We all have the same 86,400 seconds every 24 hours, and we need to just really be able to make the most of it.

A great tool for time management is Stephen Covey’s matrix. The matrix has four quadrants, which are organised by how urgent they are and how important they are. The 4 quadrants are: 

Do It

Tasks that go in this quadrant are things which are both urgent and important. They are tasks of high importance which have deadlines attached to them. For example, your tax return.

Tasks in these quadrant should be done by you as a priority.

Plan It

The second quadrant includes tasks which are important but that have no urgency to them. This includes things such as planning your marketing and your relationship building, or working on projects.  

For tasks in this quadrant, you should plan when you are going to do them. 

Delegate It

The third quadrant is all about tasks which do not necessarily have to be done by you. These tasks still need to be done as a matter of urgency, but it’s not important that you do them. For example, cleaning the clinic, or doing your bookkeeping.

These tasks should be delegated to someone else. When you’re looking at what tasks you can delegate, a good idea is to start by looking at how much your time is worth. For example, if you charge patients £50 per session, and you therefore earn around £100 per hour. You need to consider whether you would pay that rate for some of these tasks. It’s a much more efficient use of time and resources to outsource tasks in this quadrant, so that you can spend your time focusing on tasks in the Do It and Plan It quadrants.

Ditch It

The fourth quadrant includes tasks that are not important and not urgent. These are the tasks that you really should take off your to do list.

By listing all the tasks you do and putting them in these four quadrants, you can start to become more efficient and use your resources more effectively.