Q. I
need a 25-hour day. I’m racing through the day and I’m
still running out of time every day. I tried keeping an appointment
book, but meetings and priorities keep changing, so it was just one
more thing to take my time. Would one of these portable planners
help?—
Jack T.
A. Maybe.
An appointment book is a good start, but what’s more important
are the decisions you make about your time during the day. It starts
with a decision you have to make first: to take charge of your day
(and week, month, year, life.)
Make a "To-Do"
list of tasks each day, prioritized at an A, B, or C level of
importance. Planning is usually done best first thing in the morning
and at the end of the day. Plan to do your most important things
when you're at peak energy. Use the daily planner, too.
Give top priority to "A"
level tasks. Don't jeopardize completing an "A" level
task to complete a "B" or "C." Don't do
"C"-level tasks until you've finished your "B's"--unless
you can be sure you'll finish the "B" later on. Plan time
for the "B" and "C" tasks.
Try to
handle each piece of paper only once.
If you pick up a letter, memo, or report, and have to put it down
before you get rid of it, tear off a corner as a reminder that
you’ve handled it once. Handle it again? Tear off another
corner.
When you can, write
responses to correspondence right on the original— except when
responding to customers. Make a copy to keep, and send it back.
Set aside "protected"
time for yourself throughout the day— time for thinking and
planning. Take time to plan every job before you do it. Ask key
questions like, “What’s the best way to do this? Least
costly? Most productive?” If you have only five minutes to do
something, take one minute to plan the other four.
Set aside special time
throughout the week to handle tough, long-term, or unexpected jobs.
There’s only one way to eat an elephant—one bite at a
time. If you take little chunks out of a huge task week after week,
you’ll conquer the task. Your challenge will be to say “No”
to jobs that appear urgent, but are really less important—especially
when the “huge elephant” deadline isn’t due for
several weeks.
Make meetings
productive—those you organize and those you attend. Poorly run
meetings are probably the biggest time-wasters in any organization.
And getting people to make them productive could be a difficult
chore, because everyone has to buy into the techniques: start and
stop on time; insist on an agenda that was circulated in advance;
have three people run the meeting as a team: facilitator; scribe;
time-keeper. End every meeting with action steps, deadline dates,
and accountability for each action.
Control
interruptions—personal and phone. When someone comes into your
office, stand up instead of asking him or her to sit down. If it’s
important, and you must handle it now, then
ask them to sit. Don’t interrupt an “A” priority
job to do a “B” even though it may be an “A”
for someone else. Negotiate a time to work on the problem. Focus on
the 20% of your job that produce 80% of your results—the 80/20
rule. And, once a week, look at the things you’ve been doing
that produce only 80 per cent of your results. Try to drop or do
fewer of these tasks, because they’re stopping you from doing
more productive work.
Several times a day ask
yourself these two productivity questions. First, “What’s
the best use of my time right now?” (Then decide to do what’s
best, even though it may not be pleasant.) Second, “Is what
I’m doing right now helping me to meet my goals? If not, why
am I doing it?” (And drop anything that isn’t related to
helping you meet your goals.
Finally, practice saying
“No”, politely, respectfully, and without any anger, to
any request to do something that’s not productive. Try these
four steps:
• Respond
with either a positive (“That’s a great idea!”) or
neutral (“I can see that’s important to you.”)
statement.
• Explain
your situation. Without saying “But,” or “However,”
say what’s stopping you from doing what the person asks.
• Suggest
other options.
• Ask
the
person for their suggestions.
If they persist,
repeating what they asked before you responded (the broken record
technique) go through the four steps again, and try to hold your
ground. Ideally, within this discussion, you will both negotiate a
solution that accommodates each of you.
