Hello everyone welcome to own your own, your business talk show where you'll develop the right mind-set for starting growing, managing and profiting from your own business, my name is Muyiwa Afolabi your business coach, welcome to transformation.
Today I want to speak on time management, how to work
right, instead of just working hard.
Many people keep working hard daily and hardly have much
to show for it. We wake up very early each day and hit the road, our minds
preoccupied with so many things we need to do, we are overwhelmed by how to
effectively deliver on our daily tasks, we are thinking through how to make our
days more productive and rewarding. We encounter setbacks, difficulties and
unfavourable conditions. We are threatened by the need to meet up so as to
sustain our livelihoods, we want to pay our bills and secure our future. We
exert so much energy both physically and mentally daily. We keep working,
thinking, struggling, fighting and hustling just to secure peace, comfort and a
good life.
We keep running back and forth every day in pursuit of so
many things and by the end of the month or even a year, we discover we haven't
really achieved much. We look at our effort and try to balance it with our
accomplishments and there appears to be a mismatch between effort and outcomes.
So much effort, nothing so much to show.
Well, we could chose to blame it on anything or anybody,
we could come up with very many reasons and excuses why this may be so,
but have you really considered why others like you are achieving rather easily
what you are struggling to achieve? I mean these other people may not be as
smart, as energetic, as hardworking or even qualified but they have great
results.
I can almost begin to hear you think up the excuses that
it's because they are more privileged, more connected, are probably corrupt;
are shrewd or by divine providence; you would say they are enjoying the grace
of God, now what makes you think God is withholding grace from you?
Have you tried to consider that perhaps, the challenge is
that you're working hard instead of working right?
Hard work is one thing, right work is another entirely different
concept. Hard work is when you dissipate a lot of energy – both physical and
mental in the achievement of a goal or an objective. Right work however is when
you invest physical and metal energy in pursuing a goal or an objective with
the assurance of a commensurate reward.
Many Nigerians today are working very hard; believing hard work
is usually rewarded with success, dear friend this is not the truth.
Many of us have been raised to believe success comes by
hard work, we believe all we need to accomplish our dreams and desires is to be
very hardworking; committed to this thinking, many Nigerians wake up every day,
toil and labour so hard, stress and overwork themselves, travel for several
hours, labouring nonstop, hardly resting or sleeping enough with the conviction
that one day all the labour and all the toiling and all the sweat will make
them successful and rich; dear friend, sorry to disappoint you but this is not
the entire truth.
It is not just hard work that brings success, it is
working right. It is possible to work very hard on the wrong thing. A simple
example, studying very hard, reading for hours and giving up your sleep to
study chemistry when the exam is Biology will not make you pass the Biology
exam simply because you studied chemistry very hard.
Many of us are working very hard at the wrong thing and
we just believe based on our hard work, we are deserving of blessings from the
almighty and reward from men. Ladies and gentlemen, it doesn't work that way.
In this life, you are actually rewarded for success not for hard work. Hard
work alone doesn't make you an acheiver, it is working right that makes you successful.
You see, many today work hard to satisfy conscience not
really because they are sure what they are working at would yield impressive
returns at the end of the day.
The hard work of most of us is based on hope without plans,
strategy and confidence and conviction that we would achieve results.
Many of us work very hard to impress friends, relatives
and our family members. Though we know that hard work will never make us rich
or great, but we like the idea of people thinking we work so hard and deserve
more than were getting out of life – we indulge in that self-delusion.
For many, our lopsided religious mind set at times make
us suspend intelligence and common sense to make way for miracles and divine
intervention. This is also not a good balance.
Many of us don't carry out critical thinking about what
we are doing and how it will bring results, we just keep doing it and we
believe serious prayers will deliver results without intelligence and logic.
Working right is thinking critically and objectively about
your business and putting your every hour into productive venture.
Ladies and gentlemen, money is earned by the hour.
Anything you're doing, no matter how tedious, if at the end of the day, it
won't translate to good earnings and reward, if there is no guarantee it will
yield enough of what you want, it is fruitless labour. If it would not also
translate into something really valuable and attractive to the market, to your
customers and clients, it is an unworthy labour.
Many today are managing businesses where 50% of the
income go into rent, 20% into staff salaries and the rest go into overheads and
personal upkeep. It is very clear they can't make profit at the end of the
business year considering their cost of doing business, yet they don't do
anything about it, they only wish, hope, pray and passionately blame the
government for not fixing everything immediately.
They are not rethinking their business model, they are
not reworking their operations; they are not managing their costs and revenue
nor considering smarter ways of doing the business. They just keep running
helter skater working with an outdated ineffective strategy and consumer
information, they keep hoping for a miraculous intervention and aggressively
pressuring the government to provide everything now! Dear friend, that's not
how it works.
Productive time management is simply the ability to
convert a good part of your daily hours into profitable hours; meaning doing
something that generates high returns. Both the poor and the rich, presidents
and paupers have 24 hours every day. What we all do with each hour is what
makes the difference in our lives. Dear friend, check out your daily routine,
do you spend your time or invest your time? The activities you carry out every
hour, will it yield returns? When you're working, do you work at what you feel
like doing or work on what you should be doing? Do you invest time on the tasks
you like and enjoy, or the ones with that high possibility of good returns? Are
you working for work sakes or working for productivity? Are you strategic and
calculating when you work or you're driven by feelings?
Dear friend, I challenge you to invest your hours in
prosperity not just pleasure and see your life appreciate tremendously.
Effective time management is working on what is right not just working very
hard. When you choose to work, consider that work and ask if you're working on
something people will pay for. When you think, think most of how much people
will pay for what you're selling. Productive work is creating, building and
improving the value and process of what you are offering for sale in the market
place.
Working right is investing time and thought in improving
the quality and worth of your product and making it more compelling and
appealing to the buyer. To know the right thing to work on, you must have
information – relevant and up to date information about the market, the
customers, and smarter ways of doing your business today. For instance if you
can send mails to prospects, you may not need official cars - burning fuel
daily on the road. A physical meeting should only occur when a prospect appears
very interested in your product. Don't waste time, energy, fuel and personnel
in traffic simply to drop a proposal. The internet and email is very much
cheaper. Dear friend, catch up with time, be trendy, smart and up to date.
Profitability comes through working right, not just working hard.
No matter how hard you work on anything, if it is not
going to directly improve your product quality, grow your business, make
efficient your operations and expand your sales and profitability, it would
lead to frustration and disappointment.
Quality life management is when you work less but create
more value. Don't just keep working all your life, you need time to rest and
enjoy this life. You will never be the same age twice. Enjoy your every stage
in life. Dear friend, don't just work hard, work right. I believe you'd have
learn one or two lessons from this show this morning.
Enjoy your day
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