15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management pdfdrive com

CHAPTER #1
The Power of 1440
Can a single number change your life?
A three-word question used to send chills of dread down my spine.
“Got a minute?”
Sure, I believed in an open door policy. Sure, I was the boss. Sure, some
people would say I was overly detail oriented, which made people check in with
me too frequently (who, me?).
I was the founder and president of a digital learning company that quickly
took off. Revenue doubling every year and all the related challenges: new hires,
sales, product launches, fundraising, and on and on.
The fires to put out kept multiplying, as did the knocks on my office door
followed by, “Got a minute?”
There was nothing wrong with people asking me for advice or help. But I
quickly found entire days were being spent on other people’s priorities and
problems as the requested minute-meetings inevitably turned into 30 minutes or
more. My priorities, the company’s strategic priorities—washed away by the
never-ending torrent of “urgent” got-a-minutes.
Finally, I printed a big 1440 on a piece of paper and taped it to the outside of
my office door.
No other words. No explanation. Just “1440” in Arial, bold, 300-point font.
How I Beat Back Time Thieves
Every time I walked into my own office, I passed that giant “1440” sign as a
reminder. Tick, tick, tick. I could not be careless with my minutes.
But what also happened was that when people stopped by to ask, “Got a
minute?” and I would say yes, they would immediately ask, “So what’s that
1,440 all about?”
I would explain that it was a simple reminder to me of the value of time and
how I needed to “invest” each minute of my day very wisely.

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I always made it about me, but the length of these got-a-minute meetings
suddenly got shorter. One person heard my explanation and replied, “You know
what, I don’t need to talk anymore. I just realized it can wait until the team
huddle on Monday.”
I can only assume that my 1440 sign initially freaked people out. Kevin must
be in a bad mood; he doesn’t want us talking to him anymore. Kevin’s a
hypocrite…he says he has an open door policy but then insults us with that sign.
But the sign stayed up, and the novelty wore off. Soon I heard other people in
the office talking about “only 1440 minutes” as they prioritized tasks or turned
down invitations to irrelevant meetings.
1,440 Minutes in a Day
If you’re like most people who want to improve their time management, you
probably want a list of tips, tools, and systems that will increase your
productivity and add hours to your week.
Yet, the single most important thing when it comes to time and productivity
isn’t a tactic or a trick—it’s a shift in mindset.
Self-made millionaires, professional athletes, straight-A students, and other
highly successful people think about time differently. They experience time
differently.