Here’s the key on this don’t major in minor things. If you take up major time to do minor things, I’m telling you, you’ll be behind the curve constantly. Here’s what we learned in sales training, what’s major time and what’s minor time? Here’s minor time thinking about prospects, here’s minor time making list of prospects. Here’s minor time keeping books on prospects. Here’s minor time going to see the prospect. Here’s minor time evaluating the prospect after you’ve been there, that’s all minor time. Here’s major time in the presence of the prospect. That’s mine. That’s major time. And if you took a look, if you’re in sales, and you took a look at a week, you’d say, My gosh, I’m spending 90% of my time on the minor stuff, and sold little time on the major stuff in the presence of how many hours in the presence of in my day, how many hours in the presence of during my sales week, because the time that really counts is in the presence of majors and minors. Here’s another key time management essential don’t mistake movement for achievement. It’s easy to get faked out by being busy. That comes home at night all exhausted falls in the chair and says oh, I’ve been going go and go and here’s the big question doing what is not the goal and go and go when some people are going going going and they’re doing figure eights, their progress is small. So don’t mistake movement for achievement. Here’s another one in sales we learned don’t mistake courtesy for consent. If somebody’s pleasant, and they nod, you say oh they’re gonna buy know they’re courteous you can’t mistake courtesy for consent.
Now here’s the big one concentration. I had to learn this. All those years ago I’m in the shower trying to compose a letter found it turns out to be a strange letter. So here’s what I learned to do. Save the work till you get to the office, save the work till you get to the work. Don’t try to get to the office on the way to work on the way to work, enjoy the way in the shower, enjoy the shower, then go to work when you get to work. I found this to be helpful concentration. Here’s another big Learn to say no. I’m telling you in such a social society we have now it’s so easy to try to be a nice person saying yes, yes, yes to everything. Find yourself overloaded now you got to call make the well, gosh, you know, all the time it takes to back out of something that you should said yes to too quickly. Here’s what might be better. I don’t think so. But if that changes, I’ll call you little things you can use not to commit over commit yourself. My friend Ron Reynolds says Don’t let your mouth overload your back to Goodman. Now, here’s a big one on time management. When you work work, when you play, play, don’t mix the two. Don’t work at play. I used to take my family to the beach and I would bring my briefcase.
I learned not to do that. Or at the beach. I’m saying I should be at the office. I should be at the office. Now my family’s upset because I’m at the beach and I’m thinking office office office. Now when I’m at the office, I’m thinking what? I gotta (sic) get my family to the beach to beach, the beach. So things are not going too well at the office because I’m thinking beach and things are not going too well at the beach because I’m thinking office here’s what I learned to do at the beach, be at the beach at the office. Be at the office when you work work when you play play. Don’t mix the two. Don’t work at play. Now. Here’s one of the most important ones don’t play at work. Work is too serious. You don’t want the reputation of being the office Joker. It’s not a good yes, there’s time for some pleasant stories. Yes, there’s time for a little humour. Yes, best if it’s a happy office, of course. But I’m telling you you got to be serious about work because you’re parting with a piece of your life for the work you do. Your work cost you a piece of your life. Here’s what it’s called Serious business not grim. Not unhappy. That serious. Don’t play at work. The only person I don’t think we used to be More horse around the office, play around play jokes play tricks. No place not at the workplace, at the beaches at the bar, yes, somewhere else not work. You got to treat work with all due conservative passion because it’s leading you to your future.
Here’s another key phrase All work is good. You may not like your job but if it’s the stepping stones to get you to where you want to go, you got to appreciate your job. You don’t have to have a passion for your job. Here’s the ultimate passion and passion for incredible success in every department of my life, that’s the passion. But don’t look John down on some menial job you have to do to finally get you to where you want to go. No job is menial, menial. No job is not no every job is noble training life for pay, making a contribution to society. Next, analyse how you are and if you have some weaknesses. If you can’t, doesn’t seem like you can change here’s the key get it covered. I used to keep promising myself, I’d keep the books, keep the books keep the books. Finally I gave that up and back then it only took me an extra 5060 bucks a month for some accountant to keep the books as a no, I’m gonna save the 50 bucks. You can’t believe what I started losing and productivity because I tried to save the 50 bucks. So the key is a lot of time you can stay like you are but just make sure you get it covered.
Okay. Next, beware of the telephone and all other systems of communication. Especially the telephone at home, and systems of communication at home. And here’s one of the best lines I’ve got for you for the weekend. Let all communication systems serve you but don’t let them intrude. When it comes time to have dinner with your family, you shut off all systems unless the ones that can take messages silently. Don’t let the phone ring. Don’t let anybody intrude, come through the front door nor the back door, nor through the telephone or any other device. So you can’t reach John and his family when he’s having dinner the President of the United States couldn’t get through. If you develop that kind of reputation, father, mother, when we have dinner when we’re visiting, and have this time with our family, nothing intrudes. So don’t let these clever little devices keep intruding. You’ve got to have a place that sacrosanct. It’s valuable. You don’t let anything in for that period of time. Okay. Isn’t that good advice? Excellent advice. Here’s the next one. read all the books. You know, I’ve only got a few notes here on time management. But if you’ve got some particular challenges, you run a big organization, a big corporation, you’ve got some challenges, there’s plenty of books. Now here’s what’s next. Just be more alert to the things that might be stealing your time. Here’s why time is like capital. You can’t let someone steal your seed corn. You can’t let someone steal your capital. And you can’t let someone steal your time. You must designate your time. And some of the time that you designate you must not let anyone steal casual time, you might let someone intrude and steal a little bit and take a little bit but not serious time.
Next, one of the great time management savers is to learn to ask questions upfront. Sometimes you talk to somebody for an hour, and then you ask questions and find out if you would have asked those questions up front. You could have saved yourself an hour. Asking questions up front helps you to get to the problem now. But if you just launch into some discourse, you might waste 30 minutes waste an hour when here’s what you should have been talking about. After you’ve finished an hour, you say John, what’s really the problem? He said, Well, it’s something personal. See, that’s what you should have been talking about this whole hour.
Next, learn to think on paper. And we’re going to take a break. Some ways to think on paper one, we’ve covered one, solving problems take it out of your head and put it on paper. Another one is setting goals. Making these lists we’ve already started. Here’s another good way to think on paper. It’s a projects book, each person you’re working with, and each project you’re working on, get a loose leaf binder, and a tab and some pieces of paper behind the tab and do a little continual summary of how it’s going between you and that person. And between you and that project. I call it a projects book, it is so useful to me. But what’s going on between you and this person? When you last got together? What did you talk about, and you got a few notes there. Here’s what we talked about the last time we got together. Now, when you get together again, you can review that so you’ll know better what to talk about. When the President gets ready to travel, and he’s going to meet some important people, guess what, they bring all these Briefing Books. Right? The last time you were with Khrushchev, Kennedy is informed. Here’s what he said. And here’s what you said, Kennedy said, Oh, that’s valuable. I need to remember that. If a person is important, it’s worth a little running account. You might even have a project book for your children. Here’s what’s happening between me and my child. We’ve talked about this, and we’ve talked about this, and we’ve talked about this next, a date timer, keeping track of all of your appointments. You know, mine is all filled with you know when to catch an airplane and when to do a seminar or when to sit down and have a conference all the rest.
Next is a game plan. You know, if you’ve got a house, and the you know, insurance is going to come due and some other things are going to come to you just put it on a spreadsheet, make sure it’s taken care of. key phrase take things out of your head and put them on paper. The key is to just experiment with different ways that helps you to do that. Now, here’s the last one thinking on paper. And that’s to keep a journal. One of the things I’m known for around the world have been now for 3940 years, is keeping a journal. Now my journal is not you know, it’s not necessarily a It’s not like a diary. It might be part diary. You know, I’m flying over Ireland and write down a few little things that impressed me. Today I met this person, what an extraordinary event. Today the scent. I conducted this seminar in Rome, 1000 people stood up and saying, for me, I’ve got a little bit of a diary in there. But here’s what primarily your journal is for collecting good ideas. A journalist to collect good ideas on your health, good ideas for your business and good ideas for your future good ideas for time management. Because I used to take notes on pieces of paper and torn off corners and backs of old envelopes and restaurant placemats. And I threw all this stuff in a drawer. It did not serve me well. I finally learned to get a bound copy. Right? Then just keep a journal. Right? If I was here, I had my journal, I’d be taking notes, right these two days in my journal. Now if you’re caught without your journal, you just take the notes when you get back home, you put those notes in your journal throw the paper away, because we don’t usually go through paper to review. But see my journals now make up a significant part of my own library. My journals all reserved privately for my children and my grandchildren. Can you imagine what I’ve collected over the years? It’s unbelievable. There are three treasures to leave behind. I think you’ve already got those notes right? Here they are, number one your pictures. Don’t leave the event unrecorded takes only a fraction of a cent of a second to say here’s who I was with. When I travelled the world, right? We take all these pictures. And here’s one of the gifts. People send me. The pictures they took me them. It’s part of the treasures I have on the farm. Incredible, a picture’s worth 1000 words to describe the scene, the emotion. What happened say wow, this was an extraordinary day for me when I met these people. Here’s what they told me happened to them when they went to my seminar 10 years ago. Wow. The drama comes back if you’ve taken the pictures. It’s one of the treasures to leave behind when you go. Remember the old photographs that we have now? You know 100 years ago, 7080 years ago, just a few photographs. What would it be like if you had 1000s of photographs of the past of your history? Your mother, your father, grandparents. So change all of that now for your children. Leave all your photographs as a record.
Here’s what’s next. To leave behind and that’s your library. The books that changed your life, the books that changed your health, the books that rescued you from oblivion. The books that you passed on to other people, they were so exciting for you. The books that made you financially independent, the books that developed your leadership, books that gave you wisdom to ponder when things are tough. The books that got you through the winter, the books that helped you to plant in the spring and harvest in the fall. What a treasure to leave behind. If you do that. Here’s what’s for sure your books will be more valuable than your furniture.