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"Not so polite" time saving tips — that work
by Bob Parsons
One of our most valuable possessions is our time — but unlike all our other assets, its sanctity is not protected by any law.
None of us seem to have enough time.
If you’re like me, you find it a challenge to get to all those things you want to do, in the limited amount of time you have available. Often, there just doesn’t seem like there are enough hours in the day. If this isn’t difficult enough, there are all sorts of 'time grabbers' that vie for our attention and our time.
We have to rely on our ingenuity to protect our time.
When it comes to protecting our time, the only real resource we have is our own ingenuity. At the bookstore there are rows of books that talk of nothing but time management. Most of them talk about traditional time saving ideas, such as keeping a good schedule, planning ahead, etc. I personally don’t use any of those things. Many of the people who work with me use them and to good effect —- but I simply am not disciplined enough.
I've learned a few things that work over the years.
I’ve learned through the years a couple of good time saving practices, and thought it might be worth sharing them here – as I don’t ever seem to see them anywhere else.
The telephone can waste tremendous amounts of time.
One of the things that can suck up our time is our telephone – landline or cell. I thought it would be interesting to share some time saving tips I use when I answer my phone – and if I’m in my office I always answer my phone.
If a stranger calls me they better get right to the point.
I insist that if someone is calling me and I don’t know them, that they immediately get to the point with what they want. In fact, if I have someone on the line and they start rambling and simply talking about who they are, I will chime in that they have 30 seconds to get to the point. If they don’t immediately get to the point, I hang up. Once they get to the point, if it’s something I’m not interested in, I will simply say, “I’m not interested,” and immediately hang up. If they are foolish enough to immediately call me back –I have found that often some knucklehead feels this tactic might work – I say once again, “I told you I’m not interested” and hang up again. Usually, they never call back.
It makes no sense to stay on the line with someone who has nothing of immediate interest.
I have seen people – it disturbs me to no end when it’s an employee of mine – who feel that they owe someone who is cold calling them, the time to listen to what they have to say. I could not disagree with this more. If the person on the other line does not have something of immediate interest to you, you owe them nothing. In fact, by staying on the line you are doing them — but most of all yourself — a disservice.
I particularly dislike calls from boiler rooms promoting bad investments.
One type of call that I find personally galling is from someone asking me to invest in this or that. It could be oil wells or some upstart company. Often, I will simply hang up on these without saying anything. Those who work in the boiler rooms that peddle this stuff understand and expect this type of response. Other times I simply say – before hanging up — “when I’m ready to trust my money to a complete stranger, I’ll give you a call.”
The situation gets sticky when someone you know personally calls.
The situation gets a little dicey when you have someone calling you that you know on a personal level, but who is using their personal relationship to pimp you for a business or some other favor – and the favor doesn’t interest you.
One type of annoying personal call.
One type of call I get from time to time is the one when someone says, “Bob, I’m between jobs or thinking about investing in such and such and thought that since you know this or that, we could spend an hour or so together so I can pick your brain.”
It's best to handle disinteresting personal calls quickly.
I’ve always found that in these types of situations it’s best to deal with the issue up front and be done with it. Putting it off to later only creates a snowballing bunch of hanging obligations – or people who become upset with you because YOU DID NOT GET BACK TO THEM! My typical response is that I really am not that familiar with the local industry job situation, and to suggest that the caller check out the job opportunities section on the Go Daddy website. If the question involves investment advice, I simply say that I’m the wrong guy to ask. I wish the caller well, say that I have to go and HANG UP!
Hanging up quickly allows you to avoid time wasting calls.
The most important thing to remember is to say you can’t help, be polite, say you have to go and then hang up. Do not allow yourself to get drawn into listening to an endless stream of dialogue that doesn’t interest you. Remember, you don’t owe that to the caller. Sitting there listening won’t get your job done or your blog written. You’ll still have to do that after the call ends.
Customer calls are always important to me.
If the caller is a customer, I always consider the call important and will usually listen to whatever the problem happens to be. I will ask for their name and phone number, and how long they will be at that number. Then I will have one of my customer service people get in touch with them and resolve the issue. Once again, I keep these calls very short and to the point.
Customer calls give me inside information. They let me know what to fix.
When customers call, particularly with problems, to my way of thinking they are doing me a favor. By calling me the customers are giving me inside information as to what might be wrong with my business, and letting me know what I can do to make it better. For me this is the most important type of call I receive. So I always pay attention to these calls.
I've got a few tips for handling voice messages.
I also found it makes sense to be careful as to how you respond to voice messages left on your telephone.
If someone wants me to return a call, I've got to know what they want.
If someone just leaves a name and phone number and I don’t know who they are and what they want, I will never return the phone call. This doesn’t, of course, include messages I receive from family and friends.
I very rarely return any voice message.
If someone leaves their name and number with a message without detailing what they want, it’s been my practice to very rarely return the call. For me to return any call, the message has to be understandable, it has to be of immediate interest to me and it has to be something that I want. If a message left on your phone doesn’t meet these criteria, I think it's nuts to return the call.
Messages left by customers always get handled.
If a customer leaves a message I will always have someone from our customer service department return the call. That assumes of course that the call relates to a problem with one of our products or a question concerning its use. If someone leaves a message saying they are a customer, and then want to sell me something, I smile – because there is no one I appreciate more than customers. That said, these messages are also subject to my earlier requirement of immediate interest and something that I want. Seldom will these calls be returned.
Email is another place where you can save a bundle of time.
You can save a tremendous amount of time by using similar tactics to handle your email. I'm very particular about the email messages I spend time reading. I expect any email I open to be both brief and to the point. If it's not both, unless it deals with a subject that interests me, I immediately hit the delete key. On a typical day I get about 100 to 150 non-spam email messages. Of course, spam messages go directly to the spam bucket. I never see them. For me to take the time to read any of the rest, the email must deal with a subject that concerns me at the moment and it must have a clearly stated message. Some of the things I appreciate are subject lines that give me an idea what the email is about, formatted paragraphs of two to four short sentences — nothing wastes more time than trying to decipher a huge unformatted blob of text — and no more than a screen of text. Basically if an email needs more than 5 to 10 seconds of my time it gets deleted mostly unread. I also make it a policy to never open "chain" emails.
It's really all about taking charge of your schedule.
Some readers after going through this article will think I’m rude. I understand that. When it comes to protecting my time I like to be polite, but it’s not a requirement for me – I’ll be rude if I have to be. All of us need to be jealous of our time – we have so little of it. If protecting my time means being short and to the point, then so be it. It will be me who enjoys the extra time I have available later. I will have earned it.
Source: Bob Parsons. "Not so polite" time saving tips — that work. BobParsons.com (17 November 2006) [FullText]
One of our most valuable possessions is our time — but unlike all our other assets, its sanctity is not protected by any law.
None of us seem to have enough time.
If you’re like me, you find it a challenge to get to all those things you want to do, in the limited amount of time you have available. Often, there just doesn’t seem like there are enough hours in the day. If this isn’t difficult enough, there are all sorts of 'time grabbers' that vie for our attention and our time.
We have to rely on our ingenuity to protect our time.
When it comes to protecting our time, the only real resource we have is our own ingenuity. At the bookstore there are rows of books that talk of nothing but time management. Most of them talk about traditional time saving ideas, such as keeping a good schedule, planning ahead, etc. I personally don’t use any of those things. Many of the people who work with me use them and to good effect —- but I simply am not disciplined enough.
I've learned a few things that work over the years.
I’ve learned through the years a couple of good time saving practices, and thought it might be worth sharing them here – as I don’t ever seem to see them anywhere else.
The telephone can waste tremendous amounts of time.
One of the things that can suck up our time is our telephone – landline or cell. I thought it would be interesting to share some time saving tips I use when I answer my phone – and if I’m in my office I always answer my phone.
If a stranger calls me they better get right to the point.
I insist that if someone is calling me and I don’t know them, that they immediately get to the point with what they want. In fact, if I have someone on the line and they start rambling and simply talking about who they are, I will chime in that they have 30 seconds to get to the point. If they don’t immediately get to the point, I hang up. Once they get to the point, if it’s something I’m not interested in, I will simply say, “I’m not interested,” and immediately hang up. If they are foolish enough to immediately call me back –I have found that often some knucklehead feels this tactic might work – I say once again, “I told you I’m not interested” and hang up again. Usually, they never call back.
It makes no sense to stay on the line with someone who has nothing of immediate interest.
I have seen people – it disturbs me to no end when it’s an employee of mine – who feel that they owe someone who is cold calling them, the time to listen to what they have to say. I could not disagree with this more. If the person on the other line does not have something of immediate interest to you, you owe them nothing. In fact, by staying on the line you are doing them — but most of all yourself — a disservice.
I particularly dislike calls from boiler rooms promoting bad investments.
One type of call that I find personally galling is from someone asking me to invest in this or that. It could be oil wells or some upstart company. Often, I will simply hang up on these without saying anything. Those who work in the boiler rooms that peddle this stuff understand and expect this type of response. Other times I simply say – before hanging up — “when I’m ready to trust my money to a complete stranger, I’ll give you a call.”
The situation gets sticky when someone you know personally calls.
The situation gets a little dicey when you have someone calling you that you know on a personal level, but who is using their personal relationship to pimp you for a business or some other favor – and the favor doesn’t interest you.
One type of annoying personal call.
One type of call I get from time to time is the one when someone says, “Bob, I’m between jobs or thinking about investing in such and such and thought that since you know this or that, we could spend an hour or so together so I can pick your brain.”
It's best to handle disinteresting personal calls quickly.
I’ve always found that in these types of situations it’s best to deal with the issue up front and be done with it. Putting it off to later only creates a snowballing bunch of hanging obligations – or people who become upset with you because YOU DID NOT GET BACK TO THEM! My typical response is that I really am not that familiar with the local industry job situation, and to suggest that the caller check out the job opportunities section on the Go Daddy website. If the question involves investment advice, I simply say that I’m the wrong guy to ask. I wish the caller well, say that I have to go and HANG UP!
Hanging up quickly allows you to avoid time wasting calls.
The most important thing to remember is to say you can’t help, be polite, say you have to go and then hang up. Do not allow yourself to get drawn into listening to an endless stream of dialogue that doesn’t interest you. Remember, you don’t owe that to the caller. Sitting there listening won’t get your job done or your blog written. You’ll still have to do that after the call ends.
Customer calls are always important to me.
If the caller is a customer, I always consider the call important and will usually listen to whatever the problem happens to be. I will ask for their name and phone number, and how long they will be at that number. Then I will have one of my customer service people get in touch with them and resolve the issue. Once again, I keep these calls very short and to the point.
Customer calls give me inside information. They let me know what to fix.
When customers call, particularly with problems, to my way of thinking they are doing me a favor. By calling me the customers are giving me inside information as to what might be wrong with my business, and letting me know what I can do to make it better. For me this is the most important type of call I receive. So I always pay attention to these calls.
I've got a few tips for handling voice messages.
I also found it makes sense to be careful as to how you respond to voice messages left on your telephone.
If someone wants me to return a call, I've got to know what they want.
If someone just leaves a name and phone number and I don’t know who they are and what they want, I will never return the phone call. This doesn’t, of course, include messages I receive from family and friends.
I very rarely return any voice message.
If someone leaves their name and number with a message without detailing what they want, it’s been my practice to very rarely return the call. For me to return any call, the message has to be understandable, it has to be of immediate interest to me and it has to be something that I want. If a message left on your phone doesn’t meet these criteria, I think it's nuts to return the call.
Messages left by customers always get handled.
If a customer leaves a message I will always have someone from our customer service department return the call. That assumes of course that the call relates to a problem with one of our products or a question concerning its use. If someone leaves a message saying they are a customer, and then want to sell me something, I smile – because there is no one I appreciate more than customers. That said, these messages are also subject to my earlier requirement of immediate interest and something that I want. Seldom will these calls be returned.
Email is another place where you can save a bundle of time.
You can save a tremendous amount of time by using similar tactics to handle your email. I'm very particular about the email messages I spend time reading. I expect any email I open to be both brief and to the point. If it's not both, unless it deals with a subject that interests me, I immediately hit the delete key. On a typical day I get about 100 to 150 non-spam email messages. Of course, spam messages go directly to the spam bucket. I never see them. For me to take the time to read any of the rest, the email must deal with a subject that concerns me at the moment and it must have a clearly stated message. Some of the things I appreciate are subject lines that give me an idea what the email is about, formatted paragraphs of two to four short sentences — nothing wastes more time than trying to decipher a huge unformatted blob of text — and no more than a screen of text. Basically if an email needs more than 5 to 10 seconds of my time it gets deleted mostly unread. I also make it a policy to never open "chain" emails.
It's really all about taking charge of your schedule.
Some readers after going through this article will think I’m rude. I understand that. When it comes to protecting my time I like to be polite, but it’s not a requirement for me – I’ll be rude if I have to be. All of us need to be jealous of our time – we have so little of it. If protecting my time means being short and to the point, then so be it. It will be me who enjoys the extra time I have available later. I will have earned it.
Source: Bob Parsons. "Not so polite" time saving tips — that work. BobParsons.com (17 November 2006) [FullText]
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