Time Management – Part 2

Here are some of the things I’ve learned over the years with regards to Time Management:

Time Wasting Activities:

Interruptions, late to meetings, talking with co workers, not delegating, procrastination

Take time for health – exercise, fitness activities, etc.

Look at work habits – when is your best time of day, what length of time can you focus, etc. Our day is divided into 96 15 minute intervals, so every 15 minutes is like 1% of your day.

My current system is the following:

• Daily schedule and Task List
• Whiteboard with major milestones
• Everything goes to an In Box
• I do my best to OHIO (Only Handle It Once) – if I can do something in 2 minutes or less, do it. Otherwise, set up a task for it and add to the list
• If it is one of my major job functions, I put it in a project file
• I schedule time each day for each of my major functions – for example, Sales, Production, Finance, Inbox/Task List – multi tasking is not the answer.
• I schedule time for my email, for making calls, going through the in box, etc.
• I can never get everything done but I make progress on each of my projects.
• Filing – Just an In Box and a File or Incubate box – you should be able to file something out of your In Box, should not need to hold it in another box!
• Journal - notes in the front, to do in the back
• Meetings – standing meetings (literally). Have an agenda and follow it – our ground rules at our meetings include an agenda ahead of time, follow the agenda, parking lot for off topic items.
• Don’t confuse Effort with RESULTS – being busy doesn’t mean that the work is getting done!

Definition of Productivity - Doing what I said I would do, within the time that I promised.

ABR - always be ready - have small chunks of work with you wherever you are, things you can do in less than 15 minutes. Then when plans change, you can continue to be productive.

I’m always tweaking my system and trying to improve my time management habits.