The Four Limited Resources(™)

Time, Energy, Focus and Your Environment

4 Limited Resources

Harness your TIME, ENERGY, FOCUS and TOOLS to maximize your effectiveness.
In a typical work day, many people say, “I didn’t have enough time to get it all done…” But time is just one limited resource.

Make Your Limited Resources Maximally Effective
You have four limited resources: time, energy, focus, and tools. Your ability to make the most out of your time is a function of the energy that you can apply to your work. The energy you can apply to your work is determined by your ability to focus on your work. Your ability to focus on your work is determined by the systems and tools that you use to manage your responsibilities.

When you use your systems and tools efficiently, you work in a more focused manner. This helps you manage your priorities more effectively. When you develop this “focus to finish” mindset, you will get more done each day.

Habits of completion affect you and your team. With completion and accomplishment comes the knowledge that you are using your time wisely.

1. Time
There are only 1,440 minutes in a day. How do you use yours? Ask yourself (and your team) questions like:
•   “How long will this really take?”
•   “Who can we ask for ideas or advice?”
•   “Instead of an hour, can we schedule that meeting for just 45 minutes?”

Watch your promises. People tend to under-estimate the amount of time it will take to do something. Mastering workplace performance requires realism about what you will be able to deliver. Clarifying your objectives and your constraints helps will then help you identify the constraints that can be changed. Be mindful of time-wasters like late-starting meetings, late appointments, and others procrastinating. These limit your effectiveness.

2. Energy
Our minds and bodies seek homeostasis - a return to “normal.” We need to build in the things that will help us engage mentally and physically. Full participation requires mental and physical energy. Hunger and dehydration, for example, lead to fatigue, and low energy reduces your effectiveness.

For the next week, identify things that increase and decrease your energy. When you have identified them, implement procedures that will help you add to your energy increasers and subtract from your energy decreasers.

3. Focus
On average, people “task switch,” reaching for the computer mouse and clicking on a new screen, over 500 times a day. They get interrupted by their coworkers dozens of times per day, and they have “thoughts about other work and other meetings” during meetings. When people are checking their BlackBerry and holding side conversations during meetings, they distract everyone else in the group as well as themselves.

Distractions and interruptions have a bigger effect on your productivity than you might realize. Getting a train back on track requires energy and resources that could have been used for something else. In the same way, re-focusing your attention requires time and energy that could have been used for something else. Having to constantly re-focus on what you were just doing compromises your workflow, distracts you from your most important things, and causes you to spend more time than necessary getting things done.

Be sure to bring awareness and focus to each task, as you do the task. With a focus-to-finish mindset, you’ll get things done, accurately and appropriately, the first time you begin focusing on them.

How the 4 resources contribute to my productivity:
When I am able to use my systems and tools to direct my focus toward my most important things, I am more likely to finish them. When I finish important things, my energy goes up. This helps me focus even more clearly, and it shows me that I am making effective use of my time.

How I use my systems and tools to direct my focus to completion, when I finish something my energy goes up, I’m able to focus more clearly and it feels like I am a better time manager for that day.

4. Systems and Tools
Whether paper-based or electronic, systems and tools—gear—can can be used to our advantage. Learning just one thing about the tools you use the most will go a long way toward saving you time and energy throughout each working day.

Over the next few work sessions, think about how you can manage your time and improve your productivity. Be very aware of how you use your energy. Your mental energy gives you the opportunity to tap in to your knowledge, experience and business acumen while your physical energy allows you to stay alert and engaged. Finally, the systems and tools can easily act as distractions or detractors. So, learn something about them that may serve to minimize the number of times each day you need to change your focus.