Long-term projects. Could you use some tips to help finish that project you started with gusto, which is currently lagging?
If you hit a roadblock (or two, or three) what are they—and does your team have ideas for overcoming those hurdles? Decide ahead of time how you will handle issues when they come up. Planning will prevent panic and help people stay on track.
Too much to do is a common problem for today’s working women and men, especially those involved in management and knowledge occupations. Time management is crucial for these professionals! (Examples of knowledge occupations: Managers, Programmers, architects, CEOs, healthcare & support, and so on.)
If having too much on your plate is getting discouraging or frustrating, trying a few time management strategies I explore in the article will provide relief.
I worked with a company and the 2 top administrators, a man and a woman, both felt overwhelmed by all the tasks on their plates. I posed a few exploratory questions to ’Jake’ and learned his schedule was completely overbooked.
“How about delegating some of your tasks to other people here?” I asked.
In this case, both admins said No, it would not be appropriate to delegate several of his responsibilities to others in the company. They felt those people already had enough on their plates.
So, what is left? Any other strategies we can try for someone with too much on their plate?
Well, like Mom always said, you’ve got to clean your plate! And I mean that literally.
It’s time to create some white space.
It’s important to recognize, no matter who you are or what your job is, that things will come up during the day and you need to plan room for them in your schedule.
The only way to do this is by creating white space into every day.
And the way that works best is if you have a good handle on how long your planned goals for the day will take. That leads us to the first way to reduce stress: Planning.
Many time coaches call this time estimating. It’s something I teach in my time management seminar and in private time coaching sessions. A simple but effective concept, which you can do by timing how long different, often repeated tasks take you. Like creating an agenda for an upcoming staff meeting, calls to clients, following up on a lead, or tracking numbers for last week, for example.
How will time estimating help you be realistic about what you can accomplish in a day?
How will this, in turn, decrease stress?
It is helpful to track how much time each day the interruptions and crises take. Try tracking these for a week or two, then average it. While you’re at it, observe what time of day have the most interruptions. Then you can plan for these disruptions and a lot of the guesswork will be gone. You’ll have a good idea how many interruptions come and also, what time of day they tend to happen.
Can you see how this would be helpful to you? Try this strategy of actually scheduling enough unstructured hours into your day so that when emergencies come up, you already have time planned and can take it all in stride.
I guarantee your level of stress will decrease!
And one other thing you may be wondering: what happens if I don’t get the amount of interruptions I planned for? This is a good situation to be in!
In that case, planning a list of other things you’d LIKE to get done that week would be handy. I call this an opportunity list.
We all know there is no shortage of things to do. That’s why you’re reading this, yes? So, here’s a challenge for you: Start adding more white space to your day; at first, add 30 minutes, then an hour. Gradually increase it. Remember white space does not have to be one block of hours, you can disperse it throughout the day.
Let me know how this helped you! Once you’ve tried these strategies, reach out to me on FB or Instagram.
Or comment below. Thanks!
RESOURCES: https://jkglei.com/white-space/ Why you need white space in your daily routine by Jocelyn Glei
Planning is a great tool for you to grow your business or your career. Why is planning so important? you may ask.
If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail – Ben Franklin
Let’s invert that statement: Be sure to plan, and you will SUCCEED.
When you take time to plan, you ARE more in control of your life. You know what you have coming, and you get noticed as a doer; someone who gets things done.
And planning doesn’t take long! 30 minutes is plenty of time. So, plan for success!
For example: When my husband Frank came back from a writing conference, he had so many ideas for marketing his next book that he was having trouble keeping it all straight, and he was stressed about it. As I do with my time coaching clients, I suggested we sit down and brainstorm all the ideas he wanted to put into place and schedule them.
He said: “That helped me prioritize, categorize, define and lay out a game plan for the next 3 months, which is critical for a successful book launch. Now I can focus on my work and not get distracted by unknowns. I can work with more confidence.” ~ Frank Morin, Author
When I don’t plan, things go haywire. A few weeks ago, I was getting ready for a last-minute trip. I hadn’t planned on Monday. Big mistake. I almost missed my call with my business coach, which I’ve NEVER forgotten before. And I was so distracted that day I missed a reminder text from my Aesthetician, so I missed my facial, and probably annoyed her. I felt frazzled and definitely NOT together. Not a good feeling, because I like to have my ducks in a row!
Source: www.moneyunder30.com
Tip 1: Figure out what your best focus time is. Do the work that requires the most brainpower then. If you’d like to pinpoint the time of day, email me and I will send you a quiz that will show you when you do your best work! jennym@efficientspacesco.com
Tip 2: Limit distractions. If you spouse or kids are home, make sure they know not to disturb you. Close the doors if you need to. Put on headphones with some music that helps you focus. This has a dual job: to let people know you don’t want to be disturbed, and it keeps you from hearing background noise.
“Ambient sounds, especially with words, occupy about 5-10% of your intellectual bandwidth. By wearing ear protectors, you acoustically isolate yourself. This freed up bandwidth can now be focused on the desired task.
It’s a great deal. Just put on some earmuffs and you become 5-10% smarter.”
~ Peter Rogers, Straight A Stanford and on to Harvard
Tip 3: With emails, you can take one of 3 actions: File, respond, or delete. Try not to think about it too much! It doesn’t have to be complicated. The general rule of thumb: if it takes 2 minutes, do it now. (From Getting Things Done by David Allen)
Tip 4: Set up folders for emails. Organize them by topic, project, or individual names. A person wastes 6 weeks annually searching for lost documents or because of unorganized folders for the one project they need. Be consistent about filing them.
Tip 5: Have an inbox for paper , and clear it daily.
Tip 6: Have a “hot spot” for today’s most urgent project. Personally, I prefer a clear file folder standing up in a vertical file sorter. My file sorter holds 5 files. Also, put your to-do list in plain sight and review it each morning before you start.
Tip 7: If you tend to distract yourself: ahem… yes I do that! I find that setting a timer is very helpful. This works well if you are easily distracted by “bright and shiny” new emails. Say your purpose for opening your email is to write one necessary email and then close the email so you can focus on a project. Set a timer for 15 minutes before you open your inbox to avoid getting “sucked in” by your email. This really works!
“One way to boost our will power and focus is to manage our distractions instead of letting them manage us.” ~ Daniel Goleman
Tip 8: If texts, incoming emails, skype pop-up, or calendar notifications have alerts that distract you when you are trying to focus, make sure to turn off those alerts for the hour or 90 minutes when your project needs your full attention. (Before you do this, check your calendar to make sure you don’t have a meeting or scheduled phone call.) If you are not sure how to do this, ask a tech-savvy friends! Or link to the article I provide at the end of this post.
Tip 9: Delegate email deletion and unsubscribing from sites to your kids or grandkids (it works great!). Also, make sure to limit spam by having good firewalls in place to limit what gets to your inbox.
Tip 10: For information you want or need to keep, have it scanned by someone you can delegate to (an assistant, tech-savvy son/daughter, grandchild, high school student) and file or organize it into files. Make sure and train the workers to do it at a time when you’re doing something low-focus, like responding to emails. That way the interruptions with questions won’t affect your productivity.
Use these 10 tips to achieve more and reach your business goals!
Related posts: https://efficientspacesco.c.wpstage.net/2015/02/5-tips-distractions-bay/
https://efficientspacesco.c.wpstage.net/2014/05/30-minutes/
https://efficientspacesco.c.wpstage.net/2014/02/extra-hour/
How to turn off distracting notifications: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-distracting-desktop-notifications-turn-windows/
Procrastination is like a leaky faucet.
Procrastination –it’s a killer. It slays good intentions, New Years’ resolutions, and big-picture goals.
When is the last time you procrastinated? What did you put off? I procrastinate blogging, big time. Other people procrastinate cleaning out their pantry, their sock drawer, their shower, whatever. Oh yeah, I procrastinate cleaning my shower, too. Since we’re being honest…
The point is, if you want to stop procrastinating, you MUST figure out what the root reason is for your Herculean procrastination efforts. If you find yourself cleaning the fridge (assuming you work from home) just to avoid having to call someone back or write a proposal, there is a reason for that. Because cleaning out the fridge is a nasty job, so you must be desperate to avoid something.
Sometimes you procrastinate because you don’t have enough information. An example: If I need to call someone, but first I have to look up some information online, I may put off the phone call every time I think of it because I have not made the time to go online and find out about the XYZ product they want for their desk. So if the task has too many steps, that may lead to procrastination.
Sometimes you procrastinate because you don’t have the skills to do a task. Example: organizing. Many people berate themselves for not knowing how to organize their miscellaneous drawer at the office, or their files, or their pantry. Whatever the chore is that you’re putting off, it may be that you simply don’t possess the skills to accomplish it. That’s when you call in an expert, like me. If you had a leaky faucet and your water bill goes up, it makes sense to hire a plumber to fix that leak, right? The same goes for organizing. How many hours are you going to waste looking for those post-its or envelopes which you wrote a potential client’s phone number on? Not only do you waste time looking for it, it also distracts you from the productive flow of work because you get flustered and possibly upset with yourself, which can cause you to “lose your place” in the day’s work.
Sometimes you procrastinate because you just don’t have the desire to do a task. That’s how it is with my shower. I love my shower. It has 2 shower heads. But it is HUGE and it takes 20 minutes to clean it right. So I hire my kids to do it. They’ll do my shower for a nominal fee. That makes me happy.
So three of the reasons you procrastinate are: Lack of information, lack of skills, lack of motivation. Find the root cause and you are on your way to fixing whatever is holding you back.
Please contact me to continue this discussion…
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