How to be Productive While Waiting
Waiting is one of those external time wasters that is often beyond your control. As much as you would like to avoid it, sometime you just have to wait. You wait on hold on the telephone; wait for meetings and appointments; wait for hockey practice to end; wait for a spouse to finish work; and wait and wait and wait.
Waiting can use up a portion of your time. Good time management puts waiting time to use.
Whether at the office, out and about, or at home, here are seven ways to make use of waiting time:
- Review your lists: Check your to-do lists, your shopping lists or other reminders; add, subtract or rearrange, as necessary.
- Review your calendar: If you’re waiting and can contact people, set-up, confirm or reschedule items on your calendar.
- Sort mail: E-mail, paper mail —whether at work or at home— can be organized while on the phone or watching T.V.
- Personal/professional development: Read an industry journal or a school assignment. Carry a media player and listen to speakers, trainers or podcasts.
- Use the phone: If you have access to a phone, use the time to make or return calls.
- Work on hobbies: Carry needlework with you. If you draw, carry a sketch book. Carry a digital camera and snap off a few pictures.
- Structured relaxing: It doesn’t have to be all about efficiency; read a book, solve a crossword puzzle, or play a game on your PDA.
We do a lot of waiting. We can’t get those minutes or hours back, but we can use the time to be productive. Make it a practice to carry your “tools” with you and you’ll find you never have to sit twiddling your thumbs while you wait.
Related articles by Zemanta
- Marc Andreessen – Guide to personal productivity (pmarca-archive.posterous.com)
- My Journey Out of Procrastination: Doing Things Now (climbtothestars.org)
- Some More GTD & Personal Productivity With TimeGT (makeuseof.com)
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=3c315b7d-bed9-4713-b61c-4bc1e5b99e7a)
Related Posts:
Did you enjoy this post? Why not leave a comment below and continue the conversation, or subscribe to my feed and get articles like this delivered automatically to your feed reader.
Ian, this is good advice! I especially like your line about having “all tools” with you. I make it a point to have a book with me whenever we run errands on the weekend- you never know when you’ll have an extra 10 minutes of waiting and then convert it into reading time.
Mike