Peter Drucker in his book “The Effective Executive” recommends a series of practices that show the way to follow to be more effective.
Most entrepreneurs tend to focus and strive to improve the efficiency of processes in their business, but sometimes they forget to be effective in what they do. Improving efficiency consists of making a certain task consume less time, while being effective consists of knowing how to perform the tasks that generate results.
There is no point in being efficient at doing things that don't need to be done at all. That is a form of laziness and it is very common to see entrepreneurs making this mistake. It is possible to be efficient but not effective and effective but not efficient. The latter is preferable to the former.
These five practices that Peter R. Drucker exposes in his book The effective executive They are the way to be more effective.
Keep track of time
In order to manage our time, it is first necessary to know how we are using it. We are constantly being diverted into unproductive activities such as Long meaningless meetings or calls that will not cause an impact on our business.
Try this:
For an entire week, write down in a pocket notebook what things you are spending your time on.
You can write down every half hour what you are doing or simply every time you start a new activity, you write it down indicating the time. Most people think that they are working 100% of the day on productive things, but when they do the exercise of writing it down, they realize that they are spending their time on things that take a lot of time but are not necessary or important.
2. Focus on contribution
Effective entrepreneurs are constantly thinking about what things they can do to achieve the greatest impact on their business or organization they work for.
They are continually asking themselves the question: “How can I contribute to the organization?”
They have the ability to look beyond their daily work and see the goals and objectives of the business. Instead of being oriented towards specific everyday tasks, they are oriented towards results.
3. Strengthen strengths instead of trying to improve weaknesses
It is very common to hear people talk about the importance of identifying our strengths and what we are weak in. The difference between effective entrepreneurs is that they know how to focus and develop their strengths instead of trying to improve their weaknesses. They work to make their strengths something that distinguishes them from the average.
The same should be applied to our team of collaborators or employees. It is preferable to identify and encourage people to develop what they are good at, rather than asking them to try to improve those things they are not good at. Demanding that a person improve what they are not good at tends to frustrate and discourage them.
4. Do one thing at a time starting with the most important thing
No matter how well we manage our time, it will never be possible to do everything we have to do. The difference between effective people and those who are not is that effective people learn to do what is most important before anything else and know how to say “no” to activities that do not generate value or impact on the organization.
It is important to remember that “urgent” does not mean important. Urgent tasks usually make us divert from what is important.
In addition to knowing how to say no, and doing the most important thing first, it is necessary to learn to do one thing at a time. Since we have chosen to perform only the most important tasks and ignore the rest, it is necessary that our attention be 100% focused on that task and avoid having to do it again because it turned out badly and generated errors and inconveniences.
5. Make few but important decisions
The decision making It is part of the entrepreneur's job. It's not about making many decisions, but about learning to identify the few that matter. To be effective we must direct our minds towards strategic and general decisions, rather than getting lost trying to solve problems and put out fires.
That's it, you can try to focus on one of them one at a time. Maybe focus on one a week, in five weeks you will have managed to be an effective entrepreneur.
