The secret to finding more time in your day

23 Jul The secret to finding more time in your day

Planning is the single biggest antidote to chaos.

Once you know where you’re going (big hairy goals) you’ve got to be able to break the journey into manageable bite size pieces. I’ve talked about this before on the blog How to reach your goal in 778 baby steps.

Today, I want to help you articulate WHAT you do all day.

What are you responsible for at work? I’m not talking about all the “tasks” that you do. I’m talking about the big bucket items, the stuff that you must own at work in order to be successful and drive revenue for your mission that matters.

Here are some examples of OUTPUTS. Which ones are relevant to your role?

• Revenue
• Management/HR
• Governance
• Marketing/Communications
• Strategic Planning
• Operations
• Donor Stewardship
• Finances

By taking an output based approach to your daily activities, you can get clear on what absolutely has to happen each day, week month. For example:

• You are in charge of revenue, but you run out of time to write appeal letters, or ask for gifts, or make follow-up thank you calls.
• You drive strategic planning and thinking for your department, but you’re constantly sideswiped by the latest fire in the office
• You own operations because you’re an Executive Director, but you don’t find time to be clear with your team about who does what, where and why.

I work with clients to go back to basics: what files do you own at work? What must happen for you to achieve your big hairy strategic goals?

Once you have the outputs itemized, build a schedule that touches every one of these files every week. If you have no power moves in revenue, money doesn’t come in. If you don’t prioritize Donor Stewardship, it will not get done, and you’ll face a funding gap. If you’re the default marketing person, you’ve got to carve time to communicate, or the gifts will not come in.

This is a very different approach than making a to-do list every day.

Prioritize your workplan based on outputs, and you’ll find time for everything that’s most important #fundraisingmojo   ← Tweet this

No one will prioritize your work for you. Being a professional means taking the time to PLAN your week, carefully, and mindfully. Focus on outputs, and you’ll find time for everything that matters.