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What are you targeting for your practice?

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20th Jan 2014
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Traditional approaches to time management tend to focus on the creation of lists of one sort or another, says Mark Lee. After listing out all you need to do, you then prioritise the activities and try to do things in order.

This works for some people – though I have long found it insufficient. Even when I have created the lists I find other things that need doing too.

Do you recall the four time management quadrants (or boxes) identified in Dr Stephen Covey’s seminal book: The 7 habits of highly effective people. The boxes are a function of two axis: importance and urgency.

Many of us find it easy to waste time in box four which contains all those tasks that are neither important nor urgent. We also get sidetracked in box three which contains tasks that have the noise of urgency even though they are not important. Much of our time gets absorbed by the last-minute-itus in box one where we list those talks that are both urgent and important. Covey pointed out the benefits of making time for box two tasks which are important but not (yet) urgent.

Examples:

  • Box one – last minute-itus includes: crises and imminent deadlines
  • Box two – quality time includes: preparation, planning, scheduled work, CPD and relationship building
  • Box three – noise of urgency includes: the illusion of importance (often to the other person), some phone calls, some emails, interruptions, some meetings. Do these contribute to your key objectives?
  • Box four – time wasting includes, trivia, YouTube videos, Facebook, junk mail, time wasters and escape activities

Just do a good job?

There are some people around who seem to think it sufficient to simply do a good job for all your clients and all will be well.

Many accountants though find it hard to juggle all of the elements of their role. See: Are technical skills enough?

How many balls can you keep up in the air and how many really need to be there all the time?

We have all heard the trite suggestion that we should make time to work on our business separately to the time we spend working in our business. I agree with this, though equally I can see how the urgency of client work and crucial admin and financial tasks leaves little time for the ‘important but not urgent’ tasks. We can always leave these for another day. Essentially until either they are overtaken by events or become urgent.

Another approach that works for some is to engage another person to do such tasks for us, thus freeing up our time to work on our business.

Areas for focus

Laurence J Peter, an American educator and writer, once said: “If you don’t know where you are going you will probably end up somewhere else.” The same is probably true for a typical accountancy practice. And for many that’s absolutely fine as everyone has their own definition of what success means to them. See: Make your new firm a success

But if you do have objectives for your practice then it can make sense to keep these in mind and ensure that you schedule time to work on progressing these on a regular basis. That might be daily or weekly. I’m not a fan of identifying objectives that only need to be considered monthly unless you are really good at diary management. That is, scheduling time for such monthly tasks and not letting anything else take priority – e.g.: when something else has the appearance of urgency.

It’s also important to distinguish weekly or monthly reviews of your financials from those tasks that will help move your practice forwards. 

What matters I think is that you identify what are the key issues on which you want to focus and write these down. Then keep that list in view – on your desk, on your whiteboard, your PC desktop and on your mobile phone or tablet device.

The Magic Target

May I introduce you to a new approach to achieving your objectives? This combines the power of a magic circle and a target.

It’s possible you just have one key objective for your practice. Most of us though have three or four. If you think you have more than this you will probably struggle to make time to bring them all to fruition. So I suggest you start by focusing on just three or four at a time.

Draw a large circle and divide it into as many segments as you have key business objectives. Then draw a central circle near the middle leaving room to put key word reminders of each of your main objectives into the central segments. You now need to draw three more circles equally spaced around the target and within your initial large circle.

The area just outside your central segments is what I call your inner circle. For each of your key objectives you should note down who are the inner circle of people who could help you make progress towards your objectives. You might also note down what you need to ask of them or learn from them, though there probably won’t be room to do this within the circle.

In the next (middle) circle you note down for each main objective, the stepping stones that will contribute to you getting where you want to go.

Then, finally in the outside or ‘magic’ circle you note down those actions you need to take for each objective. And it’s best to make them as specific as possible.

The reason I call this area the ‘magic’ circle is that it is this list of actions that enables you to start making progress towards your objectives. The simple fact that you have identified specific actions may even motivate you to get moving. It’s not always easy identifying what you need to do first to get onto the ladder of success. But until you do that you are unlikely to get far.

The inner circle is also key. Few of us have the skills, knowledge and experience to do everything all by ourselves. It must make sense to identify an inner circle who could help us.

Your inner circle might comprise friends, business associates, networking buddies, fellow accountants or perhaps a mentor or a coach. See: Could your friends help….?

Another way of thinking about the magic target is that the central area contains what you want to focus on. The inner circle contains who can help you. The middle circle highlights how you are going to achieve your targets and the magic (outer) circle contains the actions you need to take now to make progress.

I have my magic target on a big whiteboard in my office. It serves as a constant reminder of my key objectives, my inner circle for each of these objectives and the stepping stones I need to take in each case. I update the outer magic circle every week and love the sense of progress this provides.

My magic target is all quite separate from my day-to-day to do list – although some of the magic circle actions do get on that list too.

What techniques do you use to ensure you work on your business as well as in your practice? Or maybe you think it’s just not necessary?

Mark Lee is consultant practice editor of AccountingWEB and writes the BookMarkLee blog and ebooks on business development and related issues for accountants who want to save time and be more successful. He is also chairman of the Tax Advice Network of independent tax specialists.

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