Your main asset – your own time

As a franchisee, the scarcest and most important asset is your time. You have to get the most out of each day if you are to be successful.

• Plan the use of time – use your diary positively. Use a ‘to do’ list. Mark in the diary time when you are ‘available’ to see others and time when, except in the direst emergency, you not.

• Set goals – if you do not know where you are going, you are going to waste a lot of time travelling down the wrong roads.

• Establish priorities for what you do - do not confuse the urgent with the important. Do not allow the important to be chased out by the urgent.

• Do not waste your own time – do not flit from one job to another or burn valuable time in unnecessary socialising or phone calls. The cell phone is not your friend!
• Do not indulge in ‘busy work’ – do not use action to replace thinking!
• Do not wrap your self in paper – paperwork is like treading water, it uses up a lot of energy but it does move you forward. Most of the paperwork and emails you receive only need to be read, deleted or thrown away. Take action where it is required - and do it fast. If you are spending two hours a day on paper or emails, you are probably wasting an hour and a half.
• If you have staff, use them – if you do not delegate to them, you are a fool. If you cannot delegate to them, why are you employing them?
• Systems and procedures – establish routines and procedures for everything that is routine.
• Regular problems – if it keeps going wrong, find out why and stop it!

You are not Superman or Superwoman and being busy is not the hallmark of a good manager. It is usually a very good indicator that you are badly organized.