When Terry Zavitz decided to become more active in Advocis two years ago \u2014 joining both her local and then the national board of directors \u2014 she knew something had to give. The advisor and president of London, Ont.-based Terry Zavitz Insurance Inc. already had a jam-packed schedule.
A typical day would find Zavitz at the gym by 6:30 a.m., behind her desk at 8:15 a.m. and at the office until 7 p.m. Her days didn\u2019t end there. She had weekly choir rehearsals, sat on several community boards and was about to start training for a mountain-climbing expedition. (She climbed the Uhuru Peak of Mount Kilimanjaro in December 2005, and plans to scale Peru\u2019s Machu Picchu this October.)
\u201cMore than once, I felt that I just didn\u2019t know how I was going to pull everything together,\u201d says Zavitz, the mother of three grown children. She decided to scale back her involvement in the community in order to take on her new roles with Advocis. \u201cThe industry needed representation, and I wanted to have a voice,\u201d Zavitz says. \u201cIt was a difficult decision, and I still miss my community work.\u201d
In committing to Advocis, Zavitz put the single most important element of time management into play: prioritization. \u201cIf we\u2019re not clear on what is really important, we can overload our lives,\u201d says Peggy Grall, a business coach in Milton, Ont., and author of Just Change It!<\/i>She notes that advisors are prone to biting off more than they can chew.
\u201cAdvisors are entrepreneurs, and that personality type loves to generate new ideas and take on multiple projects,\u201d Grall says. \u201cThey may find themselves with too many balls in the air and not enough time to follow through with each one.\u201d
Sound familiar? Like anything in life, there\u2019s no silver bullet solution for an unmanageable schedule. However, prioritizing your values, your work flow and how you spend your spare time can buy back some much needed breathing room.
THE BIG PICTURE<\/b>
When time-starved clients first visit Grall, she asks them to rank what they value most in their lives aside from work \u2014 be it family and friends, spiritual activities or even going to the gym. Those priorities remain top of mind as the client creates a monthly schedule. \u201cYou need to schedule your big values first,\u201d says Grall.
While a nine-to-five workweek may be non-negotiable, she maintains that it\u2019s just as important to block out time for family commitments, a night out with friends or your favourite spin class.
\u201cAdvisors often tell clients to pay themselves first. The same principle applies when it comes to time management,\u201d says Eileen Chadnick, certified coach and founder of Toronto-based Big Cheese Coaching<\/b>. \u201cIf you don\u2019t carve out your priorities, you\u2019ll get interrupted.\u201d
Aside from your top priorities, Chadnick also advises scheduling some \u201cwhite space\u201d into every day. Zavitz, who keeps her daily planner on her BlackBerry, agrees. \u201cI schedule personal time right into my planner. I don\u2019t deny myself that,\u201d she says. \u201cIf I have a hair appointment in the middle of the afternoon, it becomes part of my day.\u201d
Of course, you know what they say about the best-laid plans. \u201cEvery schedule needs to be course-corrected,\u201d says Grall, who recommends reviewing it at the end of every week to identify what scheduling tactics worked and what didn\u2019t \u2014 such as allowing yourself five minutes to drive across town between appointments.
\u201cOverscheduling ourselves is a common mistake,\u201d says Chadnick, noting that being in a constant rush is a huge energy drain. \u201cWe need to allot every activity a realistic amount of time.\u201d
THE DAY-TO-DAY<\/b>
Once you\u2019ve penned your big-picture priorities into your planner, it\u2019s time to take a long, hard look at how you spend your time in the office.
If you haven\u2019t already segregated your book, do so, advises Grall. \u201cIf you can categorize and prioritize your client base, you\u2019ll end up spending your time where it\u2019s most valuable,\u201d she says.
Hire a junior advisor to look after lower-priority clients you don\u2019t want to lose, and bring in an administrative assistant to take care of the tasks you\u2019d rather not do. \u201cDon\u2019t worry about the money, you\u2019ll earn it back,\u201d says Zavitz, who manages one of the largest blocks of disability insurance in southwestern Ontario \u2014 with the help of a team of 13.
@page_break@After you\u2019ve delegated what you can, prioritize the tasks that remain \u2014 right down to how you respond your e-mail and voice mail.
\u201cAnyone who works in the service industry needs to be responsive to clients, but you need to be clear on what\u2019s a distraction and what really needs to be done now,\u201d says Chadnick.
Michael Linenberger of Cali-fornia, author of Total Workday Control Using Microsoft Outlook<\/i> (New Academy Publishers), calls the urge to act immediately on a request the \u201ceverything is a fire\u201d approach to work. \u201cConstantly being in a reactive mode, instead of a proactive mode, is inefficient,\u201d he says. \u201cYou\u2019ll never get ahead this way.\u201d
Technology is a major culprit behind this time-sucking mindset \u2014 which can be triggered by something as innocuous as the ping of arriving e-mail. \u201cE-mail management is a huge problem,\u201d says Grall, noting that opening every e-mail immediately is a huge distraction. To combat this temptation, she suggests turning off the sound option of your e-mail and checking your in-box only three times a day. \u201cVery few things in life are so urgent that they need to be answered in less than a three-hour window.\u201d
Linenberger has a different tactic for e-mail management, one he claims can help regain up to 25% of your workweek. His system hinges on using the task management tool, which you configure to sort tasks in order of priority, on your e-mail application.
Let\u2019s say you receive an e-mail from your assistant requesting your expense receipts from the past month. You are likely to respond in one of two ways: either moving along to the next e-mail while making a mental note to submit your expenses, or completing the expense form immediately before moving on. \u201cYou may just have wasted half an hour on your lowest-priority task of the day,\u201d warns Linenberger.
Instead, he recommends immediately converting every action-oriented e-mail you receive into an Outlook task. Do this by dragging the e-mail to the task icon (found on the left-hand side of the Microsoft Office Outlook window; some versions may require you to switch on the task icon in your user preferences). Rename the e-mail (\u201cFile expenses,\u201d for example), prioritize it (high, medium, low), set a due date and then complete the task as you work through your list in order of priority. \u201cBlock out time in your daily schedule to work on your task list, and only label things as \u2018high priority\u2019 if they absolutely must get done today,\u201d Linenberger advises.
Aside from taking advantage of the task function (available on most e-mail programs), Linenberger also recommends saving e-mail in one folder. \u201cI save all of my e-mails because storage is so cheap,\u201d says Linenberger. \u201cYou might waste 30 seconds deciding whether you should throw something out.\u201d
Storing mail in one big folder allows for easier searching and saves the hassle of sorting mail into multiple folders. \u201cThe No. 1 mistake people make is in filing their e-mail,\u201d says Linenberger, who completely empties his in-box several times a day. Instead, use a search engine (he recommends using X1, Windows Desktop Search, Google Desktop or Outlook 2007\u2019s search function) to retrieve what you\u2019re looking for. \u201cYou may have to try a couple of different key words, but you will find it.\u201d
OFF THE CLOCK<\/b>
Weekends are when Zavitz regroups, although she admits to attending to the occasional work-related matter. \u201cI try to avoid working at home because it zaps your energy,\u201d she says, \u201cbut it happens.\u201d
Relaxation takes the form of skiing, reading or a hike with her husband and two dogs, but one thing it doesn\u2019t involve is cleaning the house. \u201cThink of yourself, think of your schedule and hire out whatever you don\u2019t like to do,\u201d says Zavitz. \u201cYour whole attitude will change when you don\u2019t have to go home and do the dishes.\u201d\t IE<\/b>
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When Terry Zavitz decided to become more active in Advocis two years ago \u2014 joining both her local and then the national board of directors \u2014 she knew something had to give. The advisor and president of London, Ont.-based Terry Zavitz Insurance Inc. already had a jam-packed schedule.A typical day would find Zavitz at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3013,3018],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328297"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328297\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328297"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmentexecutive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=328297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}