Do your time management skills need work? Do you work hard, and efficiently, but not effectively? There is a difference. It’s not what you do, it’s what you get done that counts. Even more, are you getting the right things done?
    Top sales stars don’t work hard all the time. They set aside time for play as well. The only way they can do that and still produce, is to work smarter than the competition.
    Try these 12 strategies for working smarter, not harder.

• Someday is not on anyone’s calendar.
  Don’t leave goals hanging in midair without a completion due date. Create the goal and match it with a deliverable date.
• Leave flexible room in your schedule for emergencies.
  Never pack your appointments so tightly that the slightest mishap will throw you off kilter.
• Messy Desk? Messy Mind.
  Stop wasting time searching for things in your office and start selling. Clean it up. If you refer to your organizational disaster as a casual, informal office, think again. Your clients call it “ground zero”, but not with a nice image in mind.
• Use your telephone booth on wheels to good advantage.
  Get a telephone headset and make calls in your car, when you are pulled over, or at lights of course.
• Turn your car into a classroom.
  Listen to tapes and CDs and learn as you drive. Turn dead time into head time.
• Do paperwork as it comes in, and never let it pile up.
  Your memory for details and context will be fuzzy all those days, if not weeks later. You also will not be motivated to wade into the ten feet piles of paper you’ll accumulate.
• Call yourself and say hello.
  Have a great idea? One that is so complex that you can’t just jot it down on paper on the go? Call your office and leave yourself a message, in detail. You’ll be glad you did.
• Hate paperwork? Farm it out.
  If you are far better at selling, and the thought of paperwork drives you bonkers, get a hired gun to do it for you. You’ll be happier and will be paying someone about one fifth what it would cost you to do it. You’ll be happier and sell more, and make more.
• Keep the golden hours golden.
  Don’t do paperwork or busy, non-selling work between the hours of 8 am to 5 pm. Sell instead. Do your busywork before or after that window, or better yet, hire it done.
• Stand up at meetings and then you can run away sooner.
  Sit-down meetings can drag into wasted efforts and take you into off-task alleys. Stand up and your meetings will take on a brand new energy and urgency to finish on time.
• Use a minute to save an hour.
  Take a few moments before your next sales call to focus on the three R’s—Relax, Refocus and Respond to what you are about to do. Just crashing ahead all day long into each new activity is inviting diffused, ineffective outcomes.
• Go on a tear.
  Instead of hanging onto magazines as they come in, or circling the articles in the table of contents you intend to read, start ripping! Tear each article out and pop it into a manila folder under that topic. Taking 20 articles in your briefcase is far easier than trying to fit in ten magazines with two articles each.

   Stop killing time. Make the clock work for you. To do that, you have to work smart. Get your arms around the clock and you’ll make time fly as you sell.