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Managing your time more effectively as CEO

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article | Managing your time more effectively as CEOThe responsibilities of a Chief Executive Officer are seemingly endless. From managing strategic direction, evaluating group and company operations to communicating with various stakeholders – the daily schedule of a CEO can be relentless. There are never enough hours in the day, and for business leaders this is certainly true. So, if you’re a relatively new CEO or you’ve been at the helm for a while – how can you manage your time more effectively?

Master Delegation

The most important thing any business leader can do to manage their time more effectively is improve their delegation skills. It can be tempting to control and oversee every aspect of a business, particularly if you’ve built it from nothing, but it’s impossible to do this as a company grows. In order to delegate effectively, you must have the right team around you and an appropriate structure beneath you to support this. This includes people that you trust to get the job done, and competent employees that you can rely on.

Travel Smart

CEOs can spend a significant amount of time traveling between meetings, offices and partners. Therefore, being smart with this time is an absolute must. For example, you could opt for private jet rental instead of commercial flights to save time by avoiding busy airports, and give you more flexibility when it comes to multi-destination trips. It’s also important to make best use of the time while traveling to free up space elsewhere in the day. You could use your travel time to power through some emails or catch up on some work that doesn’t require much collaboration.

Reserve Time

Much is demanded of CEOs from others in the organisation, and as such, a large proportion of their day can be filled with meetings and other scheduled commitments. It’s essential that you reserve some time each day or week for your own priorities, work or even just for a 10-minute breather. Pockets of time here and there can help to boost productivity and break up the day. Reserving time for yourself also relies on delegation – if someone else can take one of your meetings per day, you’ll automatically create more time for yourself to work on other projects.

Power Sessions

Being a CEO is all about imagining and developing the big picture, but you can still get caught up in the intricacies of operations. Use power sessions, or periods of intense focus, to blast through the more mundane or administrative tasks that you will undoubtedly have to do every once in a while. The same goes for emails – reserve a time slot to power through your inbox and you will almost certainly clear it quicker than if you have your mind on other things.

Maximum Returns for Minimal Effort: 4 Great Time Management Tips

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StrategyDriven Practices for Professionals | Maximum Returns for Minimal Effort: 4 Great Time Management TipsWhether you work in an office building or from home, staying on task can be difficult. The distractions may vary – a barking dog versus a chatty coworker – but they’re still there.

If you’re your own boss, it can be even more difficult to manage your time because no one is there to keep you in check. What can you do to get your work done in a timely manner, so you’re not working 24 hours a day?

Online business blogs, such as bullpreneur, provide resources for new and veteran business owners alike.

Wasting Time is Wasting Money

If you’re the owner of a company with employees, their wasted time is your wasted money. Not only is the work not getting done, you’re paying them for their time regardless.

If, on the other hand, you’re the be-all of a company, you’re cheating yourself. If you’re not working, you’re not making valuable connections, keeping up on your industry, or bringing in money.

With the ease of social media at your fingertips, it can be difficult not to fall into an internet rabbit hole instead of working. What can you do to get your employees – and yourself – to stay focused during work hours?

4 Ways to Manage Your Time Better

The internet isn’t the only time suck. Watercooler chats, personal phone calls, television… The list is endless. If you don’t find a way to break the habit, your work to-do list will also be endless.

Here are 4 great time management tips to follow:

1. Eliminate your distractions. No cellphones in the work area is the first step to removing distractions. Of course, that’s not so easy if you’re the boss and disregard your own rule. Making your workspace clutter-free and electronic-free can boost your productivity.

2. Plan out your workday. If you start your workday without some semblance of a plan, you’ll end up wasting time figuring out what to do. Before you leave for the day, make a list of things that need to be done the next day. It will cut back on the time you spend trying to get started each day.

3. Complete the most pressing projects first. That list you wrote at the end of the day will also come in handy when it’s time to figure out what to do first. Focusing on one task at a time helps prevent you from getting overwhelmed. There’s also a sense of satisfaction in crossing an item off the list once it’s completed.

4. Track your productivity. If you or your employees need more strict guidance, a time tracking tool installed on the work devices can help accountability. Of course, there are tons of time management apps, making it difficult to sort out the best. Forbes lists eight of the most helpful time tracking apps.

Taking Frequent Breaks Can Increase Productivity

It may seem counterproductive to take breaks to get your work done. But taking a short break can help you mentally recharge and sharpen your focus once you return to your tasks.

What staff can do to help boost agency profits

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StrategyDriven Practices for Professionals Article | What staff can do to help boost agency profitsWorking in an agency can be a fantastic experience, but unless you work in sales or account management it can feel like there isn’t much you can do to help the company achieve better profits. Actually this doesn’t have to be the case at all, and there is plenty that you can do help your company be more of a success financially.

Make yourself accountable

There can be a problem at all levels of agencies where members of staff do not feel like they are accountable for the success of the company. In fact, everyone at the business has a role to play in ensuring the success of the organisation, and it is up to individuals to make themselves accountable to this fact.

For managers, the issue may be that there is no one to check to make sure they are accountable to the things they say they are going to do. For other members of staff, they may not feel that what they do can have a financial impact. However, as we will see, this is not true.

Find cost savings

There is a misconception around company profits with members of staff, and this is that the easiest way to boost them is by making more money. Of course, no-one is doubting this as a concept, but it hides the fact that there are other opportunities. One of the most important ways that you, as an employee, can improve your company profits is by spending less money.

If you can find cost savings in your department or your role, those savings act as pure profit for the company. That is money that was being spent before and is now no longer being spent. Consider where you and your department spends its money and look for ways you can reduce it.

Provide management with ideas and information

Don’t lose sight of the fact that you are the person who does your job every day, which means that you understand it better than anyone else in the company. That means those things that might seem completely obvious to you, may also be completely obscured to those in management. This puts the onus on you to provide your management with any ideas and information that could help you do your job, or help the business succeed.

Often it is the day-to-day activities that actually make the biggest difference to a business’ bottom line. So don’t be afraid to voice your opinion on matters, good management will find it extremely valuable.

Be dedicated and go the extra mile

No matter what your job entails you have options with how you perform it. You can go through the day doing the bare minimum, or you can actually show hard work and dedication. Businesses love engaged staff and it is not just because this means more productive employees – when you show your dedication to the business you are showing your potential for the future.

This means that being that person who goes the extra is not only a great benefit to the company, it also provides you with far better career prospects.

Request training that you’ll actually benefit from

Ask yourself: how many times have you been on a training course where there really doesn’t seem to be much point at all to it? Too often when businesses provide training, they are have actually just followed the ideas of someone who doesn’t really understand what will be a benefit to your team.

Instead you should be proactive. Talk to your manager about the kind of training that you would actually benefit from. Once again this will pay dividends in that you will get the training that can help the business, but it will also provide you with valuable tools and skills to make it easier for you to advance your career.

“One of the biggest issues I see in owner-managed agencies is the gulf in understanding between top managers and their employees/managers. If you hope to bridge this gap, you have to invest in training your future leaders.”

Da Costa Coaching

Stop overservicing

Interesting details from the State of Agency Workflow Management report revealed that nearly half of all agencies revealed a loss of 11% due to overservicing. Overservicing is a term that means that those agencies were delivering work for clients that they were not getting paid for – and that is a major problem.

The old adage ‘time is money’ is never more appropriate than when talking about agencies, and if you are spending your time doing work that no-one is paying you for, then you are wasting both your time and your money.

Why is Education So Important?

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StrategyDriven Professional Development Article | Why is Education So Important?We are told throughout our lives that education is important. We are told that it is something we need to take seriously, and something we need to think carefully about. It is a privilege to be able to even have an education, so we should be glad about the one we have. Of course, at a young age when we have to go to school every day, we might not necessarily agree with all of this. But the older we get, the more we realize that it’s completely true. So just what is it that education can give us that makes it so important? Read on to discover just a few examples.

You’ll Have Choices

When you have a good education, you will be able to enjoy many more choices in life. Rather than go down a certain route because that is all your qualifications will allow, a fuller and more well-rounded education will open up many more opportunities to you.

This means you can always find something to do that you will enjoy and having satisfaction in your job and building a career is hugely important — it can also make the rest of your life happier too, which in turn, helps with the work-life balance.

If you find that the route you need to go down requires additional qualifications you can also take an MPath option because of the education you already have. In the end, the more you learn, the better options you have in life, and the happier you will be.

You’ll Be Confident

Being confident in life is a vital part of being successful and moving forward. At the very least, it will ensure you are happy with yourself (which is actually a big thing). Self-confidence will give you the courage to ask for a raise, to apply for a job you might otherwise have thought twice about, to stand up in front of people and give talks and workshops, and to generally be happy to go out and be among others.

When you lack confidence, you can find that you get left behind and that you feel bad about yourself, none of which will help with your mental health.

Having a good education behind you will boost your self-confidence in a number of ways:

  • You will know what you can achieve
  • You will have knowledge of specific sectors and niches
  • You will be more willing to try new things because of past successes

Your Dreams Can Come True

Life can be full of regrets — there are so many people who wish that they had done certain things or been more adventurous, and they regret not having taken the leap. As the saying goes, ‘it is better to try and fail than never to try at all’.

When you have a good education that you can draw from, you are more likely to be able to live your dreams, whatever they might be. This makes life more fun and enjoyable, happier, and worthwhile.

 

Top 5 Skills that Differentiate a Stellar Leader from a Mediocre One – Do You Have Them?

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StrategyDriven Professional Development Article | Leadership Skills | Top 5 Skills that Differentiate a Stellar Leader from a Mediocre One – Do You Have Them?There was a time when the great thinkers of this world thought that we all come into being with a specific set of skills. These skills defined our lives and decided who we were going to be even before we’d have a chance of thinking about it.

This led to the idea that some people are born leaders, some are born musicians, and some are born without any special skills (aka the regular ones). Luckily, we know better by now, and even if a natural inclination is important, it’s the skills we acquire that make us who we are.

This means that we have talented people who chose not to develop their natural abilities, and we have determined people who choose to compensate by learning and being consistent.

Now, when it comes to leadership, not everyone is a natural at it. However, if you truly want to be a stellar leader, you can do so by refining your behavior and actions through training, education, and experience.
Today we’ll list the top 5 skills any true leader must have in order to rise above the average and make a difference in their field.

Communication & Empathy

You must be able to inspire the people in your team and the only way to do this is by communicating in a way that lets people know you understand and support their positions. As a leader, you are in charge of guiding the team towards new levels of success but there’s no way to do this without showing empathy and being a good listener.

Verbal communication is crucial in both one-on-one and group meetings, as it creates a strong bond between participants.

Luckily, most of us can learn to get better at communicating their thoughts and making other people feel heard and understood. Nowadays, we have access to a wide array of online business communication courses designed specifically for leadership and management positions.

However, empathy may be a bit more difficult to grasp if you’re not a natural empath. It can be learned, but it requires you to see the world through the eyes of another person, which can be confusing to master.

Integrity & Accountability

If you want people to be honest and work from a moral high ground, you need to be the leading example.

C.S. Lewis once said that “integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching.” If you invest more in your image than you do in your team and your behavior, things will start to crumble pretty fast.

A good leader must implement a solid foundation and allow team members to grow on their own path. This usually means putting your employees first and being appreciative of their time and efforts. After all, their success is yours as well.

Furthermore, a stellar leader will always support its team and share in both the blame and the success. They will hold themselves accountable for their actions, thus creating a sense of responsibility among team members and gaining their respect.

Resilience

When we talk about great leaders, like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, or Elon Musk, we only discuss their success stories. However, if we were to read their biographies, we’d learn that they had to overcome increasingly difficult conditions and situations.

Most people would have caved, given the same difficulties, but the stellar leaders of this world plowed through any wall that blocked their way. They had the vision and, even though there were many times of doubt, they never let their teams see this.

Wrap Up

While the skills mentioned above don’t talk about incredible talent or extreme intelligence, they can be difficult to master for most people. We’re not all great communicators and it can be difficult to maintain your integrity when things don’t go your way. Also, keeping yourself accountable and moving forward regardless of difficulties doesn’t sound like that much fun.

However, these are skills that toughen a person’s character, earn their peers’ respect and help create some of the most amazing leaders of our world (past, present, and future)!

About the Author

Oli is a working mum who has a passion for teaching and all things educational. With a background in marketing, Oli manages the digital channels and content at Courses.com.au.