Better's Blinkist

Multipliers eliminate rather than add tasks to their schedule.

But the truth is that adding to your to-do list won’t multiply your time or your success. In fact, the path to productivity lies in eliminating activities from your life.

2 November, 2019 12:10 Share

human nature craves the satisfaction of achievement. Thus, we often engage in trivial activities simply to reassure ourselves that we’ve accomplished something. This explains the common yet pointless practice of completing a random activity and then adding it to our to-do list simply so we can mark it as done!

2 November, 2019 12:10 Share

Multipliers don’t focus on activities but on results. They know that success is not about the number of tasks you finish, but about how significant those tasks are.

2 November, 2019 12:13 Share

First, eliminate television. The typical American watches over 34 hours of TV a week. That’s almost as much time as a 9-to-5 job! Add up all those hours, and you’ll find that the average person spends a full nine years of their life in front of the box. So, unless you’ve already eliminated this unnecessary distraction, you can’t come into work complaining that you’re too busy.

2 November, 2019 12:13 Share

Next time you receive a meeting invite, ask yourself two key questions: Do I really have to know what will be shared in this meeting? And will I be called on to make decisions in this meeting? If the answer to both is no, then eliminate that pesky time-waster from your schedule.

2 November, 2019 12:14 Share

Multipliers invest money to make time.

the wealthy person thinks bigger. Instead, they consider that if they spend this $5 now, that’s money they can’t invest in something else. In other words, having a wealthy mindset means having an investment mindset.

2 November, 2019 12:14 Share

investment begets both time and money. If you didn’t spend the $5 on coffee today, you could invest that money at a moderate interest rate of, say, 8 percent. And, thanks to the magic of compound interest, in 30 years that $5 will become $30. Thus, a wealthy person understands that the true cost of that coffee is $35 – the $5 today and the missed opportunity to make $30 in the future. Would you really spend that much money on coffee?

2 November, 2019 12:15 Share

think of all the hours you spend repeating the same task. This could be sending out the same email to multiple customers or reentering information into a database. How much time could you save by automating all these repetitive processes? Probably a whole lot.

2 November, 2019 12:15 Share

So don’t waste any more of your future time. Instead, give yourself permission to automate today.

2 November, 2019 12:17 Share

Save time and money by delegating tasks.

Consider everything you do daily, from housework to spreadsheet updates. Now ask yourself: Could someone else do this for me? For most tasks, the answer is probably yes

2 November, 2019 12:18 Share

Let’s imagine, for example, that you spend five minutes of each working day completing a particular task. Once you decide to delegate that task, you’ll also devote 150 minutes of your time to teach someone how to do it. Why 150 minutes? Well, business school experts advise that for every minute a task takes you to finish, you should invest thirty minutes in training another person to complete it. This is known as the 30x rule.

2 November, 2019 12:18 Share

But now consider that the time you spend on that five-minute task works out as 1,250 minutes in a 250-day work year. So even if you spend 150 minutes on teaching, you’ll still save yourself 1,100 minutes annually.

2 November, 2019 12:20 Share

Many people believe they can’t afford to delegate. After all, no one’s going to work for free. But before you make that decision, remember that time is money, too. If, for example, you earn an annual salary of $100,000 a year, that’s a $40 hourly rate. Thus, delegating those 1,100 minutes will free up more of your time to spend it earning money instead. And provided the other person’s hourly rate is lower than yours, you’ll still turn a profit.

2 November, 2019 12:20 Share

instead. And provided the other person’s hourly rate is lower than yours, you’ll still turn a profit. So don’t try to do everything yourself. Use another pair of hands to multiply your time.

2 November, 2019 12:22 Share

Waiting until the last minute can save you time.

success is not just about taking action or how long you spend doing something. In life, just as in fishing, it’s also about waiting for the right moment. With this in mind, give yourself permission to procrastinate.

2 November, 2019 13:08 Share

The procrastination we’re talking about here isn’t putting off something you should be doing because you don’t want to. Instead, we’re talking about having the patience to wait until the optimal time to act. And as every multiplier knows, patience can save you a lot of time.

2 November, 2019 13:09 Share

This story highlights the key reason why patience is so important. It allows you to adapt to unpredictable changes, whether that’s a change in the weather, the stock market or a customer’s requirements. In our fast-paced modern world, things tend to change at breakneck speed. So don’t be scared of a little procrastination, and have the patience to wait and see.

2 November, 2019 13:10 Share

Multipliers focus all their concentration on their priorities.

During the harvest season, a farmer works a staggering 18 hours a day. Getting ill, tired or taking a career break isn’t an option. She has only a short window in which to pick her crops and secure her livelihood for the rest of the year. The rest of us can learn something from the harvesting farmer. Sometimes, your only option is to focus all your energy on the task at hand.

2 November, 2019 14:43 Share

Sometimes, your only option is to focus all your energy on the task at hand. So far, we’ve learned how to multiply your time by eliminating, automating, delegating and procrastinating. But if you can’t do any of those things, then the task must become your priority. When it comes to priorities, the best way to deal with them is to give them your full attention.

2 November, 2019 14:43 Share

Lastly, remember that you can only have one priority at a time. By its very definition, a priority is something that comes before everything else. So don’t start thinking about your family when you sit down to concentrate on a business problem. Although both these things might be your priorities, when you sit down to concentrate on something, it should be your primary focus. Otherwise, it’s not really a priority at all.

2 November, 2019 14:43 Share