Arnold Zegarelli is director of education at Izzazu Salon, Spa & Serata in Pittsburgh and has literally helped thousands of hairdressers become more successful. This month he offers advice on how to manage your time more effectively.
How many of you wish you had more time to do all the things you want to do? Well, forget about it because you’re not going to get any more time than you already have, and we all
get the same amount—24 hours each and every day. The key is to use your time effectively, and that’s where planning and prioritizing come in. Here are my suggestions on how best to manage your time.
1. Before you go to sleep, make a list of all the things you would like to do the next day. Don’t put them in order, but make sure to check your monthly calendar to see if you have anything important listed. After you’ve made a list, you can go to sleep confident that your subconscious mind will work on priorities.
2. In the morning, redo your list and assign each goal a priority status of A (the most important), B (still important but doesn’t have to be done immediately) and C (things you’d like to do, but not before you get to A and B).
3. After you have prioritized and coded each task, work on the A’s because they require the greatest amount of attention and energy. The C’s are not of immediate importance, so do them only if you’ve made progress on the others.
4. As you work on a task, put a check after the item to show that you are focusing on it. Each time you pursue another task, add another checkmark. After the task is completed, draw a line through it.
5. At the end of the day you will probably have some tasks and goals that you have not accomplished. Carry those over to your nightly random list. Naturally, C’s may become B’s or B’s may become A’s after a period of time. That’s the beauty of the time-control system.