Most business owners face the challenge of managing their time. Those owners that create the proper balance in time management are on a path to success. By Gary Shotton #000396

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Managing Time

By Gary Shotton

This text is in Extreme Rough draft and will be edited in the near future.

Hello, my name is Gary Shotton, and I’m here as a part of inspiring better business. Many of my talks are connected with the fact that I’m talking to foreign in foreign countries to business people that are wanting to start and grow their businesses. And this is not is one of those questions that came up actually this morning. And the person I was speaking with asked me a pointed question, and said, How do you meaning me? How do I manage my time, and it kind of caught me off guard? Because, you know, I hadn’t thought about this for a while. And frankly, At first, I thought, I am not the right person to ask this, because I’m not a perfect example of that in any way. And here’s what I told him. I said, you know, the first thing about time is that we are limited with it. And so it’s good that we’re limited, because if we weren’t, we would just waste time. And there’s people that are lazy. They don’t waste time that way. And there’s other people that are Workaholics. And so how do we manage this in a way that is pleasing to accomplish what we want in life, I will tell you that I have a lot of things to manage. But I’ll put those into two categories. One, that’s called the time that I used to earn my money. And the other timeline I use to manage my money. And I will tell you that it takes a lot less time to manage money. And if you are able to move some things into the managing, where you’re overseeing. And you’ll see what I’m saying here in a bit. Well, first of all, on the day to day activities. At this moment, I’m owner of a manufacturing company with about 50 employees, I am the owner, and I am the salesperson. But at this time, I’m more of the manager of this then actually a worker there, I do both, I spend about eight to 10 hours per week at this manufacturing company. Now my first business, I was really an employee of my business, and I wasn’t in the managing mode. And I spent eight to 10 to sometimes 12 hours a day at my business. So that’s how things have changed. And they’re going to have to again, find the balance that works for you. Now, other responsibilities I’ve had is that I have been able to buy about eight rental homes. And I have managed those rental homes. But that’s only three or four hours a month for me because I’ve set up systems, I make sure I repair them in good standing, I don’t buy something that has a lot of repairs. Or if I buy something that has a lot of repairs, we fix it right the first time. And we have very little effort to manage that. I also now have a garden farm where I spend probably 20 to 25 hours a week on this farming operation. And it’s actually more one of my less commitments of money. But it’s one of my more commitments of time, because I’m setting up systems and processes there. And it takes a while to set up and learn and explore. And I did that purposely because I wanted to be in the same category as many of you setting up a new business. You see, after I’ve owned a business on them in life a little bit, I could kind of kick back but no, I want to challenge myself to face the things that you’re facing in creating a profitable business raising vine ripe tomatoes. Now, you have time that you must manage with your family. Of course, my family is smaller, just married, my kids are grown, I have grandchildren that are just been a little bit of time, a couple hours a week maybe going to something that they are involved with, or they visit us briefly from time to talent. And then of course, not at all least is the time I spend with God. And that’s something I honestly would like to even improve on I struggle a bit I’ve learned that in my case. If I try to spend that time when other interruptions are coming, it gets interrupted so bad that it’s hardly worth counting, but I’m attempting to. In my particular case, I actually drive my vehicle my pickup truck has a really nice chair. Nice temperature. I’m inside the cab of that, that vehicle and I’m setting at a good location and I have a great time. There reading Studying and, and being prayerful about the day or the week. And again, no exact time period on this. Now, what I’m doing with you with this lessons, I spend probably 10 hours a week ministering to people doing things that that people call me or I do these lessons, I’m on the radio in Uganda, two different times that are at our each. So that kind of gives you an idea. There’s no exact like timetable for each one. But I have to work these all things in together. Just recently, my health is good, but I have some issues with my legs. And so I’ve committed actually two hours a day to go to the gym and do exercises and lifting and swimming. Because I want my health to be good. Well, what are the things you can do? Number one, one of the problems I’ve had in Time management is I have an issue of micromanaging, I have had in the past that thought pattern that if I want it done right, then I’ve got to do it myself, that’s not good thinking. And I have overcome that by and large, I can still slip back into that I give somebody a job attached to do and then all of a sudden, I find myself in there doing it for them or with them. And actually, it’s non productive, it’s a waste of their time and mine. And I need to create confidence in someone else that they can do as good a job or get the job done reasonably well. And I’m not going to be upset. And part of that is creating systems and processes, you’re going to know I’m a system, so the process guy. And so if I want someone to do a job, I might work with him for a little bit and create a thought pattern of systems and how things should be done. And let them be involved with creating the systems are what needs to be done. I’m doing that with a garden farm right now, the system of irrigation? Well, we’ve come to a conclusion, this is the best way timewise to do irrigation. And we’re also creating a system for planting and how is that going to be efficient. And then one of the other times consumers in this little market for vegetables, the time it takes to sell something. So we’re working on systems to cut out and manage time with the system. So I’ve actually almost become an automatic systems thinker. I think about systems, not like I dwell on it. But every activity I have, I’m just kind of automatically thinking about, hey, what kind of a system can I do to produce the same result whether I do it or someone else. Now, third on the list would be just my phone, and a good scheduling software, I happen to use a software called outlook. There’s many software’s and this is one that when I set an appointment to meet with somebody, and I want to be there and I don’t want to set up, consume other people’s time or waste their time. So I’m normally very rarely Am I late for an appointment, I have forgotten an appointment from time to time just like anyone else. But it’s not regular because I respect other people’s time, I have a point. But then I put that in my calendar are used to have to write this down and he had to erase it. But now this is so simple, because I could put certain things like my my repeat things are at the same time every week, I hit the repeat button. And now it’s populates into this the calendar that every week, I’m meeting with somebody at this exact same time, for instance, a radio station. So this software has helped me a great deal. Now I’m also since my drive at this point in life, and for the last several years, many years has been to help businesses start startup businesses. So when someone calls me, I always take that call, especially related to starting a business. And just happened again, this morning, I had a connection with somebody through actually a text, and I offered myself to meet with them. That’s my calling. That’s what I want to do. That’s what I’m all about. That’s my vision that I work at helping startup people get started, I don’t cut it off and say, well, you have to have such a big, big, big enough business, then I’ll talk to you. I’m actually the on the other end of the the process of if you’re getting started, that’s who I want to talk with. And then I want to direct them into our lessons and our teachings and ask them to value my time by by listening to the lessons we have already prepared before I actually spend a lot of individual time because we have a lot of materials available. Well, this whole thing is a challenge for all of us. We’ve got to work at being very good at our using our time. I think God understood that when he put it the only 168 hours in the week. And my first years 30 years ago I did was suggested and you could do this to plot out a sheet of paper, one piece of paper and you put the lines and columns and you determine that there’s seven days of the week and, and you create a block for all this time, my hour by hour and then I put lines in and I said, Okay, this is the time I slept every night I need to sleep. This is some time that I need to eat. Those would be times those the time that I watch TV, these are the times I I am at church or doing ministry. And I would add up that time just to determine how I was using my time, and that’s very revealing. Now, I haven’t done that recently, but that’s a great, great suggestion. So then if you know how you’re using your time, you might be surprised how much time you’re wasting. I watched some TV, but that I don’t want to waste things away when I have things to do that are important. Balance is the key. Thank you for being a part of inspiring, better business.

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