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.

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Recommended: Zen to Done Productivity eBook The Ultimate Simple Productivity System

However, dealing with crisis requires more effort, time and energy, often leading to increased stress and decreased productivity. There are three steps you can take to gain control over crisis situations.

1. Ask whether or not a problem is really a crisis or merely someone’s sense of urgency. If it’s not a crisis, stop dealing with it. Put it on a to-do list, with an appropriate priority and come back to it at the right time.
2. Plan. Get in the habit of asking, “What could go wrong here?” Take the answers and create contingency plans.
3. Buffer your schedule (#3). Don’t fill your calendar so full that you are unable to address a crisis. If something can go wrong, it will. Allow time to put it right.

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Posted in Productivity

There’s nothing like a major holiday, such as Christmas, to ratchet up the pressure on your schedule. Parties, concerts, shopping, visiting all add to an already full schedule. While you may find a couple of quiet days around the holiday, the rest of December can be quite stressful.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help:

• If you’re selected to plan the office Christmas party, put together a group to help you out.
• Get family members involved in shopping, decorating, baking, etc.
• Charitable organizations often run gift-wrapping services as a fund raiser. You can save some time and support a worthy cause by getting your gifts wrapped.

Holidays can add the expectation of the personal touch to all that happens. Don’t feel you have to do everything. Ask for help.

Recommended: Zen to Done Productivity eBook The Ultimate Simple Productivity System

As you hone and improve your productivity skills and systems, it’s a good idea to pause from time to time and assess how well you are implementing your time-management strategies.

Ask yourself the following questions:

• How much control do you have over the use of your time?
• How severely are you locked in to demands and deadlines?
• Do you know how to say no when an opportunity presents itself?
• Within the time you control, are you doing only necessary and appropriate tasks?
• Are you completing those tasks in the most efficient way?
• Do you know your energy cycle?
• Do you make best use of peak energy periods?
• Do you set priorities?
• Do you consistently handle your most important tasks first?

Have you found areas in the above, which could use improvement?

Now, review the four statements below and come up with four ways you can address the issues.

1. I can make better use of my time by:
2. The things standing between me and effective time management are:
3. If I found five hours a week, here is how I would use them:
4. These tasks take up a lot of my time, but don’t seem to contribute to my goals and objectives:

Click here to rate your time-management skills.

Recommended: Zen to Done Productivity eBook The Ultimate Simple Productivity System

Time is money, the adage goes, and lots of money gets lost in being disorganization. Disorganization is so prevalent in the workplace that the Professional Organizers in Canada estimates a typical office worker wastes 150 hours a year – almost one month – searching for misplaced information. For someone earning $50,000 a year, that translates to a loss of $3,842 a year.

If a lack of organization has your head spinning, take possession of schedule and workspace with this guide eliminating to these six disorganization demons.

1. Manage paper effectively – Barbara Hemphill, author of The Paper Tiger, offers the FAT principle for paper burden: file it, act on it, or toss it. Once you’ve thrown away as much as possible, file everything else into an effective retrieval system or a hard-paper filing system.Sort your files into the following groups according to how often you need them:
   1. Action Files: store in a desk drawer, desk-top file box or anywhere else that’s easy to reach.
   2. Reference Files: store in a convenient location close to your desk.
   3. Archive Files: store in a filing cabinet or an off-site location.
2. Make meetings effective – Managers can spend an average of 17 hours a week in meetings, and that doesn’t include preparation and follow-up time. If you’re holding a meeting, draw up an agenda and circulate it to the staff attending beforehand. Set time limits for each topic, then stick to them.Other time-saving tricks:
   1. schedule the meeting when people are inclined to be brief: before lunch or the end of the day.
   2. invite as few people as possible to limit discussion.
3. Manage drop-in visitors – Reduce “people clutter” by placing in/out trays outside your space to avoid being disturbed by staff. Keep the office door closed. If you have an open-door policy, place your back to the entrance, or face away from your cubicle entry to indicate your unavailability. If staff still insist on speaking with you, stand immediately and walk toward your visitor and cordially ask the purpose of the visit.
4. Schedule telephone calls – Before returning calls, note what you want to say and what you want to find out beforehand. Be brief and to the point, and let the person know that your time is limited. If the discussion is likely to take longer, suggest another date when more time is available. When placing calls, respect the time of other employees by immediately asking if you have phoned at a convenient time or should call back later.
5. Manage your time – Plan when you’re going to tackle tasks and allow enough time to complete all or part of them. Work on difficult jobs first, or at a time when you’re at peak performance, saving the less stressful tasks for when you have less energy.
6. Delegate effectively – If you’re in a position to delegate, the general rule is to pass along work to one of your staff if he or she can do it 80 per cent as well as you can. Make sure the person doesn’t already have a full plate, and give them a deadline. If you’re on the receiving end of delegation, learn to say no if your schedule is full, or find out what isn’t urgent and leave it for another day. If you don’t have a choice, ask for guidance on priorities.

Tags: GTD, productivity

Recommended: Zen to Done Productivity eBook The Ultimate Simple Productivity System

Specifically, we lie to ourselves.

Procrastinators tell lies to themselves. Such as, “I’ll feel more like doing this tomorrow.” Or “I work best under pressure.” But in fact they do not get the urge the next day or work best under pressure. In addition, they protect their sense of self by saying “this isn’t important.” Another big lie procrastinators indulge is that time pressure makes them more creative. Unfortunately they do not turn out to be more creative; they only feel that way. They squander their resources. —Psychology Today

I can’t argue with this. I have told myself those very lies on countless occasions. The biggest lie procrastinators tell themselves, not mentioned above is, “This time, it’s going to be different.” That lie comes just before we fall back into the same old routine of putting things off.

I’d like to offer a sure-fire solution to overcoming the lies, but I haven’t found it yet. Here are three things that help reduce my attempts at misleading myself.

1. Accountability – Yes, it’s possible to lie to others, as well. But I find, when I am accountable to someone else, the task is more likely to be completed.
2. Well-being – If I have to review and approve the salary of a new hire, and I know their getting paid depends on my actions, I get the thing done. My annual physical may be more like 13 or 14 months apart, but I get to the doctor. When the task involves the well-being of another, or me, it gets completed, most often on time.
3. I’m just to going to look at it – This is the same as the “I’m not going to do it mind hack” I pointed to last week (4^th bullet point down). Instead of putting off a large task, I tell myself, “I’m just going to look at it.” Once I have it opened, I tell myself, “I could get that first bit done quickly, with no effort.” Before I know it, through a series of small steps, I’m well into the project and the momentum carries me along.

I’d be lying to myself and you if I said that these tricks were 100% successful. However, they do go a long way to helping me complete things in a timely manner.

Recommended: Zen to Done Productivity eBook The Ultimate Simple Productivity System

Procrastinators are alcoholics. Okay, procrastinators are not alcoholics (at least, not all of them), but it makes an eye-catching statement.

Procrastination predicts higher levels of consumption of alcohol among those people who drink. Procrastinators drink more than they intend to—a manifestation of generalized problems in self-regulation. That is over and above the effect of avoidant coping styles that underlie procrastination and lead to disengagement via substance abuse. —Psychology Today

Not this procrastinator!

Of course, it’s easy for me to be self-righteous about alcoholism. I’ve never been I drinker, so I’ve never had to face the temptation to over-drink.

As a side note: I’m not belittling the problems of substance abuse. I have been involved with The Salvation Army all my life and have know the heart-breaking results of alcohol and drug abuse.

My personal experience supports the idea that procrastinators have problems in self-regulation. My issues are health related. My doctor told me that I needed to reduce my blood pressure or I would have to go on medication. I’m now taking blood-pressure pills. More recently, he told me my triglyceride levels are high and need to come down. So far, that has not happened.

It’s not that I don’t understand the risks to my health, I know these issues increase my chances of heart disease and worse. It’s just that I think I’ll get the situation under control next week. Unfortunately, next week never comes.

How can you deal with self-regulation?

Bill Wilson and Bob Smith established the 12–step formula with Alcoholics Anonymous. There are many programs that use some variation on this formula to help people overcome their dependencies. Procrastinators can check out the 12–steps at Procrastinators Anonymous.

5 ways I deal with self-regulation:

1. Visualization – when I form an image of the goal met, I find it easier to work to the end result.
2. Break it down – rather than focusing on the need to lose 40 pounds, I spread it over a period and look at the pounds I need to lose per week. Procrastinators need to be careful with this one. We can spend days creating and re-creating the small steps. Watch for diminishing returns.
3. Write it down – track it. Not just the statistics or milestones accomplished, but the struggles and feelings involved in the journey.
4. Brute force – there are days, particularly at the beginning of a project, where I have to grit my teeth and jump in. Often, momentum builds from this forced start and carries through to the achievement of the goal.
5. Spirituality – this is a key component of 12–step programs. When you believe in a force greater than yourself, you see potential for overcoming your own limitations with the help of this spiritual power.

Recommended: Zen to Done Productivity eBook The Ultimate Simple Productivity System

• Identify time over which you have control
• Set systems for routine tasks
• Use technology
• Make best use of the 80/20 rule
• Identify and use your energy cycle
• High energy tasks scheduled during high-energy peaks
• Save less intensive tasks for the low-energy periods
• Set goals and create plans
• Leave some buffer room in your plans to accommodate unexpected changes
• Prioritize the actions require to meet your goals or complete your plans
• Analyse your time usage
• Keep a two-week time log at least once a year
• Test your activities against the questions:
• Is it necessary?
• Is it appropriate?
• Is it efficient?
• Eliminate the time-wasters in your schedule
• Personalize the system
• Use the tools that work for you

Incidently, if you have any quips or sayings that sum up time management, leave them in the comments.

Recommended: Zen to Done Productivity eBook The Ultimate Simple Productivity System

Background of the GTD System

Some version of David Allen’s “work-life management” system has been around for almost 25 years. The book, Getting Things Done : The Art Of Stress-Free Productivity, by David Allen, was published in 2001. He has also written a second book titled, Ready for Anything : 52 Productivity Principles for Work and Life. GTD, a registered trademark, is the abbreviation for Getting Things Done.

I first came across David Allen when he called his seminar, Managing Actions and Projects. I still have the cassette tape series of David presenting that material.

In an interview with Fast Company Magazine, Allen said,

We clutter our minds with vague promises about what we should do, what we could do. But there is always more to do than there is time to do it. Most of the stress that people feel doesn’t come from having too much to do – it comes from not keeping agreements they’ve made with themselves. When you tell yourself you ought to do something and then don’t do it, you experience self-doubt and frustration. You can fool all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool yourself for a second.)

To deal with the “mind clutter” we experience, Allen developed a system which is based on identifying all the incomplete tasks facing a person and then isolating the next actions required to move tasks towards completion.

Contrary to most productivity systems, GTD is not priority based. GTD is based on what David Allen calls context: your location, time and energy levels determine what you can get done. Phone calls can only be made when you’re near a phone. The garage can only be cleaned when you’re at the garage, but not if you have only 15 minutes available. By organizing Next Actions into context, you can determine the best step to take given your circumstances.

There are five core principles to Getting Things Done:

Collect

This is the capture step. Anytime something crosses your mind that requires some sort of response or action from you, capture it in a “bucket”: an in-box on your desk or by the back door, an email folder, a notebook, a little tape recorder, etc. Any tool that gets it out of your head and into the system.

Process

Next you clear the items from the bucket(s). Start at the top of the in-box, pick up each item and ask yourself “is there an action I need to take about this item?”

• Start at the top.
• Deal with one item at a time.
• Never put anything back into the in-box.
• If an item requires action:
• do it (if it takes less than two minutes*),
• delegate it, or
• defer it.
• If not,
• file it,
• toss it, or
• save it for possible action later.

*The 2-minute Rule: If it takes less than 2 minutes to do something, do it right away.

Organize

The foundation of this system is lists. You need as many lists as necessary to keep you on track, but not so many that you need a list just to cross-reference your lists. These are the basic lists recommended by David Allen:

• Next Action: for every item requiring your attention, decide what is the next action you can take. (E.g., if the item is ‘write project proposal’, the next action might be ‘e-mail Nancy for proposal guidelines’, or ‘call Ken about cost estimates’, or something similar.) No matter the number of steps and actions required to complete the item, there will always be something that you need to do first, and this should be recorded in the next actions list. These should be organized by the context: such as ‘@ office’, ‘@ phone’, or ‘@ store’.
• Projects: a project is anything that will need more than one action to complete. Keep track of those multi-action items here. (E.g., ‘write project proposal’ or ‘buy a new house.’)
• Waiting for: if you are waiting on someone else’s response or work to complete your task, track it on this list. (E.g., ‘updated contact list from Mary.’)
• Someday/Maybe: when you have a great idea or long-term goal that you would like to consider in the future. You don’t want it sitting on your project list for a long time, but you don’t want to forget it either. (E.g., ‘learn to speak Spanish’ or ‘travel to India.’)

Other common lists might be a calendar or context-sensitive lists: calls, @office, @home, errands, etc. David Allen also suggests a number of cool/convenient lists to augment the basics.

Review

Now that you’ve processed your tasks and organized your lists, you need look at those lists. You need to review the lists throughout the day, based on context. Once a week you need to set aside time for a weekly review to empty your buckets/in-boxes and make sure you are on top of things.

Do!

Now that the system is set up and organized, choose what needs to be done based on:

• context (where you are)
• time available
• energy available
• priority

If you want to get this summary in a more authentic version, you download The 5 Phases of Mastering Workflow from the David Allen Company web-site.

Recommended: Zen to Done Productivity eBook The Ultimate Simple Productivity System

Recommended: Zen to Done Productivity eBook The Ultimate Simple Productivity System