The Productivity Pro® Blog by Laura Stack - Time Management, Getting Things Done, How to Be More Productive

The back-to-school season is a time of change in a kid’s life. New schedules, new activities, new friends–both parents and children need to learn how to adjust to all the change. From the first day of elementary school throughout high school, kids have school assignments, sports, music and theater practices, social activities and home obligations thrust upon them with the expectation that they will magically know how to do it all.

However, without the proper guidance and an easy-to-use system, it is easy for children and parents to get overwhelmed. In fact, in a recent DayTimers® survey on back-to-school resolutions, 72% of parent respondents said they wanted to improve their time management skills.  And the best way to learn is to teach it.  Teaching children time management at a young age is a life lesson that will bring them through childhood and eventually into adulthood. Here are some tips from DayTimer expert, Laura Stack (www.TheProductivityPro.com), to help parents help their children.

Write It Down. Homework, soccer practice, band rehearsal, tutoring classes, religious education, and football games–the list of kid’s activities can grow out of control before you know it. In order for the whole family to stay on top of what is going on, it is a good idea to have a “family calendar” that holds the schedules for each person. The DayTimer Tri-Fold Organization Center with Calendar has a tabbed 12-month calendar with three file pockets and four multi-colored vinyl protectors that keep game schedules, school play rehearsals, and soccer practice all in one place. The pencil, self-stick notes, and strong magnet backing keep the family calendar center-stage on the refrigerator where everyone will see it.  Have children write down their own activities on the calendar to help them see what is happening on what days.

Plan It. Planning ahead may be one of the best things to help your child learn time management. Buying them a student planner is the first step. DayTimer has a denim zippered student planner, which will help them keep track of football games, dances and club activities, as well as homework assignments. Planning, however, is a skill that needs to be learned. It’s important that parents sit down and teach them how to use it. By writing down assignment and project due dates, as well as keeping track of every practice for the month, children will begin to see the important demands on their time well in advance.

Prioritize. Once you’ve worked out a system for recording all activities in a student planner, then it is time to have a discussion about priorities. Your child’s priorities may be completely different from yours. Children might think emailing friends takes precedence over finishing homework. This is a time to start listening to one another so that homework vs. soccer practice doesn’t become a family battleground. Work together on a list that ranks the relative priority of all activities.  Once you agree on the priority of things, you can continue to encourage your child to get in the habit of doing this daily. In fact, it can be a very nice time to take 10 minutes to catch up and to reinforce priorities. Remember: fun is a priority that belongs on the list as well.

Just Say No. Signing up to be a cheerleader, playing volleyball and starring in the school musical sounds exciting–but too many activities are sure to lead to a frenetic schedule for both children and parents. Parents and children alike need to be willing to say “no” to certain activities, so they can preserve precious time to be together. It may be wise to make a rule to be involved with only one or two after school activities per season.  Then sit back and enjoy your time together with activities you both enjoy.

Have Fun. Being a kid means having fun and enjoying life–plus learning to be organized and manage time. If your child gets overwhelmed or worked up over all of the activities they have going on, the activities can stop being fun. In a recent survey conducted by the Associated Press and MTV, nearly 75 percent of young people say their relationship with their parents makes them happy. After that, their relationship with friends was mentioned most. When you model a sane, organized schedule and match your time to your priorities, you teach them how much fun time management can be and how happy you can be as a result.

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DayTimers Community productivity expert and author, Laura Stack, offers easy-to-achieve tips to help families succeed at making and keeping back to school resolutions.

Back-to-the-Future. The first step in moving forward with back-to-school resolutions is to take a look back. What were the situations from the previous school year that could use improvement? Did your child often miss the bus? Did they have a hard time making the honor roll or even passing grades? Was everyone too busy to sit down for dinner together? Once you figure out what areas need improvement, it will help set goals for the upcoming year.

Talk to your children. Whether your school-age children are in elementary school or high school, talk to them about areas they would like to see change, both personally and within the family. Their insight into what areas need improvement may differ from their parents.  Discussing the differing goals will help to bring every person in the family on the same page.  Buy-in on goals from all members of the family encourages success.

Small steps. Having a student go from straight C’s to straight A’s may be asking too much. The same is true for wanting to have a family who never eats dinner together suddenly sit down at the table five nights a week. Success comes from breaking each resolution into small but achievable steps. Set up weekly goals for each person in the family in order to overcome barriers and create small achievements. Adding steps each week will insure a slow incremental achievement of the main goal.

Make a plan. Assess each resolution and make a list of what changes need to come in to play to have a successful outcome. A child who has not been known for good grades may need to have a tutor. In order to help avoid detention for being tardy, have a back-up plan for your student to take responsibility for making their lunch and setting out their clothing the night before. Move dinner back to 6:30 instead of 5:30 to make sure everyone is able to be there. Having a list of solutions for the resolutions gives everyone a roadmap about how they will reach success.

Coordinate. One of the main challenges with having family resolutions is time. While one parent is working late, another may be taking one of the kids to soccer practice, while the oldest child is at band rehearsal. Posting a calendar with weekly schedules for each person in the household will help everyone keep track of everyone else. This can help the children to know that the parents have early meetings on certain days; so being on time to the bus is a necessity. And parents can keep track of when and where the children’s extracurricular activities are taking place. It is also beneficial to provide each person in the family with a DayTimer planner. This will help keep the kids responsible for their own time and keep everyone organized.

Smile.  Stay light-hearted about the changes.  You can always start over at anytime.  And don’t forget, there’s another chance to create resolutions coming right around the corner.

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With all of the tips and tricks that we’ve discussed in this blog (including tons of great reader suggestions), we’ve all hopefully learned HOW to be more productive, personally and professionally—but have we BECOME more productive?

I’ve come up with a few questions that you can ask yourself to see where you stand.  Of course, there’s always room for improvement, so if you don’t like all of your answers you can always browse the archives of my newsletters for some inspiration.

Are you productive — or just busy?  Watch out for this one, because it’s an easy trap to fall into.  Everybody likes to look busy.  Some workers make a career out of it while actually accomplishing very little in the average day.  People zoom around the office, guzzling coffee and stomping back and forth to the copier; they scatter paper across every inch of their desks; and they furiously clack away at their keyboards while they talk on the phone.  Busy, busy, busy!

But having lots of plates spinning at once doesn’t necessarily mean anything was accomplished.  We all know what it’s like to have a really busy day, but still feel like we’ve accomplished very little and were unproductive all day.

Set your sights on realistic, attainable goals and work towards them.  You’ll still be redirected by everyday interruptions and the inevitable fires that must be put out, but a plan will help you get back on track.

Do you plan your day?  This goes beyond just keeping track of your meetings and jotting down deadlines.  Planning your time is about keeping track of your projects and long-term goals and managing your priorities.  If all you have is a daily to-do list and never look ahead, it is very easy to spend your day reacting to low-priority tasks without even realizing it.  Sure, you’ll probably go to each of your meetings and cross off a few items on your list, but this is no guarantee that you are maximizing your productivity, making sure your daily activities are contributing toward your long-term objectives.

Take a few minutes each day to invest in planning.  This means double-checking to make sure that every meeting you attend is a good use of your time (if you have control over this sort of thing) and that your to-do list not only tells you what you want to get done, but offers some level of priority for each item.  You accomplish things in order of priority and spend some time on tasks that aren’t due in the next few days.

In the heat of the moment, it is easy to decide to spend time on a low-priority task, just because it is easy, fun, or low-stress.  After all, if you complete an easy task, you’ll be able to scratch an item off of your list right away!  We all know what a good feeling that is, but resist the temptation.  If you do the most unattractive but highest value task on your list first, you’ll feel better about the entire day.

Do you have goals?  Are you moving toward them?  Generally our biggest goals, professionally and personally, are the things that we care most about in the world.  They represent our career ambitions.  Or our goals for our families.  Or our goals for ourselves.  If somebody asked you about them, you would probably agree that your big goals in life are your highest priorities.

Then why is it is so easy to neglect them?  Our next promotion, our relationships with our kids, our physical fitness—whatever it is that matters most—so often gets pushed to the back-burner in favor of things that aren’t nearly as important.  It is too easy for unimportant work to steal family time, for office frustrations to make you lose sight of career ambitions, or for exercise to be that one thing on the list that always gets pushed to the side.

If the last few paragraphs seem all-too-true to you, you might consider grabbing a piece of paper and writing down your goals for the next month, six months, and year.  Then post your goals where they can act as a constant reminder of your true priorities.  That might be your computer monitor at work or your bathroom mirror at home.  Just make sure that you make your goals clear and post them with pride. 

In a blog posting, I asked “How do you know if you’ve been productive?”  Here are what six readers had to say:

1.  Dear Laura, Productivity means that I am able to work, to network, and to accomplish the goals set by my boss and not feel any undue stress in the process. I feel very goal oriented and goal focused on productivity days. My sense of accomplishment is an elated feeling that carries me into the next day of work. Carol V.

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2.  When I know what needs to get done and I get all of the "tasks" done that are important to me. Mark K.

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3.  Dear Laura, A good day is when "all four burners are firing" and a bad day is when "I’m spinning my wheels." When you’re having a good day, things don’t take as long as you expect. You have the info at hand. The work flow makes sense and you have all the reports from subordinates. The decision is obvious and the words flow clearly and succinctly. You walk away feeling great and that you’ve gotten two days work done. "Spinning your wheels" involves waiting for permission and "CYA" activities, being told to do things with people who aren’t here, a mental lapse that makes things hard that you know perfectly well you can do. Everything takes twice as long as it should and you’re never going to get done. Everything is frustrating and difficult. I find when I’m really in the grip of such a day; the best thing to do is clean out my pencil drawer. Doing something mindless and finite gives me a chance to stop and refocus without feeling like I’m just sitting around. Going on break doesn’t have the same effect because you’re still worrying about the problems. Sharon P.

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4.  I feel that I am being PRODUCTIVE when I am tackling those big, important projects that are moving my business forward and bringing in results. I feel like I am ORGANIZED when the house is running smoothly, I’m on top of the ticky-tacky daily paperwork, appointments are kept, errands are run, bills are paid on time, the bank statements are balanced, etc. I very seldom feel that I am both productive and organized at the same time – usually it is one or the other and that is why I am reading your books and newsletter. For once, I am trying to get it all done and done well. Sandi D.

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5.  Productivity means…having done everything I meant to do yesterday, keeping in control of today, and actively preparing for tomorrow. This kind of productivity is measurable simply in terms of comparing actions taken against goals set – how close are we to meeting a goal, how long did it take us to get there, did we get there in time? Understanding my capabilities day to day is key to setting the right goals; working hard and smart is key to meeting them. It’s counter-productive to allow myself to get despondent if I don’t meet every daily goal but acknowledging a missed goal or an unproductive period is part of designing a more realistic goal or working smarter today. I think that I achieve optimum productivity on those days/weeks/months when I’ve really taken time to analyze my daily capabilities and then used this knowledge to set realistic goals (‘realistic’ isn’t a code word for ‘easy’ – these goals can be ambitious and really stretch me/my reports/my colleagues/my company but I have to be sure that we’re all capable of at least getting close otherwise I’m wasting everyone’s time and missing another opportunity by focusing on an unachievable one). Loving the email newsletters – thank you for your continuing inspiration. Mary Ann L.

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6.  Productivity means accomplishing your goals; tasks; etc. in a timely manner. This is a consistent performing activity. You have organized your To-Do’s; planned your day; etc. The rewards of productivity are: 1. Stress-free feeling 2. A clean desk 3. Guilt-free pursuit of quality time activities (what is "special" for you). 4. A sense of accomplishment. Lou S.

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What did all these comments have in common about how to be productive?  I’ve learned that productivity, in its most meaningful sense, is all about reaching high-value goals, in every area of your life, often in the shortest amount of time (but not always, such as spending time with loved ones).  It isn’t about scratching a bunch of stuff that doesn’t matter off a to-do list.  Time management techniques, electronic/paper planners and other productivity aides are just TOOLS.  They are only as useful as what they help you accomplish.  Make sure that your biggest, most important goals create the context for the other things you do throughout the days, weeks, and months.

www.TheProductivityPro.com

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Have you ever had a day that had so many things go wrong, that it eventually started to be downright funny?  Your toast burned.  Irritating.  Your seven-year-old couldn’t find his other shoe, making him ten minutes late for school and you late for work.  Irritating.  You dropped your briefcase, and the quarterly reports you printed for this morning’s meeting fell in a mud puddle.  Irritating.  At lunch with a new client, you shake the mustard bottle, the cap comes off, and a big glop of mustard flies right into the middle of your forehead.  Hilarious!  This is the stuff comedies are made of!  Your entire morning is fodder for a sitcom. 

I was giving a seminar at an environmental engineering firm and was told a story of an engineer supervising the building of a wind monitoring tower for a study involving wind turbines.  Something went very wrong, and the 130-foot tower began to crumble the second it was completely upright.  While the engineer yelled expletives, one of his co-workers stood right beside him laughing his head off.  The frustrated engineer looked at his co-worker in amazement.  The co-worker said, “Sometimes, all you can do is laugh!”  The engineer immediately saw his point and started laughing, too.  He knew the next step was simply to start all over again, regardless of his attitude.  So he could either wear himself out by continuing to yell expletives or make the best of it by enjoying a much-needed laugh. 

Whether you laugh or complain, you will not change the situation.  Complaining will make you feel irritable, depressed, drain your energy, and make others not want to be around you.  Laughing will improve your attitude, boost your spirits, and lower your stress.  Living by the old saying, “Laughter is the best medicine!” is a real productivity tool.

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With my thanks for the laugh to Golden Jokes for this great joke on tracking wasted time on a time sheet:

Dear Staff,

In an effort to maximize productivity in our department I will be implementing a tool used in many industries. You will be tracking your time working on certain activities and sending me a time sheet weekly showing me how your time has been spent.

Attached below is a sheet specifying a job code list based on some observations of employee activities. Please begin using this job code list immediately and let me know about any difficulties you encounter.

Thank you.
Your boss.

Code
Number Explanation
5316 Useless Meeting
5317 Obstructing Communications at Meeting
5318 Trying to Sound Knowledgeable While in a Meeting
5319 Waiting for Break
5320 Waiting for Lunch
5321 Waiting for End of Day
5322 Vicious Verbal Attacks Directed at Coworker
5323 Vicious Verbal Attacks Directed at Coworker While Coworker is Not Present
5393 Covering for Incompetence of Coworker Friend
5394 Blaming Incompetence of Coworker Who is Not a Friend
5400 Trying to Explain Concept to Coworker Who is Not Interested in Learning
5401 Trying to Explain Concept to CoworkerWho is Stupid
5402 Trying to Explain Concept to Coworker Who Hates You
5481 Buying Snack
5482 Eating Snack
5500 Filling Out Timesheet
5501 Inventing Timesheet Entries
5502 Waiting for Something to Happen
5503 Scratching Yourself
5504 Sleeping
5510 Feeling Bored
5600 Complaining About Lousy Job
5601 Complaining About Low Pay
5602 Complaining About Long Hours
5603 Complaining About Coworker (See Codes 5322 & 5323)
5604 Complaining About Boss
5605 Complaining About Personal Problems
5640 Miscellaneous Unproductive Complaining
5701 Not Actually Present At Job
5702 Suffering From Eight-Hour Flu
6102 Ordering Out
6103 Waiting for Food Delivery to Arrive
6104 Taking It Easy While Digesting Food
6200 Using Company Resources for Personal Profit
6201 Stealing Company Goods
6202 Making Excuses After Accidentally Destroying Company Files
6203 Using Company Phone to Make Long-Distance Personal Calls
6204 Using Company Phone to Make Long-Distance Personal Calls to Sell Stolen Company Goods
6205 Hiding from Boss
6206 Gossip
6207 Planning a Social Event (e.g. vacation, wedding,etc.)
6210 Feeling Sorry For Yourself
6211 Updating Resume
6212 Faxing Resume to Another Employer/Headhunter
6213 Out of Office on Interview
6221 Pretending to Work While Boss Is Watching
6222 Pretending to Enjoy Your Job
6223 Pretending You Like Coworker
6224 Pretending You Like Important People When in Reality They are Jerks
6238 Miscellaneous Unproductive Fantasizing
6350 Playing Pranks on the New Guy/Girl
6601 Running your own Business on Company Time (See Code 6603)
6602 Complaining
6603 Writing a Book on Company Time
6611 Staring Into Space
6612 Staring At Computer Screen
6615 Transcendental Meditation
7281 Extended Visit to the Bathroom (over 10 minutes)
7400 Talking With Divorce Lawyer on Phone
7401 Talking With Plumber on Phone
7402 Talking With Dentist on Phone
7403 Talking With Doctor on Phone
7404 Talking With Masseuse on Phone
7405 Talking With House Painter on Phone
7406 Talking With Personal Therapist on Phone
7419 Talking With Miscellaneous Paid Professionals on Phone
7931 Asking Coworker to Aid You in an Illicit Activity
8000 Recreational Drug Use
8001 Non-recreational Drug Use
8002 Liquid Lunch
8101 Surfing Vacation Sites on the Internet
8102 Surfing Porn Sites on the Internet
8103 Surfing Humor Sites on the Internet
8200 Reading e-mail
8201 Distributing humorous e-mails

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An article in last week’s BusinessWeek magazine made me laugh out loud.  In an online study conducted from June 28 to July 5, 2007, BusinessWeek asked 2,000 Americans in middle management and above, 25 years and older, "Are you one of the Top 10% of performers in your company?  The amazing result?  A whopping 90 percent of managers think they are in the top 10 percent of performers at their workplace.  97% of executives, 91% of males, and 89% of females said yes.  Hello?  Can you say "denial"?

Obviously these ostriches have their heads in the sand.  While I laud confidence and a positive attitude, most of these people are statistically wrong.  So how would you KNOW if you were one of the top 10 percent of performers in your company?  What is the value of your contribution?  Leaders—you can’t manage what you can’t measure.  What are the critical success factors in your organization for each position and for the company as a whole?  What methods are in place to measure your peers on those factors across the company?  A little competition in the workplace between managers, salespeople, etc., can be healthy and will really show who’s producing in key areas (not just occupying space and staying "busy").  What are you really contributing to your company?

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