5 Steps to help you find the best and highest use of your time.

A big part of generating your own success is knowing where to focus your effort and energy.  What's the best and highest use of your time?  A friend of mine Kevin Johnson, CEO of  Ontrack International shared with me five simple steps to find, and then prioritize, your best and highest use of time.  

The first step is to start by identifying your goals or priorities.  Let's look at this through the lens of improving your performance at work, although these steps can be applied to any area of your life.  If it's work related then it would makes sense to validate your goals or priorities with your boss.  Ask your boss what he or she wants you to achieve in the next 90 days.  This is a critical step because there may be some things your boss has in mind that are not yet on your radar.  My partner John Brantley, who has helped me develop the Performance Coaching programs we deliver at Cannon Financial Institute, refers to this first step in our coaching process as Clarifying Expectations.  Make certain that both you and your boss are on the same page as to what the expectations are.

The second step is then to take an inventory of all of the activities in which you could engage.  Consider how you have spent the last 30 or 60 days.  What exactly are you doing with your time?  Don't get too granular with how you inventory these activities.  A smaller list will be easier to work with than a list of 60 or 70 discrete activities.  Organize these activities into a matrix and compare them to the goals you have identified.  This is will help you find your "high impact" activities.  To do this create a table.  List the goals across the top of the table.  These will become "column headers."  Then list the activities down the right hand side of the page.  Now for each "cell" where the activity (row) intersects with a goal, rank the impact of that activity against the goal or priority.  Is it high, medium or low in its impact?  Do this for each activity.  

The third step is to study the completed activity impact matrix and identify those activities that are likely to have the most impact on your goals.  You are looking for those activities that have impact across multiple goals or priorities.  

The fourth step is analyze how much of your time you actually spend on these high impact activities that you have identified.  If you are like most people you will be surprised to learn that you are probably spending 20% or less of your time on the activities  that count the most.

The fifth step is take charge.  Time management is really about choice management.  Spend one hour each week planning.  Make the right right choice about where and how you spend your time and you will be certain to realize significant performance improvement.  

Video Content and Community Learning - Observations from my colleague Bill Trigleth

Several blogs and Social media expert sources are beginning to promote the use of video marketing as a part of their  “presence” strategy. We have seen pieces oriented to advisors and already there are ones oriented to consumers.

My colleague Bill Trigleth recently shared some of his observations with me.

Clark:  Bill what are you seeing that is new with video content?

Bill:  As you look at these videos the first thing you will notice is that they are short.  Less than 2 or 3 minutes.  But they do some really interesting things to capture your attention in that time frame.  

Clark:  Really, like what?

Bill:  For one, you see a lot of people using the "animator technique".  This is currently popular and promoted in many different domains including brainstorming sessions at high end venues.  What you see is an artist drawing out the concepts in simple sketches, step by step, while the narration tells the story.   The completed picture provides a visual metaphor for the concepts discussed.  And it makes for a great take away piece as well.

Clark:  But these are short.  Can they really get enough information across in 2 or 3 minutes?

Bill:  Absolutely.  The concept is to "boiled down" the information into is essence, no extraneous information.  Just what needs to be shared.   

Clark: But there is a story line that holds it all together, right?

Bill:  That's right.  The story line helps bring clarity.  The objective is to get it crisp.  It takes a lot of work.

Clark:  How do you see using this in the work we do with advisors?

Bill:  If this was used for training purposes, an example might be to have a summary sketch listing the 5 types of retirees who need life insurance. Then perhaps a suggestion the advisors go into their book and do an analysis to see who needs the conversation. 

Clark: So how would that work?

Bill:  Imagine you are in the classroom  and there is one of these videos for each major learning objective.  You run the video.  Do some facilitated discussion to flesh out sub topics add context.  And then lead an exercise to have them apply or practice the teaching points.  

Clark: That's similar to how we have used other videos in the past.

Bill:  True.  But these can be sequenced as a part of a broader learning system.  They can be deployed on a Community Learning Platform so advisors can re-access them for refreshing as needed. Imagine these videos sequenced together to create a whole set of curriculum that has an accompanying workbook, maybe even a mobile app that has the videos and instructions.  Using a Community Learning Platform participants could then post their learning from executing the prescribed activities.  They could  even post their own skill demonstrations for peer to peer coaching and feedback.  

Clark: That would be very engaging for the participants.

Bill: Best of all, this is an on line learning experience.  Easy to deploy and very scalable to any size origination across any geography.

Clark: That's exciting.  Of  course we have already been working with a Community Learning Platform for some time.

Bill:  That's right Clark.  Cannon is certainly a leader and early adopter in this space.  This is the future of where learning is going.  As my new "unmet" friend Daniel Burris wrote in his book Flash Foresight “ If it can be imagined it will be built” If not by you then someone else”

Clark:  Bill thank you for your insights on this.

Bill:  You're welcome.

Bill Trigleth is the Director of Research and Development for Cannon Financial Institute.