While working with Teresa Gavigan, one of my clients, on her office organization, we talked about the challenge she was having with an overly booked calendar and what to do about it.She had recently taken over another entire division and was splitting her time between the two groups, which were in two different buildings.She had ceded her calendar over to her assistant but hadn’t set any boundaries around what meetings to accept and what to decline.Her assistant was accepting meetings tentatively, which resulted in Teresa often being double and triple booked.She told me she frequently felt like she was “having a Lucy Ricardo moment” as she dashed over to one meeting, then over to the next, then back to the other, never wanting to let one or the other down.
After months of running around harried, she decided that was enough, she was the boss, and she didn’t have to be everywhere and be available at everyone’s beck and call.She decided to reduce the number of meetings she attended by delegating attendance at some and declining others.She scheduled a regular staff meeting every other week with one group not to exceed one hour and a monthly conference call with the second.To make up for the reduced group meeting time, she schedules monthly meeting with each of her direct reports to discuss planning items.All staff members can email or phone her with more immediate concerns.Additionally, she has a 30-minute “innovation” meeting once a month to discuss a specific topic of future interest to the organization that everyone comes prepared to discuss.With the boundaries she’s placed on her schedule, the regularly scheduled staff meetings and individual meetings, she feels much more in control and less like a “Lucy.”What have you done to regain control of your availability?
Do you own your possessions, or do your possessions own you? It’s easy to get overwhelmed by all the stuff you’ve accumulated — everything from toys and clothing, to tools and all the stuff you regularly use that still counts as clutter. If you’re tired of all your stuff weighing you down, here are some ideas that may help you regain control.
1. Have a systematic plan to get and stay organized. The key to getting organized is FOCUS. Focus on getting one thing completed before moving to the next area. Act like a postage stamp: stick to one thing until you get there.
2. Eliminate clutter and resist adding more. Don’t let your belongings control you. For a start, get rid of unhappy reminders from the past, stop keeping old magazines and newspapers, and don’t buy things just because they’re on sale.
3. Keep your briefcase, tote, or purse organized and clutter-free. Don’t carry stuff around just because you might need it someday: all you’ll end up with is a cluttered mess and a backache. Carry only what you need on a daily basis, keep everything tucked into its own slot, and always put things back after using them.
4. Maintain clutter-free drawers and closets. Don’t just toss things in drawers and forget them. Make liberal use of file folders, trays, and dividers, and use baby food jars as handy paperclip holders and junk catchers. Closets should be subjected to a thorough cleaning at least twice a year.
5. Organize memorabilia such as photos and keepsakes. Before taking the time to organize an item, determine if it’s something you should be keeping in the first place. Don’t keep stuff that doesn’t have any specific meaning or use to you.
6. Keep kids’ toys, clothes, and books organized. Any family with children inevitably fights the battle of the messy monster. Having toys, clothes, and books around is inevitable, but clutter is not. Keep what’s used, and get rid of the rest.
7. Set up and maintain your kitchen in an organized fashion. We spend so much time in the kitchen putting groceries away, preparing meals, and doing dishes, it’s important to maintain an organized space. Be picky about what you keep, and always have frequently-used items close at hand.
8. Keep your car organized and clean. You don’t want to have a two-ton trashcan on wheels. Organize the clutter that stays in the car, and never let anyone get out empty-handed — make sure your trash leaves the car whenever you do.
9. Set up an effective "office" space in your home. A home office isn’t a luxury these days; it’s just about a requirement. Offices can serve as the family computer center, a place to do paperwork, and the occasional work-at-home office.
10. Keep your house neat, and tidy up daily. Cleaning up doesn’t require anything fancy. Just make sure everything’s in or near when it should be, and regularly put things away so it’s easier to maintain a peaceful, productive frame of mind.
If owning too much is a problem for you, get serious about de-cluttering your life. Otherwise all the clutter will weigh you down, putting pressure on your other pillars of productivity. Start organizing and thinning out your possessions a little bit at a time, and eventually you’ll get there. You’ll be amazed at how good you feel, and how much easier life will be, when all the junk’s gone!
We’ve all been there. There’s mail piled up on the corner of your desk. You have 37 unread e-mails. The phone is ringing (not that phone – the other phone). And you’ll be lucky if you can get through three of the fifteen items on your to-do list.
Oh – and you have four hours of meetings ahead of you.
It didn’t used to be this way. The world has changed in the last decade or so. Has your approach to time management changed with it?
If you find yourself stressed out and frustrated every time you try to hunker down and take control of your time, there’s a good chance that’s because you need a new way to think about time management. Don’t fall into the trap of trying to force yourself to work within a system that just isn’t compatible with the pace of your day or the nature of your work. Just like electronic organizers are perfect for some and others swear by paper planners, even the best time management system will fail if it doesn’t jive with the way you get through each day.
If you’re looking for a productivity system that is compatible with real life, consider 4-A Time Management. By focusing on four key elements of productivity you can create a flexible, customized productivity strategy that is compatible with the fast paced demands of today.
Activity. When there are 117 things that could be done next, how are we supposed to prioritize? In this new era of productivity, it is pretty much impossible to successfully schedule your day in advance. You might set out a clear list of objectives and a bulletproof timetable, but we all know that one unexpected phone call can cause the whole plan to collapse in on itself – priorities change, a crisis pops up, a deadline is moved up a week; these things happen.
Since you can’t plan for everything, it is important that you have a crystal clear understanding of what your priorities are. If something happens that is beyond your control and these priorities need to be adjusted – fine – but until then, you should have a game plan.
Evaluate your to-do list to see which tasks will yield the greatest benefit. The old A-B-C method probably won’t work if the flow of your day changes often. You need a new method of deciding where to spend your valuable time.
Think about the average amount of time that you can work uninterrupted. Which of your tasks will benefit most from that undivided attention? Which require a lot more or much less? Make a plan to work on the bigger, more time-intensive projects when you know you’re least likely to be disturbed. Save the little ones for those windows between meetings and phone calls when you won’t get much else done.
If one of your important projects is just too intimidating for you to ever make any headway, break it down into smaller, manageable steps. I guarantee that nine times out of ten, once you get started you’ll forget why you put it off for so long to begin with.
Availability. The best laid plans won’t stand a chance if you don’t find a way to control your availability. Your time is your most valuable asset. Don’t just give it away to anyone who asks! You’ll never have complete control over your availability, but it’s important to know how to carve out blocks of distraction-free time that is conducive to productivity.
Meetings are notorious for eating up massive blocks of time. Learn to say “no.” It’s pretty likely that you don’t need to be at all of the meetings that you’re attending. Can you send someone in your place? Ask for the minutes to be forwarded? Address the situation with a quick phone call? Evaluate whether the meetings you attend are really necessary.
When you’re not in those meetings, schedule time to work. In some jobs this is easier to do than others. It might just be a matter of shutting your office door and setting your phone to voicemail. Or working from home or heading to Starbucks with your laptop. You might need a clear signal for your co-workers, like using a do-not-disturb sign or putting on head phones when you need to work uninterrupted.
Whatever your solution – don’t abuse it. If you try to make yourself constantly unavailable, you will quickly find that others lose respect for your “I’m busy” signal.
Then you’re right back where you started, whether you’re up against an important deadline or not.
Accessibility. You’ve already decided that you aren’t going to give everyone around constant access to your time. The next step is to make sure that you have easy access to the information, tools, and resources you need to be productive.
Invest the time necessary to make sure the things you need on a regular basis are at your fingertips. Things you access frequently should be filed on your desktop in an organizer or in a drawer that’s at arm’s reach. Put the files you only use occasionally where they are accessible at your desk, but give the easiest access to those things that you reference regularly. Archive files you rarely need in the bottom drawers or in files away from your desk.
Perhaps the most important and overlooked thing you can do to get organized is to structure your electronic files. In an age where most files are electronic, it’s easy to lose them to the vacuum of cyber storage. File electronic documents similar to the way you would paper ones. Don’t just plop everything in “My Documents” or on your desktop and leave it for lost. Set up folders and sub folders that have intuitive titles that you’ll easily navigate. Use dates and enough detail in file names that you won’t have to open multiple documents when you’re looking for something specific. In short, do the initial work of saving the files in an organized manner to make referencing them an easy task.
Stopping to hunt for what you need not only wastes time, but it destroys your rhythm and forces you to break your concentration. It’s well worth it to organize as you go.
Attention. The most effective time management system in the world won’t do a thing to improve your productivity if you don’t focus on the task at hand. For many of us, the problem isn’t a lack of willpower; it’s having the restraint to refuse distractions.
This means closing Outlook when you’re not working on e-mail and trying to check it only a few times a day. Resist the urge to open messages as they come in. This also means letting the voicemail light stay on until you’ve finished what you’re doing. Treat your project time like an appointment with a coworker. Ignore the phone, the e-mail, and the urge to go get a cup of coffee.
Of course, avoiding email and the phone might be much easier than avoiding the distractions that come from coworkers. If you’ve already put your “do not disturb” signal in place, be it headphones or a closed office door, and you’re still being interrupted, it’s time to tactfully redirect the person distracting you.
Acknowledge the issue and let them know you’re in the thick of an important project. Ask if you may give them a call in an hour when they may have your undivided attention.
Just remember – it’s better to be like a postage stamp and stick with something all the way to the end than it is to be a butterfly that flits from task to task!
So forget managing your time – it can’t be managed. Manage yourself with these 4 A’s and you’ll increase the likelihood you’ll have a productive day.
Have you ever considered that your biggest obstacle to finding more time might be YOU? The way you react to the world may be the reason you stay overwhelmed. To fix this you need to look at your behavior, habits, and choices, and then figure out which ones to adjust in order to support your desired direction in life. Here are a few tips that can help you do just that.
1. Control perfectionism. Realize that some things are good enough as they are. Instead of worrying about making things perfect, learn to leave well enough alone. Obsessing over small details can be deadly to your productivity.
2. Refuse requests when appropriate. You don’t have to say "yes" to everything, whether that involves accepting extra work or baking brownies for a kid’s party. Set boundaries about what you’ll accept, and learn to say no to yourself, too.
3. Ask for help you need it. You’re not a superhero; you can’t do everything alone. Surround yourself with a team of helpers, and don’t be afraid to delegate things that other people can do.
4. Avoid procrastinating. You know what you should be doing, so get out there and do it. If you put it off until tomorrow, you’ll just end up working harder at the last minute — and both your energy and quality of work will suffer.
5. Know and honor your energy levels throughout the day. Nobody has an unlimited supply of energy, so you’ll have to learn how your personal energy levels ebb and flow in order to get through the day effectively.
6. Communicate clearly to avoid confusion and rework. Good interpersonal communication will help you reduce unnecessary problems and wasted time. Share information, state your expectations up front, and be specific.
7. Consistently meet and usually beat deadlines. If you get things done on time — or preferably early — you’ll save yourself unnecessary stress, and your work will generally be of higher quality than if you waited until the last minute.
8. Focus on completing one task before getting distracted by another. When you turn your full attention to a task, your output is increased, you perform better, less rework is required, and your peace of mind is enhanced.
9. Maintain a positive attitude. Accept the responsibility for your own stress levels. While you can’t control everything, you can look for the good in every experience, and learn to avoid "stinking thinking" in all its many forms.
10. Stop trying to please all the people all of the time. Stop caring so much about what other people think. Being a people-pleaser is a debilitating pattern of behavior that can cause stress and ruin the productive pursuit of your own goals. As singer Ricky Nelson once pointed out, "You can’t please everyone, so you have to please yourself."
So take charge of your life. Learn to focus, stop beating around the bush, and don’t be too proud to ask for and accept help if you need it. Most of all, kick the guilt habit. Guilt is a junk emotion that keeps you from unlocking your true potential. Stop "shoulding" on yourself, and get on with your life!
Without a plan, life just sort of happens to you. But with a plan, you’ll make sure your daily activities support what you want to create next week, next month, next year…until, at the end of your days, your activities have contributed to creating and living a successful life. Your plans should be purposeful, so your life moves in the direction you desire, based on your ideal vision for yourself. These tips can help you get there.
1. Have a personal mission statement for your life. You need an essential, written document that helps you make decisions about the way you spend your time and evaluate your choices. This is who you are, and what you’re all about.
2. Maintain a list of your life’s goals and dreams. Take each dream and phrase it in the form of an objective statement — and then make plans for its accomplishment, sooner rather than later.
3. Try to gain flexibility at work. Determine how the business of life and the game of work are going to fit together. Strive to create a lifestyle that’s flexible, one in which your personal life works with your job and your job works with your life.
4. Keep effective to-do lists. Set everything down on paper (or on your computer screen) so things don’t slip through the cracks.
5. Break larger projects into smaller ones. Big projects tend to get thrown over in favor of the little ones that are quickly done. To avoid leaving something on your list for months, break it into single steps that are easily accomplished.
6. Prepare for the next day the night before. It’s easier to put together a plan early on and then execute it when the time comes, rather than create it from scratch right when you need it.
7. Plan for chaotic transitional periods during the day. Expect transitional times (such as from workday to evening) to take a little more effort than you expect. You can control the confusion, however, if you have a checklist to follow.
8. Prevent crises by preparing well in advance. You can’t plan for everything, but there’s a difference between a true emergency and a "crisis" created because you didn’t do something before it was due. You’ll be amazed at the level of calm you experience when you get things done before you need them.
9. Embrace flexibility and weather change. Things will change — get used to it. There’s no going back to the "good old days." In a storm, it’s the trees than can bend who survive; the stiff ones break. Whatever you face, this too shall pass.
10. Continuously work to improve your efficiency and effectiveness. Don’t expect to regain control of your time all at once! It takes effort and practice to get it right. The secret is to take it inch by inch, step by step.
The lesson here is to approach your life with a sense of structure. While you’ll never be able to plan for everything, you should have systems on hand to help you create order from chaos when it occurs. You should also have a clear plan for your life’s goals and dreams, so you’ll be able to work toward them and accomplish them sooner. When you plan, you wake up each day with your marching orders. All you have to do is march!
Hectic work schedules have probably ruined more Valentine Day celebrations than we care to think about. It is easy to schedule business dinners for February 14th without a second thought…until the day before…when it finally hits us. More so than expensive jewelry or chocolates, many people are satisfied with having the undivided attention of a loved one for the evening. Laura Stack, Day-Timers Expert on Productivity and author of Leave the Office Earlier, has these tips to help you create an unforgettable Valentine’s Day.
1. Plan before you leave work. Double-check your planner and organize activities for the next day before you leave the office on Valentine’s Day. Getting tomorrow’s tasks out of your head and on to paper will help you leave work at work, so that you can be fully present with your significant other on this important night.
2. Make any last-minute essential calls on the way home. Make it your goal to complete your work by the time you arrive to meet your Valentine. While you’re on your way home, finish any leftover “business” conversations. When you see your loved one in person, you will be ready to focus on the romance. If you make a call list before leaving the office, it will help ensure you don’t forget anyone.
3. Get a babysitter. If you have children, and your goal is to give extra attention to your loved one, this is not the evening to let the children tag along. Even if you are not the one who usually makes these arrangements, surprise your loved one by taking the initiative and booking a sitter yourself. This is a busy night for babysitters, so plan ahead by booking at least a week in advance.
4. Find something that relaxes both of you. Since Valentine’s Day falls on a weekday, by the time you are finally together, you will each have dealt with the pressures of work. So find a way to relax before your special ‘date’ to decompress. Draw a nice bath for two or get a couples’ massage. That can set the stage for a perfect Valentine’s night.
5. Be present. If you spend the evening in, avoid the tendency to multi-task at home. Some people don’t feel productive when they’re not doing four things at once, but all of your attention should be directed to your Valentine.
6. Turn off the phone. One thing that is sure to ruin the mood on Valentine’s night is a ringing cell phone, especially if the caller ID shows it is a colleague, leaving you curious and distracted. Make it easy on everyone and turn the phone off for the whole night. Your Valentine will love you for it.
Discipline is your ability to maintain consistent, productive behavior. To maximize your productivity, you need to learn to do what must be done, and to exercise restraint over your own impulses, emotions, and desires. If you’re self-disciplined, you exhibit consistent focus in your daily work — even when you don’t feel like it. Try these tactics to keep you on track during the day.
1. Know your natural energy cycle and work effectively during peak times. We all have a natural time during the day when we feel up (prime time) and a natural time when we feel down (down time). Knowing both your prime and down times and knowing how to handle them is an important productivity enhancer.
2. Control perfectionism. Realize that some things are good enough as they are. If you suffer from the disease of perfectionism, things may never get done to your satisfaction, so learn to be flexible.
3. Avoid procrastination. Don’t put things off, or wait until the last minute to do them. Otherwise you’ll always have a sense of impending doom hanging over your head, and will end up operating in permanent crisis mode.
4. Force yourself to slow down when necessary. Realize that speed can be counterproductive; some tasks need to be done slowly in order to be done properly. As the saying goes, the only person who ever had his work done by Friday was Robinson Crusoe!
5. Determine on your own what you will accomplish each day. Don’t allow others to dictate your schedule, insofar as this is possible. Set rules about the things you choose to do, and the people you choose to interact with.
6. Work productively from your home office and avoid distractions. Working at home comes with its own set of distractions. Be aware of your personal weaknesses, and create rules about what you may and may not do during the day.
7. Handle common, routine tasks on a daily basis so things don’t pile up. Practice clutter control. Taking care of common tasks every day — especially those you don’t really enjoy — will keep them from getting out of hand.
8. Arrive at appointments and meetings on time. In fact, try to be early on a consistent basis. Instead of annoying people with your lateness, reap the benefits of arriving before everyone else.
9. Avoid workaholism. Try not to work more than 40 hours per week, and don’t take work home with you, on vacation, or to bed. It’s fine to be a conscientious employee, but don’t be compulsive about it.
10. Work hard, and "put your nose to the grindstone" every day. It’s not necessary to work ten or twelve hour days, but you should work hard the eight hours you’re in the office.
Strive for the self-control and confidence gained when you enforce your own rules. It may be a pain, but in the end, it gets the job done. Following these tips will help you complete your high priority tasks, without getting sidelined by menial or trivial activities.
Preparation relates to how well you’ve planned and laid the foundations for your daily activities. The goals you set will focus those activities and provide direction for your life. An established direction, outlined with purposeful thought, ensures your life won’t be governed by whim. These tips will help you set a direction and stick to it.
1. Abide by a personal mission statement for your life. Much like a corporate mission statement, your personal mission statement defines who you are, what you’re all about, and why you’re on this earth.
2. Track your long-term goals and aspirations. Future goals will give you a sense of purpose. It’s not enough to set your mind to something; you must also plan your time around your goals. With them in mind, you can start logically preparing, instead of just letting things take care of themselves.
3. Create high-quality performance objectives. The greatest enemy of any plan is a lack of action. Goals become just wishful thinking unless you further define them as objectives with specific measurements, and act upon them.
4. Define your specific job responsibilities and related tasks. In order to create effective work objectives, you need to know where you’re expected to invest your time, energy, talents, and company resources. This allows you to schedule your day and prioritize your tasks in a meaningful way.
5. Maintain a list of projects to accomplish. When you’re ready to move an objective into the present and work on it, it’s time to create a project plan. Break larger projects down into concrete steps that you can accomplish one at a time.
6. Conduct weekly, monthly, and yearly reviews of your plans. Regularly reviewing your objectives is the most important aspect of time management; in fact, it’s the foundation of creating the best use of your time each day.
7. Track your tasks, projects, and appointments effectively. Whatever time management system you use, it has to satisfy the "HUG" criterion: it needs to be handy, usable, and garbage-free.
8. Create and prioritize your "to-do" list each day. Once you’ve put together a reasonable to-do list, try to identify the 20% of your activities and behaviors that are the most important to productivity, and concentrate on improving those.
9. Schedule your day realistically. Effective daily planning lets you realize more of your expectations and reduce your personal stress levels. Manage your day successfully, and consistently complete what you’ve planned.
10. Determine the best channel of communication to convey your message prior to sending it. For any given purpose, one medium will be more effective than another. Learn when it’s better to email than to phone, and vice-versa.
Productive people devote a great deal of thought and time to planning their life goals. When you start with your personal mission statement in front of you as a guide, create personal and professional long-term goals, break them down into short-term objectives, create monthly plans, and then daily activities, you have direction and focus. Bottom line: you achieve your long-term objectives by focusing on today.
