Time Management: The Key to Personal and Professional Success

0:01
Welcome to Jon Michail’s Personal Branding Masterclass. Jon is the founder and CEO of image group international, an award-winning image consulting and personal branding pioneer established in 1989. This podcast will bring you old-school wisdom, inspiring ideas, strategies and hacks for the new tech world. Here you will learn everything about personal branding: the system, the techniques and the right mindset to have a successful personal brand, image and reputation.

0:30
welcome back to my show. Today, I'll share another skill that's essential for personal and professional growth in our ever evolving world. And that subject today is time management. Personally, I see time management really as that self management skill, because it's a currency that we all have eagerly. See, until you value yourself, you will not value your time. And then life becomes a game of playing tic tock catch up time is the most precious resource we have, and how we lead and manage it can significantly impact our lives. I think we all know that effective time management isn't just about getting more done. It's about getting the right things done, reducing our stress along the way. And of course, you know, creating space for what truly matters. And what truly matters, in my opinion is your purpose. Why do you do what you do? So what is this purpose? Well, for me, this purpose in reference to time management isn't about working hard or Cramming more tasks in your day, it's the opposite of that it's about it's so much more than that. It's allowing yourself the self leadership time to nurture your mind, your body and your spirit. So if you're working, working, working, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, you're not going to get an opportunity to go deeper, it's normally going to be superficial. So it's essential that you take also the moment to really re calibrate yourself, and go a little bit more deeper into some of these ideas, concepts, actions that you want to take. So it's about working smarter, and aligning your efforts with definitely your goals, but with a holistic approach. So when you lead and manage your time, effectively, you become more productive, efficient, and of course less prone to burnout. Yes, burnout. And it's worse than that. Because what I've witnessed is with clients, 1000s of clients over the years and of course, millions in my seminars, workshops worldwide, is when one is on that line to a greater purpose, burnout will eventually get there. And if it's not burnout, burnout is really probably the precursor to serious disease, that certainly comes up very quickly as well. When somebody is out of balance, and if you don't believe me just observe what is happening in the world today is so it's very important that we get really clear about this, because I think you've heard me say before, the number one concept in your life right now is your mind, body, and spirit and all the money, wealth, fame will come after that. So you've gotten better clarity on your priorities. And of course, you can then invest your energy in activities that truly move the needle exponentially. And what I mean by that is, when you're calming yourself, the world around you is calm. And this is the key here, because you've got the choice to make that decision. Even if the world is chaotic, you've got the choice to create calmness within and of course, self management helps in reference to then managing your time and allowing yourself enough space to learn and grow. Then you might be wondering, what this time management have to do with personal branding? 

3:47
Well, the answer is virtually everything. Have you witnessed a colleague who constantly is running late for meetings? Need I say more? Your personal brand is a reflection of your values, your priorities and how you present yourself to the world. If you don't respect your time, how do you expect others to respect your time? This is very important. So self respect starts with self. And this is very important from really acknowledging that if you're getting disrespected, in society, in your workplace, in your business, in your relationships, go back into the mirror, and basically ask the question, why is this happening? And this is not about psychobabble. It's about being authentic. It's been fair dinkum to see exactly where you can improve. And by the way, we can all improve on this. It's not about having a go at anybody. So effective time management assures that you have the soft leadership bandwidth to build and nurture the personal brand because without pen with your content, they're certainly burnout. So it allows you to invest time, as I noted in self development, of course networking and creating invaluable thought leadership concepts, all of which are crucial for shaping your brand identity. So how do you start improving some of your time management skills today? Well, first of all, let's start off with this. First of all, encourage yourself, you know, because encourage yourself is the opposite of this encouraging yourself, you know, and feeling like you're let down the inspiration and encouragement that comes from encouraging yourself a better, because you're making more empowering choices. And they're just as readily available to you as disempowering choices. So you're really making responsible choices here, because you're taking control of what you can do in your life to improve it. And of course, as we learn time management, self management is part of that the realities of life, though, are not affected by your attitude, remember that, but you are. So whatever happens out there, okay, it's your choice, or how that's gonna affect you. And the way you see things, of course, affects how well you deal with them. So I have three practical strategies to consider for today. First of all, you know, it's important that you prioritise ruthlessly, definitely identify your most important tasks for the day, and of course, tackle them first. And this is very important as TAs might be only a top three ones, because the top three and normally 80% of your total 100 In reference to importance. So put the top three first get them down. And then of course, when if you have any more time and energy, you continue the rest. The next one is learn to say no. So respect your time by declining commitments that don't align with your goals. This is very important. And if you're a people pleaser, you might be saying yes, yes, yes, all the time. Sometimes it's more powerful to say no. And the next one, of course, is delegate wisely. And don't hesitate to delegate tasks, when possible. It's the smartest way for leaders to leverage their leadership, it's the only way you're gonna grow, because you cannot do it within yourself. And generally, when you're trying to do everything yourself, that's an insecurity that shows up because obviously, you're not trusting anyone else to do the work for you. So this is very, very important. 

7:20
So what I'd like to do now is show you a success story related to time management. And it goes like this ever. First of all, it's about using, you know, technology wisely. Okay, this is very important, and incorporating technology into your whole time management systems, because of course, they're going to leverage opportunities. So technology is a leverage tool. And of course, apps and streamline tasks. And reminders are also excellent in guiding you along. So a great client of mine came to us, he runs multimillion dollar firm employing Around 500 people. He wanted to be recognised as a thought leader in this profession. And what are the right some succinct opinion pieces and trends in the industry. The problem was that due to time management challenges, he constantly was behind deadlines. And as you can imagine, create a stressful human also us because we were waiting to do the work for him. So in other words, he would write thought piece, we would pitch it to major media. And of course, get it published. The problem was he wasn't coming back and responding on in time. And of course, that with a lot of people down, I get someone client gave us a brief on the spot leadership management, we that's the way we decided to change the position, my creative team of writers created the story. And we tick that off within a few days. And within two weeks, we had published the story in national media. So the outcome of that story was by him leveraging his time management, away from just him doing things, there was no more stress, or worse, guilt and shame. Because being an honourable guy that he is, he felt that he led us down by not keeping to His Word. So this is an interesting thing, right? Because it's about keeping your word in the end and building trust. And it's something as simple like that, because it's not like he didn't want to do the work. It was just that he had more important things to do. Of course, running a business of harmonic people, subway been smart enough to leverage that. And learning from that experience. Of course, we created a super, super win win for him, win win for us, and of course a win win for his team because now there was less stress around for everyone to go on and do the job. So you can see a real transformation stuff leadership in this example, gave him the wall time to focus on what he does best, and that is building his business. So to sum up, remember that time management is is a soft leadership skill. This is an important realisation of responsibility that also can be mastered, of course, because it can be learnt. So it's an investment in yourself and your personal brand and reputation. As you implement these strategies, you'll discover that you have more time for self improvement, networking and pursuing your passions, all of which contribute, of course, to a compelling personal brand. So I want to thank you again for being here with me today. I hope you found this episode valuable. Please take a moment to rate us on Apple podcasts or remember to subscribe for more insightful content. If you need guidance on your journey, remember that we're here to elevate you. You can find my email address in the episode's description. You connect with me through social media on Twitter, I'm John Michael or LinkedIn you can find me as John Michael and on Facebook way image Group International I wish you all a fantastic week ahead and Cheerio.

11:02
Jon Michail’s Personal Branding Masterclass Podcast is sponsored by Image Group International, a global team of practical, digitally savvy personal brand and image strategists based in Australia, committed to maximizing your impact, influence and authority in the business world. To learn more and apply for your personal coaching, seminars and group workshops, please visit imagegroup.com.au or call 1800 631 311.