Hi. I’m David Short with Stewart Short Insurance Services. Stewart Short Insurance Services was started in 1971. We currently operate here in Albany, Georgia. Over the years, one of the biggest, critical parts of our business that I’ve seen is actual time management. That’s one of the resources that can’t be recreated so you really have to make the best use of the time that you’re given.

Several years ago, I went through a consulting process of how to develop and better use my time, and basically came up with the strategy of time blocking; basically, where we split out the week giving ample time for all the critical areas that I see that need to be done in the business for the week for it to continue, knowing that some of those issues will be long-term goal planning, some of it will be daily work, but making sure that we’re able to split enough time to each area so that we’re able to plan effectively for the future. This system can be trying at times and the goal is not to be 100 percent accurate to the time blocking but to give you a general model to make sure that you use your time in the most effective way possible.

The single most valuable asset for time management is making sure that you spend ample time on future things. It’s real easy to get caught up in daily activities; the crisis, the fires that happen today, and overlook future planning, overlook things that were critical to your business in the long term arena by getting caught up in general office procedures.

The biggest difference I’ve noticed is that I’ve been much more effective. There’s been times I’ve spent much more time planning for the future. There’s been times I’ve seen myself getting to the projects that in the past I never got around to. There’s a lot of concepts that I had that were in my head. There’s a lot of concepts that were good ideas, but I actually put feet by them by giving blocked out time where I actually sat down and worked on them.