Don't just say NO - do something about it

One of our new readers of the Daily Dose posted this today:

"I am an over-committer.  I want to be involved in everything and say "yes" too much.  I need to weed things out and prioritize so I can be effective.  When I have too many thing going on I get paralyzed and procrastinate.  Help!"

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What follows are my suggestions, along with an added note for clarity:

1. Make a note of your time - properly - for a couple of days - what you do and when. There is a time log on the site at - http://www.motivateme.info/downloads-and-free-stuff. This will tell you how much time you are spending on tasks as opposed to how much you THINK you spend - and you will be surprised at the results. I still use this once a month to make sure I am using my time to the best of my abilities. Imagine if you had to charge back for every thing you did today, how much would you actually be able to charge for your time?
   
   Note: I see this with small business owners all the time. They are asked to give time (and therefore energy and effort) to speak at functions, chair meetings, take long winded phone calls from people who want to "pick" their brains .... this is OK, so long as it is not eating into your productive time ie., the time you should be using to make money. If you don't know the breakdown of money making activity to non-productive time (meetings etc that will bring no reward to you) then your business will always struggle. Now before you all jump up and down and say - but what about the premise that says but we should always give to receive - all I am saying is this - sometimes we give and get nothing in return - EVER - we are expected to give our time, our money and our expertise because..... It is those things and people we need to weed from our lives if we want to succeed with our own goals and plans.
2. After filling in the spreadsheet for a couple of days, you should know where you are wasting time. You can trim back activities that don't bring you any kind of reward (monetary or otherwise).
3. Then you can slot in any new tasks you think you may be able to handle. But at all times be realistic.
4. When people ask you if you can - you can honestly say, look my schedule is just so full at the moment I wouldn't be doing you a favour by saying yes and would feel happier if you could ask someone who does have more time to devote than I do. It's polite, and you can't feel guilty because there is no capacity to add anything else.
5. Keep the spreadsheet open on your computer all day and when you find yourself straying - remind yourself of what your priorities are - this forms part of your to-don't list - I won't waste time on x,y and z today ....

You can add your suggestions here: