In today’s 24/7 business environment, it’s easy for professionals to become overwhelmed and scattered. Days filled with endless meetings, emails, and requests make it hard to focus on meaningful work. For highly skilled, highly paid professionals like lawyers and accountants, the cost of distraction is immense. Fortunately, mastering time and priorities can reignite focus and fulfillment.
I do a lot of work with professional services firms, law firms, and accounting firms. I recently worked with an accounting firm and their team was drowning in tasks, many of them urgent but not actually that important. This is all too common. The key is to take back control of your time and attention.
By being reactive and stretched too thin, professionals limit their ability to be proactive on priorities that would truly accelerate success. This reactive cycle stems from lack of time mastery. But help is possible with the right approach.
The Power of Priority Management
Time mastery boils down to purposefully managing your priorities. This process involves:
– Reviewing goals and ranking tasks by importance.
– Blocking out time for non-urgent-but-vital priorities.
– Creating systems and templates to optimize workflow.
– Identifying time drains and eliminating inefficiencies.
– Leveraging delegation and technology to free up time.
– Building daily rituals and routines for focus.
Email’s an example of work that feels urgent but isn’t always important because a lot of times it’s driven by other people’s priorities. By taking control of your schedule, you prevent less meaningful tasks from crowding out meaningful work.
I advocate using delegation and automation for email management. There’s alternatives to always being on call if you’re a highly paid professional to answering every single email. I personally outsource my work to an assistant in the Philippines prioritizes things so I can be away.
The Outcomes of Time Mastery
Committing to priority management yields tremendous dividends. Imagine regaining multiple hours each day to focus on your most vital priorities, both professional and personal. This restores a sense of control and creates the space for innovation. By mastering time, professionals morph from stressed and scattered to energized and empowered.
Take back your time. Boost your focus. And reignite your passion by structuring priorities with purpose. Mastery awaits.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Hi, I’m Charlie Janes, FocalPoint Growth and Exit Advisory. I do a lot of work with professional services firms, law firms, accounting firms. I recently had a case where the accounting firm, most professionals were just drowning. They weren’t able to hire enough young people to come in and replenish the firm as some of the more experienced accountants started to phase out. So it was harder and harder just to keep up with the work in addition to actually growing the business, which this firm is quite capable of doing.
So we ended up doing a 90-day sprint of time mastery where we worked on setting priorities, establishing urgencies, creating the ideal week – very, very simple things. One of the things that came out is that accountants and lawyers don’t have to be slaves to email. Email’s an example where you’re doing a lot, a lot of work that feels urgent but isn’t always important because a lot of times it’s driven by other people’s priorities. And there’s alternatives to always being on call if you’re a highly paid professional to answering every single email.
I personally outsource my work to an assistant in the Philippines who works very reasonably and handles a lot of the things and prioritizes things so I can be away. So the net result for this accounting firm was that they ended up getting two hours a day back where they were able to spend more time doing important but not urgent things like spending time with their most important clients or actually spending time at home.
So I hope that’s a useful example that help is possible and that I’d love to be one of the people to help you. My name is Charlie Janes, FocalPoint Growth and Exit Advisory.
