Time Is Money: 7 Practical Methods To Fill Your “Gap Time”.

Why not utilize those brief intervals of time that present themselves during the day, such as a client arriving 10 minutes late? You’ve then “manufactured time” for a future use.

All financial professionals, including agents and advisors, have the same complaint. Never enough time to complete everything. Making effective use of the brief periods of time that fall into our laps during the day is a chance we are all missing. If you’ve ever heard the proverb “The longest trip begins with a single step,” you’ll know how to make the most of these brief intervals of time.

These little periods of time, what are they? Your manager wants to meet with you for a regular performance review, so they call you in from the field to the office. They abruptly tell you that they are 30 minutes behind schedule. You have a lunch meeting with a client at work. They are running 10 minutes late, and you are prepared at noon. The projector and computer aren’t communicating while everyone is in the conference room for a sales meeting. In the end, fixing it takes ten minutes. They wait five minutes for latecomers even though you join a video conference call on time. This time has added up.

Let’s imagine that you are seated at your desk. How can you utilize your time effectively?

Add up your costs and receipts. This must be completed. Some people wait until the very last minute, at which point they scramble to locate receipts. This brief window of free time is perfect for organizing receipts after taking them out of your wallet, for example. The advantage: You can get started on the report and figure out what you need to find and what you already have.

Keep up with LinkedIn. Maintaining an updated profile on LinkedIn requires a lot of time. You must respond to messages. React to remarks made on your group postings. A daily list of birthdays, work anniversaries, and employment changes can be found in the Notification area. It takes a long time to complete all of it. Fortunately, each discrete action is independent of the previous or following action. Each only requires a few seconds. The advantage: You can send out a lot of messages or comment on other people’s posts.

Step inside your emails. Email arrives more quickly than we can respond to it. You may set aside some time on the weekends to try to stay current and organize your inbox. These extra few minutes are the perfect opportunity to search your Inbox for messages you have read but wish to save if you use folders in Outlook. A reply to another email is possible. You can check your Junk folder to see if anything significant was accidentally forwarded. The advantage: Less email cleanup on weekends thanks to time spent today.

Get to work on your marketing initiative. You belong to the Chamber. A group of members with the potential to do business has been your focus. Due to the possibility that a blast email will land in their Junk folder, you are sending individual emails. Establish a text-cut and-paste procedure. Check out the Chamber’s website. To get a member’s email address, click on their profile. Fill out the email before personalizing and sending it. It only takes a moment. The advantage: You can cross off items from a long list one at a time.

Prepare a client review now. For client meetings, you employ a certain format. Data gathering is the first step, followed by numerical input. Customization is required for these reviews. The advantage is that because this is a step-by-step procedure, you can skip one or two of them depending on how close your meeting or lunch date is.

Answer letters. Letter writing is still popular. You are part of this! They are utilized in marketing. For a variety of reasons, you send thank-you notes. These could be given a low priority. The advantage: An opportunity has presented itself. Start a modest endeavor like this.

Look for content to share. Receiving a newspaper clipping through the US Mail with a cover message impresses customers. Go over the paper today. Exist any pertinent articles? Cut the article in its entirety. You might find this intriguing, or something similar, and put it in an envelope and set it aside for today’s mail pickup. The advantage: You are coming up with ways to demonstrate to clients that you are considering them (if your Compliance officer is okay with this).

You would schedule time for each of these things anyhow. You have now “made time” for a future date.

Source: https://www.benefitspro.com/2022/11/16/time-is-money-7-ways-to-use-your-gap-time-more-productively/