Take advantage of the time delay features on dishwashers and washing machines to get chores done when hydro rates are low, but you’re busy with more pressing matters — like homework, bedtime, or reading a good book.
Archive for Organizing Time – Page 2
Struggling to find time to weed the garden? Try using 15 minutes a day to tackle whatever weeds you can pull in a quarter hour. By the end of the week you will have invested over an hour of weed pulling!
If you have to drop something off somewhere, leave it in your car. It’s so much easier to drop something off when you’re in the neighbourhood, instead of making a special trip.
At the end of the day, spend 15 minutes writing down the top 3 things you want to accomplish tomorrow. You’ll wake up with purpose and focus.
If you see a gift or card that you think is just perfect for someone in your life, buy it. When the time comes that you needto buy something for that person, you won’t have to race around looking for something inspiring.
We just celebrated my son’s birthday with a big party at an indoor carnival. Despite having the party outside of our home, there was still a lot to do. Most importantly, you have to start planning early. These venues are booked far in advance of the actual celebration. So, what do you need to consider when scouting around for a party location? Here are a few things you will want to keep in mind:
· Is there a dedicated party room?
· Is there a sink in the room?
· Will you have to share the space with other patrons?
· Is food provided, or do you need to supply your own?
· Will you have access to a fridge?
· Will there be a staff member assigned to look after your party guests?
· Where are the washrooms?
· Is there somewhere for coats, presents and loot bags to be safely stored?
Answering these questions will let you know if you’ve found the right place for your party and exactly how much will be left for you to sort out before the big day.
For individuals managing ADD, learning to manage time can be an ongoing challenge. Professional organizers and ADD coaches often encourage the use of timers to make sure hyper-focus doesn’t cause the swallowing of hours and hours of time scheduled for something else.
Here’s an idea I created for a young client whose tremendous creativity sent me searching for an alternate timing device. Create a set of playlists for yourself on your mp3 player for various lengths of time. One might be 5 Min Playlist, another 10 Min Playlist etc. When you have a task to complete or a job that you need to focus for a designated time, plug in and turn on your playlist that matches that period of time. It may take a couple of attempts before you figure out the genre of music that works for a 10 minute end-of-day-get-stuff-off-the-floor task versus a 30 minute I-really-have-to-enter-in-my-expenses-today-if-i-want-to-be-reimbursed-this-month type task.
Have fun with it – its a perfect personalized tool to support your time management.
With the new year looming, most people have already picked up their calendar for next year. Some of you are die hard e-calendar types and just keep scrolling on down the screen while 2012 comes up to great you.
The rest of us are not and still prefer the paper version. It has been my experience that many individuals with a strong kinesthetic preference for learning and digesting information, still benefit from the writing and page turning of a paper calendar to anchor schedules and time frames in their minds. If you fall into this category, it is important to understand that you are using a modality that works for you. It may be necessary to use a second e-calendar for work if your company business practices require one.
On the other hand if you are cyber-savvy and tied to your electronic phone/tablet/laptop you may be a good candidate to consider moving to an e-calendar. Individuals in this category likely email appointments to colleagues and family members including teacher interviews. Some even share common calendars on cyberspace through email providers.
Whichever you choose, the most important criteria, is that it works for you. There is no point in using an e-calendar if you don’t have a devise with you all the time or perhaps can’t share with your co-workers, colleagues or family calender information they also need.
The question of whether multi-tasking works to increase productivity comes up frequently at our house. What can I say? I have a teenager. This age bracket of our species has taken multi-tasking to new heights with ear buds, television, blackberry and homework all going at the same time.
My experience is that multi-tasking does not work well. I define multi-tasking as participating at one time in two or more activities that each require our attention. Thus talking on the telephone and typing a report is multi-tasking. Similarly making dinner while helping a school child with home work is multi-tasking; both require your attention in order to be completed. If your attention is distracted from your task, it is unlikely that you will complete it well. Your phone mate may perceive you are distracted or merely wait patiently for your attention to return to his/her question, the report may have errors.
Time layering or time deepening is a strategy that does work. I define time deepening as organizing two or more tasks that do not require our attention to be accomplished simultaneously. If many layers are being developed, only the top layer can take your attention while the other tasks are accomplished without your input or attention except to get them started. Home managers have known this strategy for ages: wash the laundry and hang to dry – while drying, mix bread and leave to rise – while drying and rising cut beef/vegetables and set stew to simmer – while drying and simmering, knead bread and set to rise – while drying, simmering and rising, mend clothes. Project managers differentiate between those tasks that must be accomplished in sequence and therefore are time and order sensitive versus those tasks that can be accomplished at the same time therefore layering tasks.
If you work from home you may already layer your time without realizing that you are using this strategy: put on laundry, take out dinner meat to thaw, set coffee to drip, turn sprinkler on lawn – pour coffee, set to work on report. One hour later you turn over laundry, turn over meat, move sprinkler to back lawn, refill coffee and back to report.
You get the picture. Try it. How many layers can you build into your time?
Early, early morning is not my favourite time of the day. When I have an early appointment, like this morning, I want to spend every possible extra second in bed that I can. To do that I need to prepare ahead and organize everything that I will need to take with me.
Starting the evening before:
1. Confirm the time and address of your appointment. Look up the location on a map or print if necessary from an online map search.
2. Plan your route, with a possible alternative for those just in case scenarios. For example, this morning I was heading downtown on the subway and had to change my planned route due to a G20 security incident.
3. Calculate how much time it will take to get from A to B. Give yourself an appropriate buffer of time, depending on time of day. I calculated it would take me 40 minutes to arrive at my destination. I rounded up to 45 minutes and decided to try and arrive 10 minutes early. This gave me a definitive time that I had to leave by. By planning ahead I was able to make it to my appointment on time, even with the delay on route.
4. Pack your bag with everything that you will need. For me this included a charged cell phone, a refillable water bottle, a snack, and documents required for my appointment. For regular appointments consider having a bag reserved and always prepared with the basics you’ll need.
5. Set your alarm time to accommodate your basic morning routine, and to get you out the front door at your definitive departure time.
Now, when the alarm goes off early, early in the morning there is little stress knowing that everything is ready to go.
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Website by Janet Barclay
Website by Janet Barclay