“Don’t let life pass you by without taking control of every moment and getting the most out of it.
Time is the one thing we can’t make more of; once it is gone it is gone forever, so manage yours to live a life that matters!” – Mark Lang
Time management is a fundamental skill; it impacts our professional and personal lives. At QLM, we understand the importance of this unrenewable resource and encourage our team to make the best use of it.
It all starts at the top.
We asked QLM’s CEO Mark Lang what top 5 things he always does that helps him manage his time. Here are his answers:
1. Have a plan.
The first step that you have to do to manage your time is to have a plan. Each week I put together what I call “my top five report”; these are the top five priorities I have for the week, but more than writing these goals, I share them with my entire company. I also have my calendar of where I will be that week, the previous weeks top five goals with notes of how I did, and below my quarterly goals. All of these are shared with the entire company; this is my way of real accountability from the top down.
2. Break down tasks.
The second step is breaking down your tasks and prioritize them. Too often people look at a task and become overwhelmed rather than breaking it down into bitesize pieces so you can create a plan to achieve the said task in a timely and orderly manner. The old saying of how do you eat an elephant comes to mind, “One bite at a time.” Don’t take on the whole world at once, concur bits and pieces of it at a time.
3. Improve each day.
The third thing is incremental improvements. If you focus each day on improving just by 1% at a time; then in one year you will have grown 365%. Two things in life are certain, you are either getting better or worse, and you get to pick which one, nothing ever stays the same. So, which will it be? What are you doing just a bit different today than you did yesterday to improve?
Watch out for time stealers
4. Don’t waste time.
The fourth priority is to stop wasting it. When I have employees that say they don’t have enough time in the day I have them do an exercise that has them log everything they did for the week in 30-minute increments. 90% of the time they are shocked how much time they wasted, and more importantly, how many people lost their time. From that, I ask them to incorporate steps 1-3 and shut out people that are time stealers.
5. Don’t run from time.
Lastly, never run from time. Time never stops and never waivers. It is the most consistent thing on this earth. So use that to your advantage, get in front of it and don’t let it pass you by. The past is history, tomorrow a mystery, but today is a gift, and that is why they call it the present. Learn from the past, be ever focused on the future, cherish the present to build a future for you and those around you. So often people talk about times gone by, and then live in the past; you can’t look back, or you’ll never see where you are going!
About Mark Lang
Mark Lang is the CEO of QLM, a fast-growing staffing company with offices throughout the United States. He and his team have changed the way the staffing industry work through the Owner-Operator program, enabling passionate individuals to manage their territory and run their staffing agency. Mark preaches time management to his team among other useful skills.
Learn more about Mark Lang and QLM.
