Managing your time can be tough when you own your career. Choosing when to spend time working with clients , building your agency and finding some personal time can be a legitimate juggle. Effectively managing your time can make all the difference in a successful business.
With that in mind, we’ve put together a list of six tips that can help you rein in chaos and manage your time. Hopefully, there’s something here that can help you organize your time for more productivity.
We get it, sometimes it’s hard to let go of tasks you’ve done for a long time. Worrying about someone else handling those responsibilities can stop you from giving them up.
Still, it’s important to delegate your tasks when possible. Look at your schedule and workload and if there are tasks better suited for someone else, delegate them.
You might feel like you’re the only person who can send those weekly emails or organize your daily mail, but giving those small jobs to someone else can give you more time to focus on the bigger (and more nuanced) tasks.
Everyone loves a yes person – someone who’s always available and willing to help. However, recognizing when it’s possible, and even better, knowing when to say ‘no’ can help improve your time management skills.
Often, we’re asked to complete tasks that we don’t have time for, or an assignment that simply doesn’t make sense given the bigger picture.
Being able to identify these situations can be key to effectively managing your workload and managing your time. With that in mind, always consider three things when a new task comes up:
1. What is the goal?
2. How does that goal contribute to a larger task?
3. Is this the most effective way of achieving said goal?
After asking those three questions, you should have a clearer idea of your ability to say no.
A more obvious addition to our list is calendars. You probably already have an active calendar, but how thorough are your entries?
Keeping track of all your meetings, goals and breaks is a great step forward. Start by keeping calendar events for everything you need time for, and if it feels like the calendar is too much, you can consider stripping it down as necessary.
By creating a crystal-clear image of your day-to-day workload, you can better manage what tasks need to be completed when and (more importantly) decide what needs to be postponed or scrapped altogether. Beyond that, you can cross off days and tasks, which will give you more energy to tackle new goals.
We already mentioned delegating tasks earlier in this list, but have you considered delegating those tasks using technology? For Symmetry agents especially, there are plenty of opportunities to hand off daily tasks using technology.
Switchboard , HQ and our Virtual Assistant are all examples of online tech that our agents have access to every day. Each example allows our agents to spend less time on daily, manual tasks, and more time building their business.
If you’re spending too much time on tasks that can be automated, there’s likely a tech solution you’re not leveraging. At Symmetry, we’re always looking for places where that automation fits and giving more time back to our agents.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of biting off more than you can chew, especially early on in any career. It’s natural to want to succeed early, and it can feel cheap to give yourself goals that don’t take a lot of effort. If this sounds like you, work on reframing that logic.
Giving yourself achievable goals, especially early on, is a fantastic way to build momentum in your business. Small steps lead to big steps, and smaller goals you slam dunk can lead to larger tasks being done more efficiently.
Any time you’re making a list of goals, be honest with yourself about your ability to check them off. Are the potential blockers obscuring the goal line? If so, consider breaking down that goal into bite-sized responsibilities that feel more achievable.
Finishing tasks feels good, so make sure you have more opportunities to do that instead of giving yourself an insurmountable workload.
The myth of multitasking is one we’ve all fallen victim to at some point – I can do these two things at the same time and save some time. It’s a lie and one you should avoid telling yourself.
When we try and take on more than one task at a time, what we’re really doing is giving less than our full attention to multiple tasks. As a result, we either come up behind schedule on these tasks or they are finished but done less efficiently than they’d have been taken care of otherwise.
Instead of juggling multiple tasks at once, give yourself the time and space to work on one thing at a time. Otherwise, you’ll end up missing the mark on more tasks than one.
Managing your time is key to growing a successful agency. When things feel overwhelming, remember there are ways to help manage your time more effectively. Hopefully, there’s a tip here that can help you reach more clients and recruits and ultimately achieve a higher income.
Whether you’re leveraging more tech, keeping a more thorough calendar or simply saying no more often, there are opportunities to manage your time and rein in chaos.
As a Symmetry agent, you will have access to high-quality life insurance, disability income insurance, critical illness insurance, and annuity products from more than 30 well-known insurance companies. This gives you the flexibility and reach you need to tailor plans to meet clients' individual coverage needs.
To learn more about how to begin a fulfilling career as a life insurance agent,
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