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Archive for Time Management

Time Tamer Tuesday – 5 Steps to Time Management at the Office

Posted by Carolyn on
 March 14, 2017

Time Management at the Office

Time Management, The Illusive Goal

Wouldn’t it be nice to know that time management was actually possible? Do you wish you could get more done at the office?

Unfortunately, despite all attempts otherwise, none of us can manage Time; that is the reality.  It continues to tick away – 24 hours in each day, 60 minutes in each hour and 60 seconds in each minute – each and every day of the year.  We can, however, manage ourselves.  We can manage ourselves to do more with the time we have available. Manage your behaviour around getting things done, and time will seem way more friendly – almost like you did manage it. Here are 5 steps to get help you out.

Step 1 – Commit to Behaviour Change as a Time Management Strategy

Start by committing to managing yourself in order to get time management under control.  Set the intention to become more productive with  your time.  With a commitment to your own behaviour change, time management becomes less illusive.  Make a pact with yourself to take responsibility for doing more in less time.  While time is not to blame for what you can’t get done, only  you have control over what you CAN get done.  So take back control.

This is the toughest step.  Get firmly planted in this direction, and the rest will seem much easier.

Step 2 – Identify Your Top Priorities and Tasks for each Day, Week, Month and Year

Time Management at the Office, Set Goals

You likely already have annual priorities identified as part of your annual planning, goals, performance objectives or other performance measurement or company planning strategy.  Are you an entrepreneur?   Have you got your business objectives lined up for the year/quarter/month/week?  Great.  Now turn them into goals for the month, week and day.  What do you need to get done by the end of the day, week, month, and then the quarter, to accomplish your annual goals?  The priority tasks for today will feed into your priority goals for this week.  The same is true for the month.  By the end of this week, are you a quarter of your way to your priorities for the month?  What has to be finished to get there?

Daily tasks are the key to keeping the productivity up.  Keep your daily priority tasks simple and short.  Now write them down.  Start with a verb to direct your action.  Rather than writing “Managers’ Report” write “Collect data, analyze and write Managers’ Report”.   Writing down goals helps set the intention and for many of us, helps lodge those goals into our brains to help keep us focused and pointing in the right direction.

Step 3 – Book Time in your Calendar to accomplish the Tasks

For time management book tasks into your calendar.

Each task takes a certain amount of time.  Estimate this to the best of your ability and book the time to accomplish the task into your calendar.

There’s a funny thing about tasks we want/need/should get done, especially some of the tougher ones.  If we don’t book time and protect that time, everything else, on everyone else’s priority list, has the opportunity to get

Step 4 – Commit to the Time Scheduled – and Let Everyone Know

Your time is committed; tell the people around you.   Close your door.  Ask not to be disturbed.  Put your phone on silent.  Turn off your email alerts. Turn off all your alerts except for any related to risk management that require you to drop everything and respond (are you on the Code Blue Team?).  This often takes some practice.  With time, however, people will come to understand that you commit to your time and expect them to respect that.  And they will love that you get stuff done.  Your boss knows that managing these boundaries helps you to get stuff done for her/him.  Reports are on time.  Your staff recognize that you get stuff done for them.  Schedules are on  time.  You approve vacation requests quickly.

Nice.

Step 5 – Commit to Running Productive Meetings

You’ve got a meeting to run?  Set an Agenda.  Send it out ahead of time.  Be clear on what you are trying to accomplish.  Remember, other people struggle with time management as well.  When you are clear on the agenda, people you meet with are grateful.  Stick to it your agenda.  Finish the meeting just as soon as the agenda is accomplished.  While we are all interested in someone else’s successes, their celebrations and someone else’s venting their frustrations, if all that isn’t on your agenda, it will have to wait for some other time.  You run a focused and productive meeting.

 

With a commitment to managing yourself, identified priorities, time booked for your key tasks, protection of your time and productive meetings, time management at the office is no longer illusive.  At least it will feel like you managed time.

Office Organizing Organizing Time Time Tamer Tuesday
Tags : organizing strategies, productivity, Time Management, Time Tamers
plan time to get important things done

Minutes to Plan – Time Tamer Tuesday

Posted by Carolyn on
 March 1, 2016
plan time to get important things done

We can’t manage time, but we can plan to get important things done.

You are busy.  Learning how to better manage time is high on your To Do list.  You just never seem to get there.

Time Can’t be Managed

The reality is you can’t manage time.  It ticks away at the same pace whether you are prepared for that meeting, unprepared for that exam or running early or late to your client’s home.  Time moves at the same pace.

Plan Time

Being even just slightly more prepared for the day will help you achieve more focus and purpose.  And with that, you can accomplish much more.

15 Minutes to Plan

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.

Organizing Time Time Tamer Tuesday
Tags : Goals, Lists, Time, Time Management, Time Tamer Tuesday, Time Tamers
Organizing with our ears involves using what we hear to help us organize.

Organizing with our Ears – Auditory Processing Modality

Posted by Carolyn on
 October 14, 2015
Organizing with our ears involves using what we hear to help us organize.

Organizing with our Ears – Auditory Processing Modality

Organizing with our Ears is the second in a series on organizing using one’s processing modalities.  In 2010, Denslow Brown of Coach Approach for Organizers and Organizer Coach published The Processing Modalities Guide.  This is the second of nine modalities that Denslow addresses in the guide.  Auditory processing involves what we hear.  It includes sounds around us as well as what we say.

Organizing with our Ears – Strength and Sensitivity

Like visual processing, auditory processing modality can be described on a strength continuum as weak, competent or gifted. Someone who is gifted might have perfect pitch or be able to identify sophisticated meaning from sound.  Someone who is auditorily weak does not rely primarily on their hearing to understand, learn or interface with the world (that’s me).  Organizing with our ears can also be identified as hypo or hyper sensitive.  Someone who is hypersensitive might become overwhelmed or irritated when there are too many sounds at one time such as in a crowded party room (me again).

Organizing with our Ears – Organizing Strategies

Professional organizers and those trained in processing modalities, understand that using one’s dominant processing modality to organize, increases the ability to stay organized and maintain an organized environment.  Most of us use more than one modality to interface and learn from the environment.  In fact we likely use several.  A few will be stronger, more dominant, than the others, and therefore most useful in staying organized.

If you are auditorily sensitive, many different sounds may be irritating, annoying or exhausting.  Simple, soothing sounds may be pleasing and help with focus. Try the following strategies:

  • Use soothing background music to drown out or distract your ears from a noisy room or street below your window.
  • Use pleasant background music to help you focus on a task.

If you are auditorily strong, you remember items by their sound or a sound associated with them.  Words and tones are meaningful to you.  Try these strategies to keep you organized:

  • Label file folders by names that first come to mind when you think of the contents e.g. “Family Pictures I Would Keep Forever” rather than “Family Pictures” . 
  • Use sounds on your watch to help you keep track of time.
  • Use a timed playlist on your phone or digital music player to help you keep track of time spent on a particular project or task.
  • Talk yourself through the steps of an organizing project.  Write them down and say them out loud while you work your way through each step.

If you are naturally attuned to sounds – and like to play with sounds and words – use that skill and strength to your advantage when organizing.  Next post in the series will look at the kinesthetic processing modality.

Organizing Challenges Organizing Strategies
Tags : Clearing Clutter, Filing, home office, managing mess, Organizing Maintenance, organizing strategies, Time Management, Understanding disorganization
woman in black juggling blue balls

5 Strategies For Students to Manage Time Tasks

Posted by Carolyn on
 August 10, 2015

It’s early August.  One glance at the window of any office supply store will confirm the inevitable – the new school term is just around the corner.   Like many parents, you anticipate the new school year with trepidation: back to the pressure of projects, assignments and exams but your child, the student, is not very good at managing his/her time. It’s possible your student feels the same trepidation and has already suffered the stress caused by struggling to manage time commitments.

5 Strategies to Help Juggle Time

Time tasks are better managed than juggled.

Here are five strategies that will help  your student be successful at managing their time tasks. timeliness and success.

1. Modify your Perspective; Time Can Not Be Managed.

Time is time.  It ticks past at the same pace every second of every minute of every hour of every day. No matter how we try, no one has yet found a way to make it stop. Needless to say, the enduring state of time means we have absolutely no control over it. None. Zilch. Nada. You can’t control it, stop it, or manage it.

There, feel better?  You are off the hook to manage time. Insert sigh of relief.

What we do have control over is what we do with our time, how we use it.  Anything you commit to do, no matter how big or small, is a time task or time commitment. An assignment is a time task; so is taking out the garbage, going to hockey practice and eating supper.  Most of us don’t think of eating supper as a time task but just ask your stomach and the coach what happens if the school bus is late and your student can’t get supper until after hockey practice at 8 pm.  The better we are at managing our time tasks, the more successful we are at managing our relationship with time.

2. Identify Time Tasks

Help your student be really clear on all the things for which they have  time commitments. In most young people’s lives many there are lots, many of which can’t altered, modified or moved. There are 2 types of time tasks – the regular/routine (RR)and the irregular/occasional (IO). RR tasks are frequently the more obvious ones such as class schedules, hockey practice, dance class(es), Youth Group and piano lessons. IO tasks might include assignments, shopping for prom dress and hockey tournaments.  I consider exams to be RR since in most high schools the exam schedule is known well in advance and can be clearly planned for. Birthdays would be IO unless you can remember the dates of everyone’s birthday and are certain when the all the celebrations will be. Less obvious RR are sleep, meals and the orthodontist appointments (same time every month right?). More challenging are IO time tasks over which you have no booking control like the hockey games and  group projects. Driving time is both RR and IO as it is frequently attached to an activity.

3. Use a Day Planner/Calendar.

Using a day planner, in whatever form, is likely the most significant strategy for helping a student manage their time tasks.  Planners provide the opportunity to do just that – plan.  And then there are all the synonyms for planning. People who plan and are prepared, have an interesting relationship with luck.  Use whatever form of planner works for your student and is appropriate for their age.  In some cases this will be the calendar on their phone.  In others, it will need to be a wall calendar over which you still have some influence or even help them insert their time tasks.

Start by having the student fill in their RR tasks, remembering to leave space for meals, sleep and driving time.  Next have the student fill in whichever IO tasks they are aware of.  This is a great opportunity to fill in related tasks such as finding the shoes to go with the prom dress or sharpening the skates before the game.  Encourage them to write in all their friends’ and family members’ birthdays. Why? Often there will be parties booked around these dates and with the dates booked in the agenda a student can anticipate a gathering of friends or family around the birthday date. With the heads up on their agenda, they can also budget their funds if they wish to go out to celebrate a friend’s birthday.

If they are old enough, encourage your student to keep the agenda with them at all times in their back pack or hand bag.  It will then be available for reference when the opportunity to babysit comes up or a party invitation arrives.

4. Plan Tomorrow Today

Being prepared is still a good motto.  Teach your student to check their agenda at the end of the day and plan for the following.  If they are still young and using a wall calendar, teach them to check the calendar before bed to prepare their clothes, dance bag, hockey gear or homework books before the rush of the morning.

5. Verb-up the To Do List.

Developing a list of the time tasks associated with assignments and other school activities is a powerful tool for getting time tasks accomplished.  Unfortunately, these lists frequently become a list of nouns waiting for attention rather than actions requiring time e.g. Geography project, English outline, prom dress, new binder.

A more helpful list uses at least one verb to clearly indicate what needs to be done and includes a deadline.  Being more specific when writing the list also helps your student realize what the full time tasks actually involves and how they will know when it is completed.  For example:

Geography project becomes,

Review (teacher) Mr. Sanders topic list and choose a topic for geography project.  Submit to Mr. Sanders  by September 30.

Prom dress becomes,

Call BFF. Book shopping time this weekend. Set up FB page for prom dress for our grad year. (who knew dresses had their own FB pages?)

Each of these tasks has now become a more complete assignment by verbing-up the task statement.  Your student will know what needs to be done and when it is accomplished.

School may be just around the corner but you and your student can be armed and ready for the added pressures it brings.  These five strategies will set up your student to manage, not juggle, their time tasks with a straight A result.

Organizing Students
Tags : Children, organizing strategies, organizing students, Students, Time Management, Time Tamers

Time Tamer Tuesday – Tax Tips

Posted by Carolyn on
 August 14, 2012

Categorize your tax information when you receive it.  Compiling all the data required for your tax submission will be a lot easier. 

Organizing Time Time Tamer Tuesday
Tags : Bills, Taxes, Time Management, Time Tamers

Time Tamer Tuesday – Save the Size

Posted by Carolyn on
 August 7, 2012

Children’s feet grow very quickly.  Next time you walk past a shoe store with your child, pop in and have his/her foot measured.  When your mom calls to say she found some great children’s shoes on sale she would love to buy for your children, you’ll know exactly what size to tell her to buy.

Organizing Time Time Tamer Tuesday
Tags : Children, Time Management, Time Tamers

Time Tamer Tuesday – Lighten up on the Commitment List

Posted by Carolyn on
 July 31, 2012

Don’t over commit yourself. It’s better to do fewer things calmly and accurately. Tomorrow is another day. 

Organizing Time Time Tamer Tuesday
Tags : Time Management, Time Tamers

Time Tamer Tuesday – Use the Down Time

Posted by Carolyn on
 July 24, 2012

Line up to check out?  Subway slow?  Buses busy?  Keep a notebook with you so you can jot notes for other projects, thoughts, lists or activities while waiting.  Ideas often come to us while our brains are supposed to be concentrating on other things.

Organizing Time Time Tamer Tuesday
Tags : Time Management, Time Tamers

Time Tamer Tuesday – Plan for Traffic

Posted by Carolyn on
 July 17, 2012

When planning your schedule for the day, allow time to get from one place to the next: anticipate traffic delays. 

Organizing Travel Time Tamer Tuesday
Tags : Time Management, Time Tamers

Time Tamer Tuesday – Lay Out the Work Out

Posted by Carolyn on
 July 10, 2012

Headed for a workout in the morning?  Whether you go to the gym or hit the pavement/park for a run or bike, lay out your gear the night before – all of it including clothes, socks, shoes, gloves, keys, phone, shower gear, work clothes and anything else you need to take.  You’ll be primed when you wake up and can go on autopilot until the endorphins kick in.

Organizing Time Time Tamer Tuesday
Tags : Fitness, Time Management, Time Tamers
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