Time management is impossible.

The headline of today’s article may seem somewhat blasphemous. The concept of time management is an oxymoron. After all, we cannot manage time. The clock keeps ticking whether we want it to or not. We manage what we do with our time. Your day is just like everyone else’s. We all have the same 24 hours. Yet, certain people seem to achieve more from that time than others. It all comes down to priority management, how you plan, prioritize, and use your hours.

The main difference between successful people and people who struggle is how they use their time. That requires us to allocate our time to get the highest return. We do not have enough time to do everything. However, there is always enough time to do the essential things. The question becomes, what is important? That depends upon your goals and objectives. We first must answer the question, what is essential? What do you want? Then we can create a plan to accomplish it. If you sell for a living, closing sales, acquiring business, and growing business would be the highest priority. Therefore, anything that leads you to closing, winning, or growing business would also be a priority.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower developed a simple system that helps us set the right priorities. This system is named after him, called the Eisenhower matrix. List the tasks you wish to complete. Then rank them in terms of both urgency and importance. This will result in you having four types of tasks.

1. Urgent and Important
2. Urgent and Less Important
3. Less Urgent and Less Important
4. Less Urgent and Important

Usually, we are very good at tackling urgent and important tasks first. The problem is when we focus too much on urgent but less important tasks. This takes time away from us being able to complete important but less urgent tasks. One of these tasks is prospecting. Prospecting is developing new business from new customers or expanding our business with current customers. To be successful in selling, we must set aside time for prospecting. We must make prospecting a priority.