Tag: time managemet

Stay Productive When All The World Is a Distraction!

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This time of year, do you struggle to maintain focus in the midst of all the holiday hustle, bustle and hype?  I know I do.  After a busy family weekend of volunteering, parties and activities, I sat down Monday morning at my desk already tired, and opened my in-boxes to hundreds of email.  Gah!  I fought the temptation to run and hide, but it got me thinking about how to Stay Productive and On Task When all the World Seems Like a Distraction!

So here are some tips to help us all out:

1.  Clear the clutter in your work space.  Spend 10 minutes and file your filing, tidy your resources, clear the trash, wash your coffee mug (and swap it out for a holiday themed one).  Take a few deep breaths and enjoy your cleared space. Then get back to work.

2.  Clear the clutter in your in-box.  Ruthlessly delete emails. A tip from my paper management classes that applies to email, too:  Catalogs and email advertisements are sent with the specific intention of making you buy stuff.  If you don’t want to shop right now, delete the emails.  Or put them in a folder to open later, and put “Review sale emails” on your to-do list with a date and time and time allotment attached (give it 10 or 15 minutes, then move on).

3.  Decorate your work space, but just a little. For safety sake, no candles.  And for health sake, no candy jar or food-scented anything (it will just make you hungry)!  I have a single lovely large decoration hanging in my window.  I bought it from a crafty friend, and it is the extent of my decorations around my desk.  Remember, any decorations you put out now will be clutter in 4 weeks.

4.  Clear the clutter in your calendar and on your to-do list.  I started the day with a dozen quick and easy tasks on my work to-do list – send invoices, follow-up with emails / schedule a client for Wednesday, etc. (and I deleted over 200 emails accumulated over the weekend in my personal and business email accounts).  Whew!

5.  Employ hard stops.  We all know when an event will start, but we don’t always know when it will / should end.  A friend opened her home to a group of us over the weekend, and served us a lovely meal.  It was wonderful.  And then we all packed up and left 2 hours after we started, so she could get to her next event.  She gave us a hard stop, a specific end time, before we began and we tried to stick to it.  We should employ hard stops all year ‘round, but especially when time and productivity are at a premium.

6.  Don’t get distracted.  Check in many, many times a day / hour / minute to make sure you are on-task and doing what you actually intended to do today, and not mindlessly browsing the internet, watching tear-jerking videos on Facebook, or chatting too long with a friend at the grocery store (a little while was awesome, though, catching up with a friend in the produce section).  Compartmentalize, and set timers if you must.

7.  Multitask.  Put the cookies in the oven, then write your blog (oh, maybe that’s just me – molasses cookies with white chocolate kisses right now).  I don’t often recommend multitasking, but sometimes we must.   Run errands on your commute, use your time well.  I have taken to checking my email remotely on my phone so I know how to order my tasks when I get home.

8.  Set professional goals, even though you’re busy with other things.  Keep your professional focus, and make one or two more goals for this month, to give you some accountability and keep you on track.

I hope this helps you clear some brain and life clutter and maintain focus on your professional goals this time of year.  Merry Christmas!  Now get back to business!

Three Words: The Power of “Not Right Now”

(Click here to hear / see me talk about this in a FB Live Post)

Last week I offered ideas to help you find motivators and get organized.  Yet, this week I am suggesting you occasionally say “Not Right Now”.

Hmmm….. Are you wondering what changed my mind?  Maybe the organizer is letting you off the hook this week and you get to goof off?  Uh, no, nice try.  “Find your Motivators” and “Saying ‘Not Right Now’” are both tools to move you along the path to getting things done and making your life better.

Time Management expert Steven Covey uses the Eisenhower Box, via Dwight D. Eisenhower, a grid to illustrate the basis for my Not Right Now Suggestion.  He suggests there are 4 types of tasks, categorized by Importance and Urgency.

The grid reads:

1.  Important, Urgent               2.  Important, Non Urgent
3.  Non-Important, Urgent     4.  Non-Important, Non Urgent

My “Not Right Now” strategy focuses on taking care of the (#1) Important and Urgent things first, and safely keeping ideas that are important but not urgent.

Important and urgent tasks (#1) for me today were to meet a client deadline for publication, submit an ad for an upcoming charity event and follow up with an upcoming presentation host.  As a self-employed entrepreneur, important and urgent tasks almost always have to come first.  There is no one else to do the work, and my business and clients have to be my top professional priorities.

(#3) Non-important, Urgent tasks included responding to emails, and taking care of some filing so I could re-claim my work space.  And these I did take care of, just to get them out of the way.

Next are the Non-urgent tasks, both important (#2) and non-important (#4), and that is where the Not Right Now tool comes into play.  I start a typical day with 2 or 3 Important and Urgent things that have to get done.  As I work, I get ideas, great and sometimes not-so-great.  They are all important, but they are rarely urgent.  I want to respect and collect the ideas that come to me, but I don’t want to lose my focus on the current task.  I jot them down, and get back to work.

Two professional organizers whom I really respect (Elizabeth Hagen and Barbara Hemphill) recommend keeping a pile of blank index cards close at hand as you work.  As an idea or task pop into your head, jot it down on a card, a new card for each idea.  When you are done with your current Important and Urgent task and can take a break, review the cards, act on the quick easy ones and sort the others into piles for when and how you need to act on them.

I use a notebook in the same way.  When I take a break from a project, I look at the ideas listed and put them where they will be most useful.  Perhaps one of my Outlook to-do lists, or add it to my strategic planning file.  If possible, I make the idea into an action item and attach it to a date and time, sometime in the future.  The idea is important, but it is for later, “Not Right Now”.

Not Right Now can be more global, too: I am willing to step up for leadership in my professional network, but not this year.  “Keep me on the list for the next cycle, and I am your girl.  But not right now” was my actual response.

“Not Right Now” has saved me recently, too.  I’ve gotten emails that I might react strongly to, but used “Not Right Now” to hold off on responding and finish my work.  By the time I could respond, I collected my thoughts and cooled down, and responded more reasonably.  Or I wait to act on an idea, and someone else acts first (woo hoo!).

Collect and safely keep ideas and inspirations, but cut yourself some slack and recognize the power of “Not Right Now”.  I would like to travel internationally, but not right now.  I want to learn to play the guitar, but not right now.   Perhaps I’ll get a tattoo, but not right now (Ok, I won’t get a tattoo, just wanted to see if you were all still paying attention).  I want to change the world, but Not Right Now.

I have been very busy lately, and busy is really great.  But now my professional tasks for the day are complete with the publication of my blog, and my “Not Right Now”s have become “Yes, Now”s  And yes, now, I really need to go clean my kitchen.