I know what you’re thinking, so let’s just get it out of the way immediately so we can get down to business.

What’s up with that title?

The nerve of this Castain dude to suggest that we might be able to free up a week each month . . . Is he talking an actual week as in 40 hours or is he talking like a Tim Ferris 4 hour work week?

Well let’s take a look at my 4 suggestions and I’ll let you decide if there’s any merit to my statement.

1)    Calculate and Manage Your Interruptions:

According to Basex the average American loses 2.1 hours per day to interruptions. Interruptions can be everything from co workers to telephones to stopping and checking your email the moment in comes in (as well you should because you and I know the world will end in that instant if you don’t). Calculated into this time is time that is required to regain the momentum of the task we were doing when we were interrupted.

Do you think the 2.1 hour figure is accurate? Before you reply, just for the heck of it, why don’t you track your time for the next 2 weeks noting every interruption that crosses your path and how much time you lost.

I will tell you from having done this 2.1 hour exercise since 2007, most people tell me that number is about right but what if for the sake of this blog post, we say its completely off and its more like 1 hour a day.  That would bring our monthly total to about 20 hours of the 40 hour work week I promised you when we started.

I know . . . not a bad freakin start!

2) Calculate and Manage Your Waiting Time:

Did you ever stop and think about how much time you spend on a monthly basis waiting for things?

How much time do you spend in traffic? If you are fortunate enough to not have any traffic, how much time to you spend in your car or on the train?

How much time do you spend waiting in airport terminals?

How much time do you spend waiting in lobbies for clients or prospects who are running a few minutes (or more than a few minutes) late?

How much time do you spend on hold?

How much time do you spend waiting in line for your morning coffee, checkout lines at the supermarket etc?

How much time do you spend waiting for co workers or dare I say . . . your boss?

Sounds like we just found another thing we can track for the next 2 weeks on that handy dandy time tracker.

Now once you get a good grasp on where in your day to day you spend time waiting you need to separate the things you have control over, vs the things you don’t.

Next, spend time planning and course correcting the things you can control!

For example, you could take a different route to work and save some time and even if that isn’t possible, you could use that windshield time for something productive.

This is a hard one for me to calculate because its going to vary big time from person to person.

Let’s go with a conservative 10 hours per month bringing our total to 30 hours.

3) Stop Complaining About Your Boss:

DDI did a study and found that the average worker spends about 15 hours per month complaining about their boss.

But what if you totally love your boss and this doesn’t apply to you?

How about these items:

How much time do you spend being negative with others or thinking negative thoughts?

How much time do you spend worrying about things?

Again, I’m going to go conservative and put 5 hours per month on this bringing our total to 35 hours!

4) Shut Off The TV:

According to The Bureau Of Labor Statistics, the average American watches 2.8 hours per day of TV.

What if you shaved only 15 minutes a day off of your TV time?

That would free up 75 minutes a week for you and still give you your weekends to watch all the ball games you could handle!

It would also give you the 5 hours we need to bring our total to 40!

Important Note: You could probably free up another 40 hours per month if you kick your Angry Birds and Brick Breaker addictions dude . . . just sayin!

Here’s the point folks . . . what if you were able to really look at your life and see how these areas might be chewing up chunks of your time?

And just for the heck of it, you take action and lets say realistically, you’re still only able to free up 20 hours . . . could that make a difference in your life?

How about over the course of your lifetime?

So what say you . . . What are your thoughts about these 4 tips and how they might apply to you?

If you’d like a free, no strings attached coaching session, email me paul@yoursalesplaybook.com for details!