Deborah Mayo-Smith: Simple strategies deliver both time and money

Do you suffer from working too much? In other words, do you have a work/life imbalance? May I share two strategies that will give you more time at home and make you more effective at work?

Often I'm overwhelmed. Like many, I'm a working parent running my own business. Like many, I do my marketing, administration and business development with minimal assistance. Like many, my partner is marvellous, helpful and busy.

Unlike many, I gave birth to one child, then twins, then triplets. Throw in three cats, a dog and a new puppy the kids swore to toilet train and walk but never do. I think we must face the reality that you can't do it all, nor have it all. You can't work 50 hours a week, bake your own bread, tend the garden, raise happy children, chauffeur them around, fix every little breakage in the house, be great in bed, keep a perfect home, be an involved parent and get enough sleep.

No matter how great at multi-tasking you are, there are only 24 hours in a day and an unknown number of hours in your bank account called life. Something has to give. Choices have to be made. To me, work/life balance is bull. It simply means deciding what you will or won't do (the old "delegate or eliminate" song and dance) and doing the things you do, better. Faster.

Here are two strategies I'd like to share that fit into the "doing better" category. They absolutely will put more money in your bank account, give you more time with family and friends and make you much more effective. Promise.

Adopt technology and learn your software

By doing so, over a year you'll turn weeks, even months of work into mere minutes or hours.

Here's an example. One evening my wonderful husband Steve peered over my shoulder and exclaimed "What are you doing, Debbie!!!" I replied: "Oh honey, I have 3000 first and last names here in an Excel spreadsheet. I'm splitting them apart so I can do a personalised email merge using first names."

"Don't do that, do text to columns," Steve said and proceeded to show me that Excel function in the Data menu/ribbon. Snap. At least four hours of work was replaced by three mouse clicks.

That set me on the path of a modern- day Crusader, on the quest for the Holy Grail of the new millennium. Time. How to save our most precious commodity.

Look for and learn software functions that replace these repetitive individual tasks you do daily with a mouse click.

I've written about the email rules/filter function that reads and manages your email. And your ability to do a personalised merge to many instead of sending them one by one. About having your website as a data collection point rather than your office entering the same data. And about using RSS feeds to send one social media entry to all your social sites.

For someone who works on the computer a lot, this can make the biggest difference to your life. You'll be able to achieve in an hour at your desk what takes most a full eight hours.

Smart phones, used cleverly, give you a competitive advantage. Freedom from being chained to the office. Work-life balance by using the email and internet feature in your down time during the day instead of following up on emails from 7-9 at night.

Second, focus

Concentrate your business activity on things that show you the best return. It makes infinite sense. Most often it takes the equivalent time and energy to develop business for a low priced service you hate to do as it does for a more profitable one you enjoy doing.

Focus your time on doing the right activities for the roles you play.

As a parent and partner, no matter how much work you have in business, you're still responsible for ensuring everything gets done at home and for the family. Cleanliness. Meals. Happiness. Activity.

Many families now have home help. Not doing the housework or mundane tasks is a sensible and profitable use of time. If you can use those freed hours working, you'll bring in far more income than outlaid on the home help. Need I mention the sheer pleasure of not fighting over homework or repetitively driving back and forth? Will it be detrimental to the children? No. It's far better than having a complaining parent do it.

Is this rocket science? No. Have you heard it before? Probably. But who has time to do it? So promise me just one thing. The next time you go to do something repetitive on the computer, go to your help menu first and see if there is a better, quicker way.

Debbie Mayo-Smith is a bestselling author and international speaker. Twitter mseffective

www.debbiespeaks.co.nz