So what can you start to do to boost your personal effectiveness?

Take time to plan

You have probably heard the term, fail to plan and plan to fail.  Most people understand this at a conceptual level.  Fewer do this in practice.  When you plan, you ultimately achieve more as you make the best use of the time available to you.

Find out what’s important

There is always plenty to do.  Yet in truth everything does not have equal importance.  Do you know what the 5 most important things in your role to achieve optimal results?  When I ask clients this question, it never ceases to amaze me just how much of a struggle it is to come up with an answer.

Do a time audit

Simply recording your time for a month will bring into sharp focus where you are allocating your biggest limiting factor.  Chances are you will identify some scope for improvement.

Compare your time audit against what’s important

If you know what is important and have recorded your time for a month, compare where you have spent your time against what is important.  This will help you to re-focus where appropriate.

Tackle the time wasters

We all have things that are time wasters.  It might be meetings, a lack of preparation, people who continuously turn up late for meetings, junk e-mails or drawn out telephone conversations to name just a few.  Start listing and recording the impact of time wasters and take action to reduce or eliminate them.

Bottom Line – Successful leadership starts with successful self leadership.  So what changes do you need to make to achieve more success as a leader?