Brian Wright “Too Busy?”

2016  (Too Busy?)

There’s not enough time to get everything done! I’m sure you’ve whispered those words a few times in your career. One of the reasons you are time-challenged is that you spend more time on the noisy than you do on the important. We are interrupted every day by local “fires,” or crisis. There are always people, either in person or on the phone, that manage your time for you by dropping by to give you more to work on. That usually leaves us with too little time to master the most important things, and makes all of us feel more stress.

If you keep a log of your interruptions, you will find evidence of the 80/20 rule at work here. The 80/20 rule is formally known as the Pereto Principle. Vilfredo Pereto was an Italian economist who discovered that about 20% of the companies in an economy would be responsible for generating 80% of the then Gross National Product and the remaining 80% of the companies in the same economy would generate the other 20% of the then Gross National Product.

But this ADG content is not about macro economics. This is about priorities, because the 80/20 rule has a lot of application in our daily lives. Did you ever notice, if you belong to a church or a civic organization, how 20% of the members are there 80% of the time, doing 80% of the work and the remaining 80% of the members are there 20% of the time? How 20% of your relatives give you 80% of your headaches? How 20% of a typical sales force will produce 80% of the sales and 80% of the sales force will produce 20% of the sales? Then, of course, successful stations produce 80% of their AQH from the 20% of listeners called P1’s

If you were to realize this affect with your time management, your day might be very different. What are the 20% of your activities that produce 80% of your results? Then how did we get into the position of spending 80% of our time on what produces 20% of your results? I believe it’s a matter of not looking at your success logically, and identifying those actions that produce the greatest results. For example, time spent with your music scheduling software could very well produce good results. Equal time spent in the Christmas Party meeting may not be time best spent. Any time you spend coaching or motivating people will produce very strong results. People can take what you say and put it to work themselves, so your impact is even greater. We have to make sure that we are focusing on what’s important instead of what’s attracting your attention. If your competitor applies the 80/20 rule better than you, that competitor has a good chance of out-performing you. Like everything, it has to do with the choices you make on a daily basis.

Brian is a 30 year radio veteran who has successfully served many companies over the years as Program Director, Operations Manger and VP of programming. After many years of success working for individual radio stations and clusters, Brian Joined one of the most trusted consulting firms in the country, Audience Development Group. For the last 15 years Wright has enjoyed building alliances with scores of stations in the US & Canada helping them grow in ratings and revenue.  Contact Brian at brian@audiencedevelopmentgroup.com