How Do You Define Success?
Recently I had a meeting with a colleague and he said something that really hit 
home.
This person is driven and early in his career he made sacrifices with his family to get ahead. He achieved great financial success and rapidly rose up the career ladder. However, the financial gain was offset by the costs to his personal life: divorce, disconnected with his children, and even his own health. He told me now that he is older, and wiser, he wouldn’t have given up so much personally to gain what he did financially.
I see the same thing happening with business leaders. Let’s face it – when there is no safety net and your family depends on the income your company produces, it is easy to lose focus on your long-term goals. Which is WHY it is so important to continually find ways to be more effective with your time.
Here’s three things you can do RIGHT NOW to be more effective in business so you can be more present at home:
1) Do, Delegate, Dump – Triage action items. Do only what is necessary for you to accomplish. Delegate those tasks to others that are better suited to do them and Dump the unimportant stuff. Repeat this process frequently.
2) Compartmentalize time – Most meetings are a waste, technology often intrudes more than it enhances, and interruptions are often a sign that you haven’t placed the level of trust necessary for others to function successfully on their own. Block your time answering emails. Minimize the number of meetings and have clear agendas and action items. Empower your team to utilize the talents you hired them for.
3) Learn to say NO – High achievers load their plates with too much. They are afraid to miss out on an opportunity, and fear letting people down. Because we can’t say no, we are stuck doing things that eat up valuable time. Know what is important to commit to and kindly pass on the rest.
Your work is important and your personal life doesn’t need to suffer because of it. Does that mean you don’t have to occasionally sacrifice? No.
What it means is you should continually be looking for ways to improve.
We often have blinders on and fail to see the impact our actions make on our overall success.