Time Management

Work smarter, not harder.

1. Plan ahead. When you have a meeting, conference call or need to start a new project be prepared. Have all the notes, documents, files and resources you need handy so you can get started and work effectively. Planning ahead will no doubt save time later on.
2. Match your project with the clock. Increase your productivity by recognizing the best time for you to work on each task. If you're slower after lunch, schedule the most important things in the morning. If your eyes aren't fully open until 10am, don't schedule meetings at 8:00. Everyone has a peak time to physically and mentally be more effective. Utilize your peak time for big jobs and use the other times for less critical tasks.
3. Do you really need more? Stop and think about how many new things enter your life each day, whether it's something you buy, are given or just falls into your lap. Ask yourself it you really need the item. If you find that you collect things in hopes of using it...someday, you probably really don't need it. For every new thing you receive, try to eliminate something old.
4. Handle papers once. If you find yourself shuffling through papers and mail and setting it aside for later, this is a good rule for you. Make a decision about the paper at hand and act on it now. If it's not something you need to act on now, then toss it. If it needs immediate action, do it now or delegate! Indecision leads to clutter that you'll have to deal with again later.
5. Store supplies you use often close by. Make the most of how you use your workspace. Keep everything you use frequently in a convenient, easy-to-access location. If you see something on or near your desk and you can't remember the last time you used it, something more important could be better positioned in its place.
6. You can't read everything. With resources like the Internet and libraries, there's no need to keep receiving publications you set aside each month in hopes of reading later. Set up a folder for the most important items to read and stick to it. If you can't find the time, time to end the subscription!
7. Make lists. Use your planner or a software program to keep track of your to-dos. Don't leave files out as reminders.
8. Smaller parts make the whole. If you just don't know where to start, look at your project as several smaller parts. Big, daunting projects become easier to manage and complete when you accomplish smaller goals along the way.
9. Eliminate stuff. Reconsider what you really need to keep. Can you toss your old seminar booklets, industry publications, or files from years past? Ask yourself how important is it and what would happen if you disposed of it. Often we keep things for security, but getting rid of things helps save time and decisions about what to do with it later on.
10. Improve your skills. In the midst of busy, productive days, sometimes we forget to continue to make an effort to improve our skills. Take a class, attend a seminar, or learn a new computer program. Remember to take time and make the investment in yourself.
11. Adding filing cabinets is not always better. Instead of adding filing space, reevaluate what and how you file. Save more files on your computer, and before you put it in cabinet, go through a project file to discard everything but the key documents. You'll find that becoming more organized will reduce the need, and expense, of adding more storage space.
12. Work only on the project at hand. It's easy to be tempted to start on something new when you're distracted or interrupted. Resist the temptation and stick with what you originally intended to do. Stay focused because it usually takes less time and energy to complete the project at hand than pick up where you left off. If you have no choice but to stop, be sure to make a quick note to remind yourself how to continue.
13. Delegate, delegate, delegate. Sometimes it's hard to hand your work over to others. However, if you use the right skills, you'll help yourself and others become more productive. Recognize your own strengths and those of others. Clearly communicate your goals. Realize that delegating creates synergy, which often gives the final result additional benefits.
14. Keep your files clear. Filing does have its purpose, so be sure your files are easy to use when you need to retrieve them. That means using appropriate labels, not over-stuffing them with papers and using a clear system to organize them, whether it's by date, project or alphabetically. Leave a few inches in each drawer to allow for additional papers or files you may add later.

Thirteen Timely Tips for More Effective Personal Time Management

1. Spend time planning and organizing. Using time to think and plan is time well-spent. In fact, if you fail to take time for planning, you are, in effect, planning to fail. Organize in a way that makes sense to you. If you need color and pictures, use a lot on your calendar or planning book. Some people need to have papers filed away; others get their creative energy from their piles. So forget the "shoulds" and organize your way.
2. Set goals. Goals give your life, and the way you spend your time, direction. When asked the secret to amassing such a fortune, one of the famous Hunt brothers from Texas replied: "First you've got to decide what you want." Set goals which are specific, measurable, realistic and achievable. Your optimum goals are those which cause you to "stretch" but not "break" as you strive for achievement. Goals can give creative people a much-needed sense of direction.
3. Prioritize. Use the 80-20 Rule originally stated by the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto who noted that 80 percent of the reward comes from 20 percent of the effort. The trick to prioritizing is to isolate and identify that valuable 20 percent. Once identified, prioritize time to concentrate your work on those items with the greatest reward. Prioritize by color, number or letter--whichever method makes the most sense to you. Flagging items with a deadline is another idea for helping you stick to your priorities.
4. Use a To Do list. Some people thrive using a daily To Do list which they construct either the last thing the previous day or first thing in the morning. Such people may combine a To Do list with a calendar or schedule. Others prefer a "running" To Do list which is continuously being updated. Or, you may prefer a combination of the two previously described To Do lists. Whatever method works is best for you. Don't be afraid to try a new system--you just might find one that works even better than your present one!
5. Be flexible. Allow time for interruptions and distractions. Time management experts often suggest planning for just 50 percent or less of one's time. With only 50 percent of your time planned, you will have the flexibility to handle interruptions and the unplanned "emergency." When you expect to be interrupted, schedule routine tasks. Save (or make) larger blocks of time for your priorities. When interrupted, ask Alan Lakein's crucial question, "What is the most important thing I can be doing with my time right now?" to help you get back on track fast.
6. Consider your biological prime time. That's the time of day when you are at your best. Are you a "morning person," a "night owl," or a late afternoon "whiz?" Knowing when your best time is and planning to use that time of day for your priorities (if possible) is effective time management.
7. Do the right thing right. Noted management expert, Peter Drucker, says "doing the right thing is more important than doing things right." Doing the right thing is effectiveness; doing things right is efficiency. Focus first on effectiveness (identifying what is the right thing to do), then concentrate on efficiency (doing it right).
8. Eliminate the urgent. Urgent tasks have short-term consequences while important tasks are those with long-term, goal-related implications. Work towards reducing the urgent things you must do so you'll have time for your important priorities. Flagging or highlighting items on your To Do list or attaching a deadline to each item may help keep important items from becoming urgent emergencies.
9. Practice the art of intelligent neglect. Eliminate from your life trivial tasks or those tasks which do not have long-term consequences for you. Can you delegate or eliminate any of your To Do list? Work on those tasks which you alone can do.
10. Avoid being a perfectionist. In the Malaysian culture, only the gods are considered capable of producing anything perfect. Whenever something is made, a flaw is left on purpose so the gods will not be offended. Yes, some things need to be closer to perfect than others, but perfectionism, paying unnecessary attention to detail, can be a form of procrastination.
11. Conquer procrastination. One technique to try is the "Swiss cheese" method described by Alan Lakein. When you are avoiding something, break it into smaller tasks and do just one of the smaller tasks or set a timer and work on the big task for just 15 minutes. By doing a little at a time, eventually you'll reach a point where you'll want to finish.
12. Learn to say "no". Such a small word--and so hard to say. Focusing on your goals may help. Blocking time for important, but often not scheduled, priorities such as family and friends can also help. But first you must be convinced that you and your priorities are important--that seems to be the hardest part in learning to say "no." Once convinced of their importance, saying "no" to the unimportant in life gets easier.
13. Reward yourself. Even for small successes, celebrate achievement of goals. Promise yourself a reward for completing each task, or finishing the total job. Then keep your promise to yourself and indulge in your reward. Doing so will help you maintain the necessary balance in life between work and play. As Ann McGee-Cooper says, "If we learn to balance excellence in work with excellence in play, fun, and relaxation, our lives become happier, healthier, and a great deal more creative."

How to Get Organized!

"Get organized!" we say. And more often, "I've got to get organized!" sounding sometimes as if it were a simple thing to do. Just a few little words, how difficult can it be?

If you've been reading TGON very long, you know that getting organized is actually a many faceted process. And the process requires, well, an organized approach. The fact is, if you want to get organized, you have to be organized about how you will get there.

The basic steps in the process:

• Identify your objective. Find your problem areas - time management, clutter control, paper management, all the above, whatever - and make a statement about what you want to do about that problem.
• Break your objective down into smaller segments. If your goal is to organize your home, you might include getting rid of accumulated clutter room by room, creating more storage space, redefining how each room is used, etc. If time management is your target area, you may decide you need to plan your activities as far in the future as necessary, use your free time more wisely, accomplish tasks more quickly and cut out unnecessary time wasters.
• Prioritize the segments you identify. Some considerations in determining the importance of each item are: how much stress this particular part of the problem causes you, whether or not it constitutes a large part of the overall problem, whether other parts of the plan must be delayed until it is accomplished (i.e. you can't organize your desk until it is decluttered.)
• Ask yourself where you will get the biggest return for your efforts. From which area will you get the most benefit? Which parts of your plan can't be done until something else is completed?
• Plan your attack. Once you know what it is you want to accomplish and what the steps are to get there, you can begin to list action steps. If your overall objective is to organize your office and you've identified that clearing and organizing your desk is your top priority, what do you need to do to make that happen? At this point you may have to realign your priorities. You can't deal with all the scattered papers until you have organized your filing system to receive them.

As convoluted as it sounds, once you've organized your plan to get organized, you'll have a master list from which to work. You'll be able to check off items faster than you ever imagined and see results quickly!

Increase Productivity On and Off the Clock.

It's the story of everyone's life -- not being able to do what you want or need to do because of a lack of time and organization. Well, you still may not be able accomplish everything, but after reading some tips below, you should be able to increase your odds at it.

Time Flies. But Where Does It Go?

For most, time eludes us on a regular basis. However, there are those who capture time and make it work for them. Listed below are their tips on effectively managing the daily hours.

1. Discover how you use your time. Begin by learning exactly what makes up your typical work day. Some examples include meetings, supervising people, writing/reviewing proposals and reports, phone calls, reading, etc. And while in the midst of this, think of the wasted time due to unscheduled developments, repetitive interruptions and just plain bad planning.
2. Keep a journal. One way to discover how your time is spent is to keep a diary of your daily activities for a few weeks. Then analyze your log and look for emerging patterns, especially those related to work interruptions. For a closer look, do this every few months and record repeat patterns. Then you can concentrate on eliminating them.
3. Set goals. Clearly defined goals can have a profound impact on what you do and how you do it. However, while setting them keep in mind feasibility -- you don't want to reach for too many stars at once. Prioritizing them and dedicating a time frame to each is also crucial. Finally, categorize your objectives into daily goals (i.e. daily tasks and time management), corporate goals (i.e. marketing or sales goals) and personal goals (i.e. time with family and friends or hobbies).
4. Plan your activities wisely. Equally important as setting goals is planning how to achieve them. And the success of planning often depends on following an important rule: plan in advance. It has been said that if you spend fifteen minutes planning at the end of each day you'll save an hour the next day, and an hour spent in planning a project will save four in execution.
5. Prioritize, prioritize, prioritize. You can't do everything, at least not at once. By placing an order of importance to your tasks you can allot respective time to them. And by listing all your jobs on a time schedule a clear plan of action is created. Be sure to assign larger jobs to a larger time frame, with respect to quantity of work as well as priority.
6. Minimize interruptions. Crisis management has a tendency to eat up people's time. It is estimated that managers are interrupted an average of six times per hour. And each time your concentration is broken it takes a certain amount of time to get reoriented. In order to prevent 'fires' from starting, think through projects with everyone involved. Rather than having workers bring problems with them, ask for potential solutions. By learning and explaining with the entire team, questions are minimized and most importantly, so are your hours working as a 'fireman.'
7. Meetings! Meetings? They're not always productive, time efficient or even worthwhile. But they are necessary. However, before attending the meeting, make sure your presence is needed. If it is, be sure someone is leading it. And if that person is you, make it a productive meeting by having a clearly defined agenda distributed to all attendees well before the gathering. If time is limited try holding a stand-up meeting.
8. Be the best communicator. By keeping your coworkers informed, interruptions are kept at a minimum. Put the responsibility on your shoulders as being the lead communicator. Be sure that messages are clear and questions answered.
9. Organize your work space. People waste a lot of time simply rummaging around their desks looking for things. Put away anything that is unrelated to the project at hand. Doing this will facilitate more focus on the pertinent material. And by cleaning your desk at the end of each day, you'll have a clean start for the next morning (which in turn saves more time).
10. Smarter reading. While reading industry related correspondence and literature is important, keeping the amount of reading in perspective is essential. Most people have more reading to do than they have time to do it. As a result, delegating the reading to others and having them share the critical information is one way to accomplish your goals. You can also assign priorities and time frames to the material.
11. Use a planner. Commit yourself to integrating your potential and your performance. Naturally, this will require a more effective use of time. Daily planners, whether paper-based or computer software, can help bring order to chaos. By using it regularly, schedules and priorities can be seen more clearly and efficiently.

Did You Know?

American Workers

• Men work an average of 50 hours per week while women work 42 hours a week
• 12% of working women put in part-time hours while only 2 % of working men do
• The average American worker spends 22 minutes commuting to work and 5% use their cellular phones during the trip
• 62% of American workers feel they are always or frequently rushed to do the things they have to do. Only 5% rarely or never feel rushed.
• 52% of American workers mentioned their job as the reason they are unable to spend more time with their significant other
• 65% listed spending more time with their family as a priority or goal in their lives
• 40% of American workers say they would put in an additional ten hours a week for extra pay
• 71% say they would watch less television in order to work more

Americans at work

• 59% of Americans begin their work day by reviewing a daily action plan
• Women are more likely than men to socialize the first half-hour at work (30% vs. 22%)
• 58% take care of their most urgent business in the morning and 47% in the mid-morning.
• 65% of American workers spend some time but less than a quarter of their day in meetings, and 11% spend between two and seven hours a day in meetings. Only 36% believe none of the time spent in meetings is wasted.
• Overall, American workers spend a mean of 9.5 hours per week on a computer at work. 57% of the workforce uses a computer at work. Just under half, 45%, do job related work on their home computer.

Americans at Play

• The typical American worker in a relationship spends 10 hours a week alone with their significant other.
• Given more free time, women are more likely than men to read, while men are more likely to work on hobbies. Women are almost three times more likely than men to say they would spend any additional free time doing household tasks or chores.
• Reflecting national trends, the American workforce was twice as likely to take a 1-3 day long vacation. Workers took an average of one short trip (1 to 3 days) for business or pleasure in the past year.
• More than one-third of American workers don't perform any community service, while 40% say they spend between one and ten hours a month working in the community.

Success and Happiness

• 8 percent of American workers describe themselves as extremely happy, while 46% claim to be very happy and 7% are not very or not at all happy.
• Those who rate themselves extremely happy tend to work relatively short work weeks (20 to 29 hours) or very long work weeks (60 hours or more).
• Extremely happy workers are less likely to feel rushed. They are more likely to have time for community activities such as church or little league. They are also more likely to rate themselves extremely successful, 10% say they are not at all or not very successful.
• Extremely or very successful tend to work longer hours and plan their days during their daily commute.
• Extremely or very successful workers are less likely to feel rushed and are not likely to make a written schedule and prioritize tasks for each days' work.

Getting Organized and Personal Goals

• One-third of American workers (32%) never plan their daily work. While 45% make a daily plan at least once a week , only 9% accomplish everything they set out to do. The higher the income, the more likely the worker is to make a written schedule and prioritize tasks.
• The majority of the workforce (78%) list getting more exercise as a goal, while two-thirds (65%) would like to spend more time with family and 59% would like to eat better.
• Only 3% of American workers make New Year's resolutions and about two-thirds achieve them.
• 37% have written financial goals, and 33% have written career goals, and 73% always or frequently know what they want to accomplish.
• More than half of workers (52%) use calendars to keep track of their schedules, while 29% use organizers. Women are more likely than men to use these tools.

Health

• 51% said they were in good or excellent health
• 38% said they were in good health
• 11% said they were in fair or poor health

Eating Habits

• 39% work while they are having lunch
• 15% usually don't eat lunch at all on work days
• 57% take less than 30 minutes for lunch
• At least once a week, 53% of working Americans eat at a fast-food restaurant
• 40% bring home take-out meals
• 23% cook the main course of a meal in a microwave
• 18% eat frozen-prepared meals

Exercise and Sleep

• In order to work an additional 10 hours each week for extra pay, 27 % said they would sleep less and 17% said they would exercise less. When asked what they would do with four hours of free time, only 20% said they would exercise.
• 36% of the workforce said they exercise once or twice a month or less women are more likely than men to fit this category (39% vs. 31%)
• 37% said they exercise regularly
• Men are more likely than women to exercise regularly (41% vs. 33%)

Personal Goals/ Achieving Goals/ Methods of Achieving Goals

Areas for which they have written goals:

Only 19% said exercise and 17% said health

Women were more likely than men to have written goals in both of these areas

• 78% of the American workforce listed more exercise as a personal goal
• 32% said they have achieved this goal
• 40% listed reduced stress at work as a personal goal
• 15% said they have achieved this goal
• 33% listed reduced stress at home as a personal goal
• 14% said they have achieved this goal
• Exactly half of the workforce said they seldom or never prepare an action plan for achieving their goals. Only 22% said they always or frequently did.
• Almost half of American workers (46%) said they seldom or never divided goals into small, easily attainable pieces. Only 27% said they always or frequently did.
• While nearly three-quarters (73%) said they always or frequently what it is that they want to accomplish, one-third said they seldom or never schedule time to work on their high priority goals. Almost another third (30%) said they only occasionally schedule time to work toward goals.