How to Multiply Your Time to Improve Your Social Media

Permission to Procrastinate

In addition to co-founding Southwestern Consulting, a coaching and consulting company for sales professionals, Rory Vaden is the author of bestselling Take the Stairs: 7 Steps to Achieving True Success. He joins us on Social Pros today to talk about his latest book, released on January 6th, Procrastinate on Purpose: 5 Permissions to Multiply Your Time, which has already been named a national bestseller. In this book, Rory turns traditional time management wisdom on its head. As the first sentence of the book says, “Everything you know about time management is wrong.”
A project that began as a way to help sales-oriented clients at Southwestern Consulting better manage their time is applicable to any career (and personal life) in the digital age. People are busier and more stressed out than ever, even though we seem to have more and more tools at our disposal to manage our tasks and responsibilities. “No matter how fast we seem to move, we seem to be falling further and further behind.” So they set on a mission, both for their clients and their own lives, to try to find some real-life solutions by looking at how today’s ultra-performers think differently about time.
Rory’s concept of “multiplying time” comes from looking at the last two eras of time management and realizing what works and what just doesn’t cut it in today’s world. The first era, in the 50s and 60s, was all about efficiency and developing tricks, tools, and technology to do things faster. The second era started in the 80s and revolved around prioritization—focusing first on what matters most. Efficiency and prioritization are great things, but they have limits.
Boiling the huge new concept of multiplying time down to one sentence, Rory says, “You multiply your time by giving yourself the emotional permission to spend time on things today that give you more time tomorrow.” That’s the crux of the book, which is broken down into five “permissions” you need to grant yourself to master multiplying your time.
The first permission is Eliminate. Give yourself permission to eliminate anything that doesn’t bring in the results you are seeking. “Perfection is achieved not only when nothing more can be added, but also when nothing more can be taken away.” As a Social Pro, that’s anything from eliminating meetings in your calendar that you don’t directly need to be a part of, to eliminating a channel that isn’t driving results. This is where we all have the widest swath of opportunity to improve.
A 45-minute podcast isn’t nearly enough time to dive into all five permissions and the incredible concepts that Rory shares in his book, but it’s a great place to start. The next step is, of course, to read the book, followed promptly by allowing his ideas and permissions to transform the way you manage your time.