast fast fast fast now everyone must stay focused on reducing the amount of time that it takes to get the same results customers will pay dearly for anyone who can reduce the time needed to get them the products and services that they want people will pay more for someone who can satisfy their needs faster than someone else especially when it comes to managing your time when it comes to looking at what you should do on a day to-day basis focus on results not activities you will always have too much to do in too little time they say the average person has about 300 hours of projects to take care of right now books to read magazines newspapers projects at home work and everything else the fact is you will never get caught up so what they have found and this is one of the great secrets of time management is that you only get your life under control to the degree to which you stop doing things let me repeat that you stop doing things now one of the things that you stop doing well the easiest way to set priorities and to determine this is to use the 8020 rule if you make a list of 10 things that you have to do each day two of those items will be worth more than all the other eight put together the top 20% of activities account for 80% of your results so you have to say to yourself what are the one or two things on this list that are more important than anything else and of all these things if I could only do one thing before I was called out of town for a month which one thing would I be sure to get done today and that becomes your number one priority now over the years the ability to set priorities and and I have written books on time management I've trained hundreds of thousands of people in time management my audio and video programs on time management are in multiple languages worldwide and everything comes down to one thing selecting your most important task right now and starting on it right now and then disciplining yourself to stay on it until it's done if you make the mistake of trying to clear up small things first you'll find out the Small Things multiply and pretty soon you've spent your whole day day doing little things sometimes people ask me why am I so productive how is it that I can write four books a year give a 100 talks Run free businesses and do so much stuff volunteer nature traveling all over the world well the answer is my organization system I began to study time management and I've studied time management now for 15 years I've spent thousands and thousands of dollars on the subject I've got libraries of books I've been to countless courses I've listened to all the audio cassettes I've bought them used every time planner that's ever been made with regard to time management and uh I found that there's a core element in time management and it's the element of priorities and I think that the ability to focus and concentration are the two keys to success in life the ability to focus clearly and know exactly what it is you want to accomplish and the ability to concentrate single-mindedly on accomplishing that one thing without diversion or distraction are the keys to success it's the number one key to Effectiveness is to be able to sit down and look at your work and use the 8020 rule say to yourself which is the 20 of the number of things that I have to do that account for 80 of the number of things that I have to do that account for 80 of the value of my work and always work on the top 20 you see in life there's never enough time to do everything but there's always enough time to do the important things instead of doing what is fun and easy which is what most people do you know they make a list of everything they have to do and then they start at the bottom of the list and they work on the irrelevant things at the end of the day they haven't got anything done successful people Peak performers concentrate on the top items and remember anything other than working on the top items on your list is a waste of your time time management is not just time management time management is life management you can do anything you want with your life if you'll manage your time properly we all have the same 24 hours a day and the ability to concentrate concentrate concentrate to discipline yourself to use willpower and perseverance to concentrate on one thing at a time is a quality of all success nothing great has ever been accomplished without the ability to concentrate single-mindedly on one thing at a time always concentrate on the best use of your time there's probably no skill that's more closely correlated with success and achievement in every part of your life than the ability to manage your time well it'll bring you to the attention of your superiors faster it'll help you get more done in a shorter period of time it'll make you feel better about yourself it'll lead to faster promotions higher status greater pay and everything time management is essential to your health as well not just your productivity but you only feel good about yourself to the degree to which you feel you're in control of your time and your life in fact the major reason for stress in America is a feeling of being out of control a feeling of having too much to do and too little time to do it in here's my favorite time management question which I give to you for free it's simply this before you start anything ask yourself what is the most valuable use of my time right now is make a list and say what is the most valuable use of my time right now when you get into your car say what is the most valuable use of my time right now when you leave the house or leave the office say what is the most valuable use of my time right now ask yourself that question over and over over and over again repeat it and repeat it and repeat it and repeat it until it's driven into the subconscious mind as a command and whenever you have a temptation to do something that is small and irrelevant that command will go bam what is the most valuable use of your time right now and it'll push you into doing what is the most valuable use of your time and whenever you're working on the most valuable use of your time you feel great you get concentrated effort is a source of energy and enthusiasm it makes you feel wonderful when you're working on something important and it makes you feel nothing when you're working on something irrelevant now procrastination is not only the thief of time it is also the thief of life to outperform your competition both inside and outside your organization you must develop a time management habit of moving quickly when something needs to be done you must develop a reputation for Speed inde dependability the wonderful advantage of developing a sense of urgency in the habit moving fast is that the faster you move move the better you get this is because the faster you move the more experience you get the faster you move the more you learn and the more confident you become the faster you move the more energy and enthusiasm you have people who move fast as a way of life soon develop a totally different temperament and personality than people who move slowly or who take a casual attitude toward their work my friend Jim Ron used to say casualness brings casualties in its simplest terms successful people are more productive than unsuccessful people successful people have better habits they dream bigger dreams they work from written goals they stay focused on what they need to get done they do what they love to do when they concentrate on getting better and better and better at it they use their natural abilities to the fullest they're continually generating ideas to solve problems and to achieve company goals they focus on using every minute of their time to get maximum results develop a sense of urgency a sense of urgency is a quality that is possessed by only 2% of population 2% of the population do things fast 2% of the population have a bias for action until in Tom Peter's wonderful book in search of Excellence he says all the excellent companies have a bias for action and all of the companies that do not classify or do not come into the Excellence category do things when they get around to it you call them up and you have a problem or a complaint you hear from them three or four weeks later but the excellent companies you call up with a problem or complaint bang there's somebody back to you in 2 minutes if you ever want an experience call call you at Packard and say I'm having a problem getting some information I'm having a problem with myc they won't let you off the phone until they've taken care of you but the excellent companies you call up with a problem or complaint bang there's somebody back to you in 2 minutes if you ever want an experience call call you at Packard and say I'm having a problem getting some information I'm having a problem with myc they won't let you off the phone until they've taken care of you you call the other companies they'll say it's not my job let's say the guy who takes care of that isn't here when will you be back I don't know you take a message I don't have a pencil foreign and then they can't understand why they're struggling you know that 8020 of the companies make 80 of the profits in every industry interestingly enough so develop a sense of urgency get the reputation as the person who does things fast develop a reputation for Speed and dependability and your future will just open up in front of you imagine if you own a company and you had two people in the company and both of them were reasonably well talented both of them were doing reasonably well except one person had a sense of urgency and did things fast every time you gave them something to do they took it they ran with it like a ball player catching a fumble and running for the goal line the other person got to it after lunch maybe next Monday or no rush week's almost over Thursday afternoon and so on which one would you give additional responsibility to which one would you promote which one would you spend money training which one would you send to places where you needed help it's always the person with a sense of urgency I can tell you this that the sense of urgency for me has been worth hundreds of thousands of dollars as a consultant I have been able to save my clients sometimes millions of dollars by acting fast when they've given me a project to take care of whereas if I had acted even a day later it could have cost a fortune and if you'll develop that habit of working fast looking fast that sense of urgency act now do it now do it now do it now in selling especially somebody calls you up and has a question get back to them now somebody has a problem get back to them now somebody needs something move on it quickly if you have to forgo coffee breaks or lunch or something else move fast if you develop that reputation for Speed it will be worth a fortune to you it will be worth a fortune to you takes a little while but it's a habit most people just sort of shuffle through life you know they get to it when they feel like it but all the excellent people all the excellent people all the excellent people all the high performers have a sense of urgency I want to give you four time management tips for work life balance now time management behaviors are very much a matter of choice you choose to be efficient or you choose to be efficient or you choose to be disorganized you choose to focus and concentrate on your high highest value tasks or you choose to spend your time on activities that contribute very little to your life choose to be positive or you choose to be negative and you're always free to choose now the starting point of overcoming your previous programming and eliminating the mental blocks to time management is for you to make a clear unequivocal decision to become excellent at the way you use your time you must decide right here here and now that you are going to become an expert in time management to improve the quality of your life your aim should be to manage your time so well that people look up to you and use you as a role model for their own work habits there are four time management methods that you can use to program yourself for Peak Performance to improve your work life balance here they are the first of these methods for programming your subconscious mind is positive self talk or the use of positive self talk or the use of positive a affirmations these are commands that you pass from your conscious mind to your subconscious mind positive affirmations are statements that you say either out loud or you say to yourself but with the same emotion and enthusiasm that drives the words into your subconscious mind as new operating instructions so to improve your time management you can continually repeat positive affirmations such as I have beautiful work life balancer I concentrate easily on my high payoff tasks my favorite time management affirmation is I use my time well I use my time well I use my time well and I repeat this to myself over and I repeat this to myself over and over again when you repeat positive affirmations over and over they're eventually accepted by your subconscious mind as part of your new programming you will then find that your external behaviors will start to reflect your internal programing in to improve your work life balance and quality of life life balance and quality of life now the second technique that you can use to program your subconscious mind is through visualization mental pictures most immediately influence your subconscious mind in self-image psychology the person you see is the person you will be through positive affirmations and clear mental pictures so begin to see yourself as well organized and efficient and effective in time management recall and recreate memories and pictures of yourself when you were performing at your best when you felt very efficient and effective and in control think of a time when you were working efficiently and in efficiently and effectively and getting through an enormous amount of work play this picture over and over of yourself on the screen of your subconscious mind until your subconscious mind accepts this as your reality now the third time management technique is simple simp sit or lie in a quiet place where you can be completely alone in the silence through positive affirmations imagine yourself going through an important upcoming experience such as a meeting or a presentation or a negotiation or a negotiation or even a date that would improve the quality of your life as you sit or lie completely relaxed create a picture of the coming event and see it unfolding perfectly in every respect like a movie in your mind see yourself as calm and positive and in complete control see the other people doing and saying exactly what you would want them to do if the situation was perfect the fourth mental technique will change the quality of your life through the experience of time management imagine that you have been selected for a role in a movie or stage play in this role you are to act the part of a person who's extremely well organized in every respect as you go through your daily life as you go through your daily life imagine you are an actor who is playing this part who is already very good at time management act as if you're already using your time efficiently and well pretend that you are an expert in personal efficiency and time management fake it until you make it when you pretend that you are excellent in time management eventually the action which is under your Direct Control will develop a mindset or the belief in your subconscious mind in other words you can act yourself into feeling and believing yourself to be excellent in time [Music] management