What if you were consistently able to get more of the important things done in your life and in your business every day? What would be different? Where could you be three months from now, three years from now?

Performance Time, our unique time-blocking system, will help you to allocate time to what matters most. Within just one week of applying the concepts, you will begin to see results, and you may feel more in control of your time than you have in years.

Performance Time is one of the five disciplines of the 12 Week Year. Combined with the other four—Vision, Planning, Process Control, and Scorekeeping—it is part of a proven execution system.

Everything that we achieve in life happens in the context of time. The important things will get done when we spend time on them. One of the building blocks of success is the ability to spend time on what matters most. Yet, we often hear our clients say something like, “I don’t have time for the strategic. I’m just too busy!” Consciously they’re thinking, “I want to do what I know is important,” but their actions are saying, “My time is controlled by others and by outside events.” People who are unwilling to change their actions will struggle to achieve their visions.

CONSTRUCTIVE BELIEF #1: YOUR TIME IS AT LEAST AS VALUABLE AS THE TIME OF OTHERS

Given the value, and the limited supply of time, it is interesting that almost all of us have difficulty spending it as effectively as we would like to. Many entrepreneurial clients we work with, driven by the natural desire to earn revenue whenever the opportunity arises, will discard their preplanned schedule without a second thought to accommodate the requests of prospects and clients. They do this repeatedly, seemingly without regard to the long-term impact on their business. In effect, the time that could be spent building their future is, instead, spent on building someone else’s. We see similar behavior with our other clients as well—letting emergent opportunities or the requests of others pull them away from their preplanned activity.

In the final analysis, many of our clients value the time of others above their own. To achieve breakthrough, you must come to see your own time as at least as important as that of your clients. Only in this way can you build your business and, ironically, improve your client service at the same time.

CONSTRUCTIVE BELIEF #2: YOU CAN’T GET EVERYTHING DONE

One of the things that can get in the way of effective execution is the belief that we can get it all done. If we assume that if we work fast enough, hard enough, or long enough, we can do everything, then we are not required to prioritize our activity. Unfortunately, this is just not true. A recent study found that the average professional in America has more than 40 hours of unfinished work on his or her desk at any given time! That means that, no matter how hard we work, we will never get it all done.

Unless we realize the simple truth that we can’t do it all, we will continue to labor under the false belief that we will eventually catch up, and “finally” get to that important stuff. We will continue to use all of our time on urgent day-to-day activities and postpone the strategic, but less urgent, work required to create a business breakthrough and, ultimately, the life we desire.

CONSTRUCTIVE BELIEF #3: WORK ON THE HIGH PRIORITY, MONEY-MAKING, RESULTS-GENERATING ACTIVITY FIRST

If you frequently defer your strategic work to accomplish the urgent, but lower-value activities, you will need a way to carve out time each week to work on your highest priority activity. If you work under the belief that you can eventually get the important things done by first working through the urgent, you will likely never get to the strategic stuff. The thinking that says, “I will start building my ideal future tomorrow, or next week, or next month,” is flawed. The future you are going to live is the one you are creating right now—this very moment.

CONSTRUCTIVE BELIEF #4: BREAKTHROUGH REQUIRES BREAKOUT FROM YOUR OLD “SYSTEMS”

Reaching breakthrough isn’t about being incremental. Breakthrough requires a profound change in the way that you work—before it shows up in your results. For some, breakthrough results may mean a 20% increase in income, or getting that promotion. For others, it may mean doubling their business. For still others, breakthrough may be taking more time off and continuing to increase their revenue. In each case, creating a breakthrough will require them to be willing to change how they spend their time.

These kinds of performance increases may sound inspiring, and yet, if you are already nearing the capacity of your current systems, you may honestly feel that there just isn’t enough time in the week for “breakthrough.”

Our clients often view higher performance levels as possible for others, but not possible for themselves. Many times, they feel that they are already working too hard, and the thought of working harder to earn more is unattractive. They may even have a real fear of success—the fear that says, “My current system cannot handle the level of activity that will come with greater success.”

It feels like common sense to us that we have to work proportionally harder to earn more. Yet, that kind of thinking is exactly what limits what we can accomplish in life.

CONSTRUCTIVE ACTION: CREATE A MODEL WORKWEEK AND IMPLEMENT IT

The good news is that our clients earning $1,000,000 per year don’t work 10 times harder than clients earning $100,000. In fact, sometimes they are working less! How is that possible?

You probably know, or have heard of, others who have overcome the breakthrough barrier of their own systems and thinking. They have solved the time “issue”; they have found a new way of working that increases their capacity to get the important things done. Unfortunately, there is a big difference between knowing that someone else can do it, and actually changing how we manage our time each day.

The fact is, that you won’t reach a breakthrough if you don’t change what you are currently doing with your time.

After we take the important first step and make the commitment to spend our time on the important stuff, we next must know how to do it. Anytime we start to take new actions, it is helpful if we can visualize what the new actions look like. In the case of time allocation, we will have to create a picture of what the new time allocation looks like; we will have to create some version of a Model Workweek.

Performance Time is the breakthrough time-blocking system we have developed working with our clients. It allows you to operate like the CEO of your business and life by being intentional about how you spend your most valuable asset—your time. The commitment and ability to apply Performance Time is a manifestation of personal leadership. If you live with the intentionality of effective time use, you will become a more effective leader of those around you, and you will build your business and personal success at a faster rate.

There are three components that comprise a model workweek: Strategic Blocks, Breakout Blocks, and Buffer Blocks. Each of these three time blocks is designed to help you accomplish key activities more efficiently. In addition to these three categories, you will also want to schedule blocks of time to execute additional, important, recurring activities. Let’s take a closer look at each type of block.

Strategic Blocks are three-hour blocks of time scheduled at least once a week. To be effective, strategic blocks should be conducted in one three-hour block (rather than three one-hour blocks) and should be free from interruptions, such as: making or answering phone calls, answering knocks on your door, or responding to emails.

An effective Strategic Block is focused on your most important activities that require uninterrupted time. A typical agenda in a strategic block might be to: (1) review your progress in the 12 Week Year, identify any performance breakdowns and their causes, and determine strategies to address the breakdowns; or (2) work on key plan tactics. We have found that Strategic Blocks are one of the top three contributors to success in applying the 12 Week Year effectively.

Your Strategic Block should be scheduled early in the week so that, if it gets interrupted or canceled, you have time to reschedule it. It should also be scheduled during times when your work activity is typically lowest.

Jot down some strategically important things that you might do in your Strategic Block (don’t forget your strategic tactics from your 12 Week Plan):

Strategic Block Activities

Buffer Blocks are 30–60 minutes in length and are scheduled once or twice a day—generally at the same time each day. They are designed to help you get all of the urgent, but less important stuff done more efficiently and effectively. The actual amount of time for buffer blocks will depend upon the amount of email, phone calls, interruptions, and other “administrivia” you typically are required to handle.

In these blocks of time, you will respond to emails, conduct short meetings, and answer your voice mail. (In fact, we recommend that you put a message on your system that says something like, “I am not available right now, but I typically return calls between 11 and 12, so please leave a message—I’ll get back to you then.”)

Buffer Blocks allow you to be more productive with the administrative tasks, and to free your more important time from interruptions that lower your effectiveness.

Take a few minutes and think through the low-value actions that are part of your workweek that might be included in your buffer blocks:

Buffer Block Activities

Breakout Blocks are also three hours in length. They are scheduled within your normal workweek, and are like a mini-vacation. In a Breakout Block, you get out of the office to do something that you enjoy. The only rule is that you don’t do, or discuss, work. You may leave at noon on Thursday and golf. You may take your spouse to a long lunch. You may see a movie—it’s up to you!

A Breakout Block is a chance for you to recharge and refresh—and to come back to work energized. They are an important part of managing stress and maintaining a balance at work.

One word of caution though—get the other aspects of the Model Workweek in place first. No one that we know has made it to the next level just by scheduling Breakout Blocks! We recommend that you only have one per month until everything else is working and you are executing well.

Take a minute to capture some activities that would help you to get away and recharge.

Breakout Block Activities

To implement performance time, using the blank weekly calendar template below, build an ideal week by scheduling your Strategic Blocks, Buffer Blocks, and Breakout Blocks where you would ideally like them (this is your “model” workweek).

How you choose to use your time has a direct impact on your results, both professionally and personally. Everything happens in the context of time and, if you are not in control of your time, then you are not in control of your results. Take back control of your day. Decide to apply Performance Time and achieve breakthrough in your business and your life.

Below, you will find the blank Model Workweek Table for you to schedule the performance time blocks and your other regularly standing commitments. Pencil in your blocks beginning with your Strategic Blocks, next moving to your Buffer Blocks, and then ending with your Breakout Block. Then fill in the other important activities that need to happen each week. Be sure to leave white space in your calendar, and to include time for executing your tactics that are not included in your Strategic Block (see the sample Model Weekly Timeblocking Template in Figure 6.1, found below the Model Week.)

Model Week

Notice that the WAM, and the time to score and print the weekly plan, are included on Monday. It is important to score and plan after one week ends and before the next begins. Also note the five minutes at the beginning of each day to check in on their vision and plan the day.

It also helps to schedule your strategic block at a time of the week when you typically have the least activity or interruptions. When you schedule your strategic block earlier in the week, if it gets interrupted you can reschedule it in the same week. Consistency from day to day is also good—routine and patterns allow for easier coordination with others in your team.