It takes 8 seconds for a president to know whether you are wasting his time or not. The intelligence to manage time is a must-have skill. His legacy depends on his ability to manage time. The president is always on his phone following up on things and visiting different areas in the country. He must serve the country, his business, and his family with no fail. He is a busy man, one worthy of admiration. You can learn to manage your time like a president. You could be one someday. If not a president, a CEO, a business leader, a pastor, or an administrator.
Have a Vision
Unlike the president, the term for your life is not constitution-dependent. The president has a vision for his tenure, you MUST make a vision for your whole life. Your vision must be clear and specific. You MUST see the person you desire to become and the character you want to possess. In your mind, you should see the house you want to live in and your family.
You must imagine the type of business and its size. You must see yourself running your life the way you desire. Revisit this vision every morning and before you sleep. Think about it as you work. Write about it until it becomes a part of you. You must breathe, eat, and communicate this vision. God has a way of aligning your life to actualize your vision in your daily routine. Your responsibility is to make it clear in your mind.
Break Down the Vision into Smaller Parts
Your vision becomes clear when you break it down into smaller parts. You must have the overall vision and the time frame to actualize it. Break your vision into 20 years, 10 years, 5 years, 1 year, 1 month, and 1 day goals. Achieving your overall vision is a series of daily accomplishments. Your vision must be time-bound. The president has an itinerary that guides his daily activities. Everything he does is pre-thought and designed to achieve his overall vision.
A daily to-do list will guide your decisions and the people you need. Your vision will force you to cut off friends and family that do not contribute to your overall success and attract friends and people who will help you to reach where you desire. You must be meticulous in your planning. In case of failure, you will know how to adjust and manage the problem, especially if it happened at the early stages of your vision.
Focus on a Few Things
A president requires some things for his vision “right now” and others sometime in the future. He has a responsibility to choose the few things he needs now. You should apply the same principle to become a master of time management. Choose a few things you can be excellent at instead of many that will burn you out and render you ineffective.
I would recommend you begin building habits that will shape the character of the person you want to become in the future and bring to light unconscious habits that have been slowing you down. Focus on building good habits like waking up early, journaling, meditating, and praying. These habits will help you shape your skills, focus, and discipline. Focus on a single habit at a time and master it until it becomes obvious. In work, avoid the temptation to multitask, you will fail at it and deliver low-quality work.
Know your Distractors and Avoid Them
The president has a scheduled life. Only selected people can access him at a time. He has a team that controls those who access him. His secretary has to ask him whether a certain person can access him. Controlling those who access him is not a sign of power but a way to avoid distraction.
You will have different types of distractions depending on the level of your life. At the beginning stages, your distractors can be your phone, friends, and bad habits. As you grow into your vision, ideas, competitors, persons of interest and enemies can be distractors. Regardless of the level, avoid everything distracting you from your daily to-do list and your monthly, and yearly vision.
Plan Your day Early
If he sleeps, the president knows where he ought to visit and the people he needs to talk to before the day starts. He can have a strategic and specific plan for the day and adjust it according to the people’s demands. Before you sleep, think about what you will do the following day and the time to do it. If possible you can journal it or use a mobile app. You can also speak it. For example,
- I will wake up at 5 am
- I will meditate and pray for 30 minutes
- I will work out for an hour
- I will start my day after I take my break
Speaking it loudly affirms and inspires you to do what you want. Do that for one year and you could be moving at the speed of a president.
Delegate
The law of delegating goes hand in hand with the law of focusing on a few things. A president has an entire army of people under his power. They must offload the tasks at his hands. The president does things only he can do. The law of delegation applies to those with people surrounding them.
Focus on things you are an expert at and delegate what you can’t do. Delegating gives you speed and saves you time and energy. You can also start delegating assignments to people before you get them, start learning about it and soon you will be there.
Of all the luxuries a president has, time is not one of them. He must use time to manage the country’s affairs while also engaging in his personal and family life. He can never fail at either of his responsibilities. Anyone can move at the president’s speed. The secret is managing time by delegating responsibilities, focusing on a few things, having a vision, and breaking it down into doable chunks on a daily, monthly, and yearly basis.
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