Time Management Tips

Welcome
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- Welcome to our series on time management tips. The idea behind this course is to give you ideas
you can implement quickly and immediately to get more time. Each video stands alone and can also
supplement my more detailed Time Management Fundamentals course. I recommend that you view
both courses in tandem to get the best results. Everything from ideas to reduce workplace
interruptions and create a more productive work environment and better coordinate your work with
your coworkers. Our idea here is to improve your mindset so that you can be more focuses and get
more time. Thanks for watching, let's get started.
• Power tips for sending email
- Email is an essential part of getting more done in our day. Yet, some people feel like it's too much a
part of their day and it's hard to use. Compared to the way things were done in the past, email is
powerful. But, we need to use it properly. In this video, I want to give you some tips to get the most
from email, and the way that I'm going to do that is by starting at the top of a typical email and work
our way down to the bottom. So, first, at the top is that Reply versus Reply To All button, and
they're too close together. Often, people click Reply To All when they really should click Reply. Be
careful when hitting that button, because if you hit Reply To All, it may cause unnecessary
interruptions for too many people. Also, moving on to the To section, you want to prune out names
if possible. So, if there's a long list of names that you're going to send that email to, remove anyone
that isn't absolutely necessary. And if you're going to include someone in the CC or Carbon Copy,
explain to them in the body of the email why you're sending this email to them. For instance, if I
include my assistant Fay, I'm going to add a little note that explains why she's getting this email.
Now, let's move on to the Subject line of the email. Often, you'll have a long conversation about one
particular subject, and then it will shift subjects, yet the subject line of the email stays the same. You
want to change that subject line to something that's more appropriate to the topic that you're
discussing. Now, moving on to the body of the email, keep your email brief, using only bullet points
if possible. Using bullet points calls out the important details of the email. We've all had that
experience where we've either sent or received an email that's a long wall of text, and often in that
situation, we miss out on important points. Bullet points helps resolve that issue. Also, think about
the fold, particularly on a mobile phone. Now, in website design, the fold is that point at which
someone has to scroll to see the rest of the screen. In an email, if you have to have people scroll on
their phones to see all of the body of the email, odds are, you're including too much detail. Now,
moving on to the Send button. Before you click Send, count to ten. What are you doing during that
counting? Well, you're reviewing the mistakes that you may have made, you're spell checking, you're
thinking for a moment, and making sure that you're sending this email in a calm fashion, rather than
firing off some overly emotional email. During that counting to ten, you can correct those mistakes,
or perhaps save that email for a more appropriate time. If you're looking for more tips to help you
be more productive with email, I encourage you to check out my time management fundamentals
course here on the library. Email can help make your day more productive and get things done
quicker as long as you use it appropriately
• Reduce interruptions with 1:1 meetings
- Establishing a consistent one-to-one meeting schedule is a critical tool to improving time

management. Now, I do have a course on the library about holding effective one-to-one meetings,
yet many people wonder why even have these meetings at all? The biggest reason is that most
people in the workplace are treating each other like human vending machines. They're constantly
peppering each other with quick questions, and these quick questions have a lot of switching cost.
Also, it's getting in the way of people doing their own critical thinking. Instead, what you want to do
is be able to focus on your most important work, your most valuable activities, and then have a set
time to hold those meetings. Now, how do we hold those meetings? In general, the idea is that you
ask them your questions, and they ask you their questions. It's that simple. But the idea is that we
need to do it on a consistent basis, that both of you decide, hey, we don't want to interrupt each
other anymore, let's set a consistent time on our calendars and commit to that specific time. Then,
at that time, I'm going to bring my list. For instance, if I'm meeting with Lauren, I'm going to bring my
one-to-one Lauren list, and she's going to bring her one-to-one Dave list. When we come to the
meeting, the agenda is simple. I'm going to ask her what questions do you have for me? She goes
first, asks me all of her quick questions. I respond to them, and then we switch roles. She says, what
questions do you have for me? And I go through my questions. The goal at the end of this
conversation is that we agree on specific actions that we're going to take. Try to avoid vague
statements such as I'll get that to you sometime next week. But instead, make it specific, as I'll get it
to you by 3:00 on Tuesday of next week. Using one-to-one meetings in this way can become a
powerful ally in helping you be more focused and get more done.
Positive procrastination
- Take a moment and open up your calendar and look at the activities that you've scheduled for
yourself. I'm not talking about meetings with other people. Just you, by yourself, working on a
project of some kind. How many of those activities are scheduled further than 90 days into the
future? In my experience, most people aren't scheduling things to work on that far in advance. In
fact, most people have a very short term perspective. They're looking at only what can be done in
the next week or two weeks. The result of this perspective is a calendar that's just crammed full of
activities, which is dangerous place to be in the 21st century world, in which we're going to be
interrupted. You want to leave plenty of space in your calendar and one way to do that is through
positive procrastination. I actually encourage people to not stop procrastinating, but just get better
at it. Now, what do I mean by positive procrastination? Negative procrastination, of course, we're all
familiar with that, that's just pushing things off indefinitely and they never get done. Positive
procrastination, though, is a committment to work on things, just in the future. Positive
procrastination frees up time and it gives us more room to be prepared for emergencies and
interruptions when they happen. Positive procrastination helps us focus on our most valuable
activity. So, how do we get better at it? First of all, we use the calendar always. Anytime we want to
schedule anything, not just meetings with other people, but meetings with ourself, as well, we
always put it to the calendar, even if we're going to schedule some down time, put it in the calendar.
This sets you up to use procrastination positively, which leads to the second tip, which is when
should we schedule these things? And the general rule of thumb I like to use is the latest minus 5%.
So if something is due a couple of months from now, we're not going to schedule it right at the end
of those two months, but maybe back a week, that gives you enough time to get it done, with a little
breathing room in case something goes wrong. Now, when you schedule things on the calendar, the
third tip is to commit to it. When we put things in the calendar, we're essentially entering into a
contract with ourselves. Many people are good at keeping appointments with other people, yet
struggle a little bit with the appointments with theirselves. When you put something into the
calendar, tell yourself, "I am committed to this," and the fourth tip, what if you're not committed?
What if you have something that you might do? Well don't put it into the calendar, use a perhaps
list. A perhaps list is where you have a running list of all the wonderful ideas that you have, that you
haven't really committed to yet, and just review that perhaps list on a regular basis, maybe once a
month or once a quarter. Positive procrastination can be your friend, it can help you get more done
and have more room to focus on what you do best. So don't stop procrastinating, just get better at
it.
• Set voicemail and email expectations
- If I call your voicemail, what will I hear? Most people have a voicemail message something like this:
Hi, you've reached the voicemail of Dave, leave a message, I'll get back to you as soon as possible.
What does "as soon as possible" mean? It means whatever the person who's leaving the message
wants it to mean. It could be now, it could be in the next five minutes. Well, what we want to do is
transition out of the culture of "now" to the culture of "when". Most people have an expectation of
now. If you don't respond to that voicemail in the next five minutes, they send you an email. And if
you don't respond to that email, they send you a text message, and on and on, which creates a lot of
switches and interruptions in your day. What we want to do is move to the culture of "when", which
establishes an expectation in the other person's mind that is reasonable. How do we do that? Well,
let's consider it both with voicemail and with email. First voicemail, how often should you check your
voicemail for the kind of business that you're in, or the kind of thing that you do each day? And also,
how often is reasonable for you to check it? How often can you check that voicemail? Establish a
schedule in your calendar that you know you can stick with. Let's take for example the idea that I'm
going to check my voicemail twice per day. I'm going to check it at noon, and I'm going to check it at
the end of the day at four. I would then create a voicemail expectation that says something like this:
Hi, you've reached the voicemail of Dave Crenshaw. Leave a message, and I'll respond at either noon
or a 4:00 pm, and if you call me after 5:00, I'll return your call the next day. I've now moved out of
the culture of now and established an expectation of when. Now email is a little bit trickier. You
don't want to have an auto-responder that responds to every single email that lets people know
when they can expect a reply. That's not reasonable, and will create more interruptions. So first, you
want to get together with the people that you work with every day and have a conversation. What is
the culture that we're going to establish at this organization, this company? How often should we
expect each other to respond to those emails? And I recommend that you create a written guideline
of what other people can expect. Really, we start by establishing a personal understanding that we
can't respond to every email immediately, but we can respond perhaps within one business day, or
four business hours. Now what if you go on an extended vacation or an extended trip? In this
situation, you do want to set up an auto-responder that establishes an expectation. For instance,
right now I'm filming this course for Lynda and I have an auto-responder that says I'll be gone for
these few days, and people should, in most cases, expect a response at the end of those days. By
establishing an expectation, we regain control. We can move from a culture of "now" to a culture of
"when". And when you operated from a culture of "when", you'll have many less interruptions, and
you'll be far more productive.
How to deal with feeling overwhelmed
- All of us experience moments where we feel just completely overwhelmed, that there is too much
to handle in life or at work and there's no way that we're going to unbury ourselves. There are two
kinds of overwhelm that I see most people experience. First, is just too much stuff to do, and the
second is when a major life event occurs that causes you to shift your schedule in a dramatic way.
First of all let's talk about if you just have too much stuff to do. The first place I look at when
someone feels overwhelmed is email. Often people just get buried by email and they don't know
how to get out of it. This is when you have hundreds if not thousands or tens of thousands of email
in your inbox. If you find yourself in a situation like that, I recommend that you pick a date in the
past, perhaps 30 days ago, and declare email bankruptcy as of that date. You're not going to delete
everything from that date, but you're going to power archive everything in your email inbox that is
older than that date which you chose. This gives you a more reasonable space to start working
yourself out of this email. The second is when you have too much to do. Perhaps you have too many
things that have been put on your plate or that you put on your own plate. If you find yourself in
that situation, I recommend as much as possible to either delegate or decline these kinds of
activities. When I say delegate I mean ask yourself is there someone else who it's more reasonable
that they do this? Often I find myself in that situation where I find myself doing something that really
someone else on my team is better suited to do. They're better at it and their faster at it, and so I
delegate. Also you can just occasionally decline and say I'm sorry, I'm not gonna be able to do that.
Or another way to decline is to find the next window in your calendar. Use positive procrastination
and find a space far off into the future and ask someone is it okay if I get it to you as late as a month
from now or two months from now. If you want more help in preventing that overwhelm, I
recommend you check out time management fundamentals here on the library. Now what about an
event? Some significant thing that happened in your life, perhaps even a tragedy, something that
completely changed your world and you feel buried because of that. In that kind of a situation the
first most important thing to do is stop. Give yourself a moment to really process what has
happened. Slow down and change your expectations for yourself. In a situation where you
experience a major life event, it is not reasonable to expect the same level of performance, at least
in the short-term. So, similar to what we did with overwhelm with stuff on your calendar, we're
going to want to delegate or decline as much as possible. We want to communicate to others what
you're experiencing right now in the short-term and find out a way to have them help you so that
you can get back to your normal level of performance at some reasonable date in the future. Now
what if that feeling of being overwhelmed is a near constant companion in your life, that you feel
that even if you tried some of these suggestions I made you'd still feel like you're just buried and
there's too much to do. In a situation like that I recommend that you try to make whatever positive
changes you can. For instance, perhaps changing your work environment in a few ways, or exercising
more. Changing your diet or even getting more sleep can have a huge impact on your daily outlook.
Also, you may find that it's helpful to seek professional help in the form of a psychologist or even in
medical situations a psychiatrist. I personally have benefited from both. The feeling of being
overwhelmed is universal to all of us from time to time. When you have that experience stop, slow
down, and give yourself some time.
Make the most of an inbox and outbox
- The inbox and the outbox. Are these a mystery to you? I know that they were to me before I
became more productive. So in this video, what I want to do is simplify and demystify the concept of
the inbox and the outbox for you, so that you can be more productive. First of all, the inbox. The
inbox is one place where everything that is unprocessed in your day should go. Papers, cords, your
hat, whatever it is. If it's out of place, it belongs in the inbox. In my course Time Management
Fundamentals, I explain what unprocessed means. Unprocessed simply is unresolved. You don't
know what you're going to do with it. You don't know when you're going to do it. Or it's not where it
belongs. Anything that's like that, pick it up, put it in that inbox. You want to do that, but you also
want to communicate that to your coworkers. To your team. Let them know that the inbox is the
place where anything that they have for you should go. Sometimes teams get in the habit of putting
something on someone's chair or someone's monitor, whatever, so that they don't miss it. No. You
want everything to go in the inbox. Nowhere else. Once per week, it's your job to bring that inbox to
zero. Completely empty. Once per week. In order to do that, you're going to need to have a regular
schedule to get it done. Now what about the outbox? The idea behind the outbox is that it's the
place where you temporarily put things that belong to someone else. So you're going to want to
have one outbox for each of the key people that you work with in your day. Ask yourself, who do you
regularly communicate with? Who do you regularly give files to or other physical things? You'll want
to create an outbox for each one of them. So for instance, I might create an outbox for John, and for
Faye, and for Amy. I work from a home office and even have an outbox for my wife. What this does
is it frees you up and gives you less interruptions when you're processing your inbox. Instead of
having to get up every single time I have something to give to someone, instead, I put it in the
outbox. And then, when I'm done with all of my inbox processing, I get up, take the outboxes, and
put them into someone else's inbox. This reduces the number of interruptions and allows me to stay
more focused and in the zone while I'm processing my inbox. The concept of the outbox and the
inbox is simple and timeless. Both of these can be productive tools for you as long as you use them
wisely.
Remove the "busy" tag
- Occasionally, I get asked, what do you think is the biggest obstacle in the way of people becoming
more productive? My answer is it has everything to do with how people perceive themselves. If you
ask the average person, how you doing? Most people right now will say, I'm busy. Why do people do
that? Why do they equate themselves with being busy? Well, busy implies that they are doing a lot
of activity, and a lot of activity most people equate with professional success. In other words, if I'm
busy, I have more self worth. I want to change that perception. Busy is another word for ineffective.
Your success is not determined by the amount of activity that you're performing, but what you're
achieving with the time that you are spending, and how much free time you have to enjoy those
results. Imagine for a moment you meet two people. Both make a high income. Come up with
whatever number you equate with having a high income. Person A works 80 hours a week to get
that income. Person B works 30 hours a week. Which one is the greater success? The answer is
obvious. If you can achieve a high level of success and get great results by working less hours that's
much more favorable. So, how do we do that? First, you want to begin focusing on the results that
you're achieving, not the activity. Think about yesterday. You did a lot of stuff, you were probably
busy, but what did you accomplish during that time? Those results are more important than the
activity. Get your perspective focused on results first. Second, underspend time. Often people pack
their day, back to back to back, with appointments or things to do for themselves. When you do
that, you're creating a situation where you're more likely to switch tasks, and the more switches you
make, the less productive you're going to be and the more mistakes are going to happen. Instead,
give yourself space between appointments. This will help you get better results in a shorter amount
of time. Also, give yourself moments for quiet. Schedule time to do nothing. That may sound weird,
but giving yourself time to do nothing will have a powerful effect on your mind. It will help you
recondition yourself, and stop thinking about how busy you are, and more about what you're
accomplishing with that activity. You can be more successful, and you can do it with less activity.
Your success is determined by the results that you achieve.
How to respond to quick questions
- Excuse me, I've got just a quick question. How often do you hear that phrase throughout your day?
I call this the dreaded double-Q, the quick question is one of the greatest offenders when it comes to
time management in the workplace, it chops your day to pieces to constantly respond to these little
questions. The problem is many people feel guilty when they don't respond to these quick questions
because they want to be helpful and being helpful to your coworkers is a good thing. So how is the
best, most productive way to respond to these quick questions? I'm going to give you a four-step
process. The first question, "Can this wait "until our one-to-one meeting?" Now if you're not familiar
with the concept of a one-to-one meeting I recommend you check out my course on this subject in
the library, but the basic idea is you should have a regularly scheduled time to discuss these quick
questions. Instead of answering them constantly throughout the day you want to queue them up
and then bring them to the one-to-one meeting where you ask and answer these with each other.
The second question, "Is this better handled via email?" Now some questions that people ask you
don't involve a lot of back and forth, there's no conversation, it's just quick info, here's one question
I have and here is the one answer. So if you have questions like that, they're much better handled via
email, not face-to-face or phone conversation. Question three, "Is this better handled "in a separate
meeting?" Now occasionally you're going to bring a question to a coworker or them to you that is
complex, it's going to involve a lot of conversation, perhaps a half an hour or more. In a situation like
that you do not want to discuss these during the one-to-one meeting or ad hoc in the middle of the
day, you want to schedule a focused time to have a conversation about this more complex issue.
And then number four, if the answer to all the previous questions was no, then you ask, "Alright,
what is the question?" You'll respond now because since they answered all the previous questions as
no, their question is truly urgent and you should stop whatever you're doing and respond to it.
When you ask these four questions consistently you'll begin to recondition yourself and the other
person to think more productively about these quick questions. You'll learn to, in most cases, stage
them and wait until the meeting happens. It may not happen immediately but consistently asking
these questions will start to create a new pattern of how you communicate in the workplace, and
when you can do this you'll both protect your time and everyone else's.
Follow through on your commitments
- There are many rules of thumb when it comes to being successful. But I think that the first, most
important rule, and probably the simplest, is this, do what you say you're going to do when you say
you're going to do it. Now it's very easy for any of us to promise that we're going to get something
done and that we're going to get it done by a certain date. But the real challenge, is following
through on that promise and keeping it consistently. How can you be more consistent at doing what
you say you're going to do when you say you're going to do it? Here are six tips to help you stay on
track. First of all, always have your calendar. Make that calendar your best friend. Keep it with you at
all times. And before you make a commitment to anything, look at it. Look at how much time you
have available. That will help you do a better job of estimating what is actually realistic for you to
accomplish. Second, when making the commitment, have a conversation with the other person and
verify it. Ask questions like, when is the latest I can get this to you? Or, will it work if I get it to you by
such-and-so date? By getting an agreement up front, it will help you be more clear about what their
expectation is, and make you more committed to it. Third, once you've made that agreement with
the other person schedule time in your calendar to work on it. This will set you up for success for all
the other commitments you have. And it will also help you know in advance how long something's
going to take. I recommend you overestimate how long things are going to take. Most people are
really bad estimators. So instead, give yourself an extra 50%. Maybe even 100%. If you think it's
gonna take an hour, schedule two hours to work on it. And protect that time. When you are tempted
to schedule something else on top of it or double schedule, don't do it. When you're tempted to put
lots of other things close around it, not leave any breathing room, don't do it. Leave some space to
protect that time to make sure you keep your commitment. Number five is pretty straightforward.
Do it. When the time arrives, follow through, and keep that commitment you made to yourself and
the other person. And sixth, once you've worked on it or completed that item for the other person,
report back to them. Let them know that you did it, which saves them the time or the worry of
having to follow up with you. As you follow this system and become more consistent in keeping your
commitments, you'll build trust with other people. You'll also feel more confident in knowing that
you do what you say you're going to do. This rule applies in any aspect of your life.
Fight negative procrastination
- There are many reasons why people don't follow through. Why they procrastinate. Now, I talk
about the difference between negative procrastination and positive procrastination. Positive
procrastination is when you schedule something in your calendar and give yourself a lot of time to
complete it in an appropriate way. That's a good thing. But, negative procrastination is when you
have something scheduled or you know you're supposed to do something and you keep pushing it
off. This is the kind of procrastination I want to confront in this video. First, understand that the
reason behind procrastination most often has to do with some kind of emotion that you're feeling.
Often it's fear of how hard it's going to be or discomfort that you don't want to do that kind of
activity. Perhaps you wish you were doing something else. In this situation, we need to utilize a few
tricks to get yourself to follow through, even if you don't want to. The first trick is to ignore the
emotion that you're feeling. At least the emotion just before doing it. Our brains are hard-wired to
fight or flight. And often we resist change. Now this isn't a negative thing. Resisting change helps our
brains and helps us be more productive. For instance, if I had to think every single time about how to
brush my teeth, well that would take a lot of time that's unnecessary. But, there are moments when
that resisting of change is a negative. And usually that happens when we have something scheduled
on our calendar and we don't want to follow through with it. So, pay attention to the emotion that
you feel when scheduling it. Most often, we feel good about the idea of completing something. And,
pay attention to the emotion you feel after completing it. Validate the fact that, wow, that was a
good thing. And that emotion is positive. But the emotion that you feel just before doing something,
ignore it. Jump over it and get right into the action. That will help you follow through. The second tip
is precrastinating. Now, that's a clever little play on words, and what I mean is that you focus in
advance on just the first minute of activity. I had a client once who said if it weren't for the last
minute, I'd never get anything done. Well that's negative procrastination in a nutshell. Instead, we
want to flip that around and say if it weren't for the first minute, we'd never get anything done.
Think about some big project that you have to do. Perhaps creating a training program for an
employee. Now that's a big, messy, hard thing to do. Doesn't feel very good, right? So now, let's ask
what's the first minute of activity to accomplish that thing? Typically, it's going to be something very
simple, like opening up a file on a computer. You can do that, that's easy. There's no emotion tied to
that. So, I recommend that if you have a hard time with negative procrastination, in your calendar
when scheduling it, put a note about the first minute of activity. The first minute is opening up the
file. That will trick yourself into focusing on just that first minute, rather than the hours worth of
activity that you're going to do at some point. And then finally, answer a why question in the
description. As why am I spending my time doing this? You can put a little note in the description or
in the notes of the task, of why you're doing this. This gives your mind a justification for the effort
that you're about to put. So using that example before of creating a training program, the reason
why is it's going to save you lots of time and headache in the future. By using these three tips, you'll
fool your mind and your body into taking action. And the more often you take action and fight that
negative procrastination, you'll experience the benefits of improved time management.
Ergonomics' impact on productivity
- How familiar are you with the concept of ergonomics? Ergonomics in its most simple term is
improving your workspace to help you be more productive and put less strain on your body. In this
brief tips video, I'm not going to go into a detailed explanation of ergonomics. I'm not an ergonomics
expert, but I have learned many of the basics through the years of working with people in their
workspace and helping them become more productive. So, I'm going to help you avoid a few of the
most common mistakes. The first principle is to maintain neutral posture. This is just a fancy way of
saying have your body in a natural position, so that we're not putting too much strain on your
muscles or your joints. For instance, the chair that you sit in should help your back be in a natural,
curved position, not that you're hunched too far forward or leaning too far back. And your arms,
when they're bent, should be at a natural position that doesn't put strain on the joints. The second
principle is to make sure that the things you use most often are within reach. Now, the most
common tool for people working in an office are your keyboard and your mouse. This means that we
don't want to have to extend our arms too far to reach them, or if you have other tools that you use
on a regular basis, they're quick within your grasp. You don't have to extend your body in a weird
way to get to them. The third principle is to reduce the motions that you make. Now, the more often
you use a muscle and a joint over and over, the more strain that puts on your body. So, you want to
look for actions that you are performing, where you can reduce a motion. A simple way to do this is
rather than dragging or dropping your mouse over and over to close a window, you might use a
keyboard shortcut instead. Less motion, less wear and tear. The fourth principle is to reduce the
pressure on your body, in particular pressure points. You want to make sure that things aren't
pinching or pushing and putting pressure on your body. Again, using the keyboard example, I want to
make sure that my wrists are slightly up from the keyboard, rather than resting on a desk where I
may be putting a pressure point on my wrists. And the fifth principle is to take regular breaks. Every
so often, just get up from your desk, walk around, stretch those muscles, even give your eyes an
opportunity to rest by looking far off into the distance. Every time you give yourself a little break like
this, it sort of resets your body, stretches the muscles, and gets you ready to go back to work and be
more productive. Remember, your body is the tool that you use to perform work, regardless of what
it is that you're doing. By giving a little attention to your body and your workspace, you'll help
yourself be more productive.
Replace to-do lists with a schedule
- The to-do list is a common tool that many people use yet actually gets in the way of effective time
management. Now the to-do list is a running list of things that you want to accomplish and you add
things to it and you cross them off as they get done, and some of them do get accomplished, but
often the list grows endlessly. This contributes to a feeling of being overwhelmed. It also contributes
to the myth of multitasking. You're switch-tasking by looking at all those different to-dos at the same
time. Instead, we want to get into the habit of using a time budget. We want to make a commitment
as to when we're going to accomplish these things. So how do we make that transition away from a
to-do list and what should we use instead? Here are a few steps. First of all, establish a calendar.
One calendar. Choose that calendar that you're going to use consistently and you're going to carry
with you at all times. If you've already taken this step, then great, but if you haven't, take a moment
and decide whether you're going to use a calendar on your phone or your computer or both
together in the cloud, or whether you carry a paper planner with you. It doesn't matter as long as
you've chosen one to use. Second, you're going to want to establish a time in that calendar to
process those to-dos. Rather than let that list grow indefinitely and maybe get to it at some point,
you want to have a specific time in your calendar each week when you go through the list and bring
it to zero. How do you bring it to zero? Well I cover this in my course Time Management
Fundamentals, but essentially you need to decide what you're going to do with each item, when
you're going to do it, and where, if anywhere, the home is for notes related to that. Once you've
decided what, when, where, you can process the item off your to-do list and cross it off even if it's
not complete. Third, replace the to-do list with something like a notepad or a note taking app. You
can use something as simple as a paper notepad where you write down the to-dos and then cross
them off as you process them. Or you can use something like Evernote where you take one note for
each action item and delete it or archive it after you process those. And number four, as you might
imagine, we want to consistently process this notepad or note taking app. By doing this, we stay on
top of those to-dos, bringing them to zero every single week rather than being buried by them. The
fifth tip is kind of a bonus. You might want to create a to-don't list. The to-don't list is a list of items
that you've learned in the past you shouldn't spend your time doing. Perhaps create the top 10 list of
the things that you won't do in the future and that will help you better protect your time. Now the
to-do list may have worked in the past, decades ago, when we had an abundance of time and could
choose at will the things we would work on. In the 21st century though, where are lives are
dominated by interruptions, it's important for us to use the calendar effectively to stay on top of all
of our many to-dos.
Establish boundaries in open workspaces
- There's one increasingly popular trend in modern workspaces, and that is to have an open work
environment. The idea behind the open work environment is to create a positive atmosphere where
there's more teamwork and there's more collaboration. It creates a culture of where people can feel
like they talk to each other at any time. There is one major negative associated with that in that it
can increase interruptions dramatically. How do we get the most out of an open work environment,
and at the same time, maintain productivity by having less switches in our workday? Here are a few
tips. First of all, if you have any control over the layout of an open workspace, please designate one
area for private work. In other words, a few cubicles or one particular quiet room. This gives people
the opportunity to step out of the chatter of an open work environment, and focus on one project.
Second, I recommend that as an organization, you sit down and talk about the rules for an open
work environment. Talk about when it's appropriate to interrupt each other, and when it isn't, and
put those ground rules in writing. The problem is, often there are many assumptions about how and
when people should interrupt each other, but they're not clear to everyone, particularly new
employees. By putting them in writing, it makes it clear for everyone. Third, find some way to create
a visual boundary for yourself. This visual boundary communicates to others that, hey, please don't
interrupt me right now. For instance, I know of one person who would put the hood up on their
hoodie. I even know one gentleman who would wear a sombrero, which was very clear to everyone
that he wasn't to be interrupted. Perhaps it's as simple as putting on headphones, but the idea is, let
everyone else know that when you see this, please don't interrupt me. Fourth, you may find it
helpful to create a sound boundary. This is a way to sort of shield yourself from the distracting noises
in an open workspace. For instance, you may hear someone talking about a project that they're
working on, or their personal life. While this might be helpful at times, when you want to focus, it
gets in the way, so you could use something like, with those headphones listening to music, or if
music isn't productive to you, listen to white noise, such as the sound of a waterfall. This will help
you stay focused. Fifth, give people an alternative to just interrupting you in the moment. Some of
these alternatives include establishing a one-to-one meeting schedule where you both sit down and
ask each other quick questions, or you may provide other people with the opportunity to schedule
themselves directly into your calendar. This way, rather than having an open door policy, you have
an open calendar policy. The idea here is to help yourself focus at the same time that you build a
team. By establishing a few of these rules, you'll find that you can still get great results from an open
work environment.
Manage digital interruptions
- Many people wonder if technology has actually made us less productive, if all these interruptions
are causing us to get less done. I like to say that technology is not the problem, rather our improper
use of technology. We get so many interruptions via the computer and the smartphone in a way that
constantly is causing us to switchtask, and every switch we make is reducing our productivity. We
want to be able to focus on our most valuable activities. In this way, we need to use technology,
rather than be used by it. I'm going to give you a few tips. Keep in mind that with these tips, they
apply to any kind of digital interruption, whether that's sound or a visual pop-up or your phone
vibrating. First is email. Email can help you be more productive. However, many people are
constantly in a state of checking their email. Either they are always hitting send and receive on their
email, or the email is always popping up and notifying them when email's coming in. The first
important step to take is to go into the settings of your email app and turn off those notifications.
That small step will dramatically increase your productivity. So when do we check this email?
Instead, use the calendar. Have a scheduled time when you're going to check email each day. Some
people worry when I say that and say, "I'm not going to be able to keep up on everything." Even if
you checked your email every hour on the hour, and eight times per day, that's still far more
productive than constantly checking your email or being interrupted by it. Number two, what about
text messages or instant messaging? Now for some people, this is a necessary part of their work
environment. If that's the case, I still recommend that you follow the same rules as email. Turn off
the notifications and have a set time to check it. But, if this instant messaging program or text
program is necessary for emergencies, then I recommend that you establish a policy within your
team that text and instant messaging is reserved only for emergencies. That way you know that
when the pop-ups come in, you have to check it immediately, but that's going to be a rare occasion.
Third, what about social media? Now all of these tools can be powerful in building relationships and
building our career, yet often, we get too many push notifications. A push notification is another
word of saying it's pushing itself in front of you. It's reminding you that it's there. Those notifications
can be valuable, but you can do something to control how often you want to receive those. For
instance, let's say I went to a conference where I made lots of great contacts, met dozens of people,
but now I'm getting too many notifications that they're accepting my LinkedIn invitation. This is a
situation where I might want to manage my settings. For instance, you could go into the settings of
LinkedIn, choose "Privacy," go to "Communications," and you'll see a place where you can establish
the frequency of emails or the frequency of push notifications. In this way, you can take control of
how often you want to see these notices. And finally, what about apps on our smartphones? Now
apps are wonderful tools. They help us get a lot done, except for when they send us too many
notifications, when they pop up on the screen or make a noise on our phone that distracts us from
our most valuable activities. You can take control of these notifications. For instance, on an iPhone, if
you go into "Settings," you'll see a space for "Notifications." In "Notifications," find the app that's
interrupting you too much, and turn off the notifications. In this way, you can check the apps rather
than the apps checking you. By taking control of these digital interruptions, you'll be able to be more
focused, and you'll be able to find more time.
Find your productivity rhythm
- Many people feel that in order to be productive, they need to be constantly in motion. They feel
that they don't want to waste a single minute in their day. The reality, though, is that productivity is
more about rhythm than perpetual motion. You can see this in professional athletes or musicians.
They learn how to harness the power of rhythm to help them be more successful. You are a
professional as well, and you can find your own unique productivity rhythm. Here are a few areas for
you to consider as you craft your own rhythm. First is your personal rhythm, meaning you as a
person. We've heard the concept of people who are night people versus day people, but what about
afternoon people or middle-of-the-morning people? You want to think about the time of day where
you are most productive, when you have the most energy, and, of course, start to schedule activities
that are high value during that time. These are the best times to focus on your most valuable
activities. Second, consider your work rhythm. Every type of business or organization has its own
flow and rhythm. There are times of the day or week when customers are most likely to ask
questions, or when co-workers are most likely to ask you questions and want to collaborate. Take a
look at the pattern of the days of the week and the times of the day when it comes to your work.
Third, consider the frequency of interruptions that are taking place in your day. If at certain periods
of the day you're going to have more interruptions, that means that you're going to have less focus.
These periods of the day are best used on low-value activies, or activities that don't require a lot of
attention. You can switch away from them and then switch back and it's not going to impact your
productivity too much. And then fourth, consider the type of interruptions that you're experiencing.
You want to, as much as possible, switch from one like activity to another like activity. For instance,
if I'm focusing on email and answering an email, switching to a new email isn't going to have that big
of an impact. But if I'm doing something complex like programming, and then someone interrupts
me with a quick question, the cost of that interruption will be tremendous. Try to group similar
activities together as you're creating your own productivity rhythm. Now that you have a basic
understanding of the principles of finding your productivity rhythm, I invite you to watch this video
one more time, and as you go through it, make notes about what you think would work best for you.
As you find your own productivity rhythm, you'll find that you're more productive and more focused.
Craft a visually productive workspace
- Your five senses have a powerful impact on your time management. Sight is perhaps the most
powerful influence in your productivity. What you see around you can either contribute to or detract
from your focus. In this video, I'm going to give you a few suggestions. These suggestions are based
on the assumption that I'm talking to someone working in an office. However, you can take
whatever it is I'm sharing here, and adjust it to your workspace. First of all is the monitor. If you use
a computer, your monitor is perhaps the most vital tool when it comes to sight. We want to make
sure that it's set up properly. First of all, in terms of size, in general, bigger the better. As long as the
text is clear and you can see things, the more monitor space you have, the more workspace you
have. Occasionally people ask me if I recommend having multiple monitors or not. I personally don't,
but I have seen people benefit from the increased workspace. Just make sure that having multiple
monitors isn't a distraction. Also when you set up your monitors, make sure that your eyes are about
at the top level of the monitor and that there's a slight angle upward. This makes it easier for you to
look down and see what it is you're working on. Now let's consider the light around you. Obviously
the light can have a huge impact. First, let's make sure that we're adjusting the light according to the
time of day. For instance, earlier in the day, when we have more light, we may not need as much
ambient light around the office, but we'll need to turn it up as time goes on. Some people don't
notice that when they're too focused in the workday. Also, use indirect light, meaning light that's not
shining directly at your face or in the monitor, but that's around you. If you have an office by a
window, make sure that the computer is away from the window as much as is reasonable. Also, use
incandescent or natural lights. Avoid fluorescent lights as these can have a negative impact on your
eyesight. Third, take breaks on a regular basis. Now, I'm speaking in a visual context. Often we get in
the habit of just plowing ahead, working on our monitor hour after hour. This can have a negative
impact on your eyesight. Take a moment every once in a while to get away from your desk and look
out the window. You don't want to continually look at the same distance with your eyes. Stretch it
out, look further, and that will give your eyes a much needed break. Then last, consider the decor.
Look around your office. What do you see? Do you see things that are distracting or that help you
focus? Are the images negative or are they positive? I like to surround myself with meaningful things
that remind me of some experiences that I've had in the past. For instance, a memento from a place
where I spoke. You may want to enlist the help of an office decorating professional. They have the
experience and know-how to make great little changes to your office to make it more productive.
Sight can be a powerful ally in your time management. Give it a little bit of attention, and it can
greatly improve your focus.
Make the most of meetings
- What do you think of when I say the word "meetings?" Most people don't have a very positive
emotional reaction to that phrase and with good reason, meetings are often wasted time. Now I do
teach a full course on leading productive meetings but in this video I want to share with you a few
tips from the standpoint of an attendee. How can you get the most out of the meetings that you
attend? First, I recommend that you listen, focus fully on other people while they're speaking. Do not
multitask. It's a temptation to try to do other things but you want to demonstrate respect for other
people so that they'll demonstrate respect for you. Also it helps you avoid having to retrace your
steps in case someone asks you a question and you weren't paying attention. Number two, I
recommend that you focus on taking action, not notes. Now many people write down copious notes
during a meeting and they feel like they're going to review all of those notes later. It's far more
effective to focus on the actions that you'll need to take as a result of the meeting. So you can write
down one action and then next to it put a big check box that draws attention to the fact that you're
going to need to do something about what you heard or participated in. Number three is verify the
end time of the meeting in advance. This is helpful not just for you but for everyone else in setting
the expectation of when the meeting will be over. It's also helpful if you have an appointment or
something else you need to work on after the meeting. You may find using a phrase like this to be
helpful, "I have a hard stop at 3 o’clock." That gives everyone advance warning that regardless of
where we are in the meeting you will need to leave at that time. Number four is related to number
three in that you want to encourage shorter meetings, so rather than having a 60 minute meeting,
have a 50 minute meeting, or instead of a 30 minute meeting, a 25 minute meeting. That little extra
space has many benefits, it gives you a buffer between whatever else it is you need to do next and it
gives everyone the encouragement to be concise with their comments. And finally number five is to
review and process your notes. So at the end of the meeting you've been taking all of those actions,
we want to follow through on those actions and do something about them. If you need help on how
to process those to make sure you complete them, I recommend you check out my course on time
management fundamentals. Meetings can be effective for your productivity and for time
management, it just takes a little bit of investment to make the most of them.
Participate wisely in social media
- Social media is a powerful tool. It can help you grow your career, it can help you reconnect with
long-lost friends, it has a tremendous impact on your focus, and focus is the name of the game when
it comes to effective time management. So we want to use social media carefully and find balance in
our life. I'm going to share with you a few tips to get the most out of social media but not be
distracted by it. Number one is understand the purpose for which you're there. Each social media
site, LinkedIn, Facebook, has a different purpose. For instance, if you walk into the LinkedIn room
you're there to build your career, if you walk into the Facebook room you're there to connect with
friends, but often people go into these rooms of social media sites and lose their way, they forget
why they're there and it becomes distracting so before you open up one of these sites understand
clearly what you're there to do, that will help you maintain focus. Number two is schedule time for
yourself to use these sites. Rather than constantly jumping in and out you want to have a set time in
your day or in your week to go in there. This will help you avoid switch tasking and be more
productive throughout the day. Tip number three is curate carefully. Now what is a museum
curator? They're the person who decides what is going to be displayed in the gallery. You also want
to be in charge of what you are displaying on your social media feeds. You can choose who to follow
or not follow, you can choose what kind of posts you want to receive or not. If you know that your
focus is pulled away every time you see something pop up from your favorite sports team, perhaps
you should curate that and not see those feeds because they're too distracting. Number four is the
flip side, post with caution. When you share something on a social media site it is in essence
announcing something to the entire world. Think carefully about what you want to share with
someone because it's not easily undone. Just as I recommend with email that you count to ten
before you send, I recommend that you count to ten before you post. Consider what you're sharing
and think carefully about whether or not this has value and it's something you want to make known
to everyone. Number five is schedule your posts. Now you may have certain times of the day or
week when you are very prolific in creating lots of social media ideas, you can use tools to manage
when those posts appear so that people who are following you don't get overwhelmed. These are
often called social media aggregators, some examples include Hootsuite or SocialOomph. The idea is
that you can load them up with lots of posts and then it sends them out at strategic times during the
day or week. If you want to dive deeper into this subject you might want to check out the course
How to Rock Social Media here on the Library. Focus is a powerful tool when it comes to effective
time management, how you use social media will have a great influence on where that focus goes.
Follow up on delegated items
- One common issue in the workplace is when a co-worker or a team member delegates a task to
someone else and they fail to follow up with that person. Because they failed to follow up with that
person, that person fails to complete the task. This is a common issue that is fairly easy to remedy.
All we need to do is be more consistent with creating follow-ups. Here are some tips to make that
happen. Number one is to establish some reminder tool for yourself. For instance, you can have a
second calendar that is only used to pop up to remind you of when someone else should get
something to you. Or if you already have a task reminder tool that you're using effectively, you can
use that as well. The idea though is that we want to get the pressure away from your mind to
remember whether or not people are doing things. Use some sort of digital tool to do that for you.
Second, whenever you have any doubt that someone is going to complete their assignment,
schedule a reminder for yourself. Yes, occasionally there are things that happen over and over, and
you just know the other person's going to do it. You don't need to create reminders for those. I'm
talking about any time there's just a small sliver of doubt in your mind that they're going to complete
it. Any time that that's there, you must create a reminder for yourself. Number three is that in most
situations, you want to schedule these reminders for yourself to occur the day after the assignment
was due. In other words, if someone told you that they were going to get an assignment to you on
Wednesday, don't create the reminder for Wednesday. Create it for Thursday morning. This gives
them a little breathing room and gives you the opportunity to follow up with them in a way that is
helpful rather than them feeling like you're nagging them too early. Number four is a simple checkup
is all you need to do. When the reminder pops up, if they didn't get the assignment to you, all you
need to do is send them an email or drop them a line and say, hey I just wanted to follow up on that
assignment. Did you get it done? A simple reminder is often all it takes, and either they'll get it to
you or they'll remember that they should have and they'll give you some reason why it didn't
happen. Which leads to tip five, which is if they didn't complete it, focus on the obstacles in the way
of completion. In other words, ask them a question like, what got in the way or what obstacles did
you experience? This puts the emphasis in a helpful place of finding ways to prevent this from
happening in the future, rather than trying to assign blame to them. As you stay consistent with
following up with people, it will shift their expectations over time. They will realize that you're
always going to follow up with them, and when you always follow up, it has a dramatic effect on the
results.
Overcome opportunity addiction
- [Voiceover] Many people, not all, suffer from what I call BSOS, which is bright and shiny object
syndrome. You know what I'm talking about, it's that desire to chase every great idea or opportunity
that pops into your head. While it can sometimes lead to success, it most often leads to distraction,
and a lot of incomplete initiatives. What we want to do is be more focused. I'm gonna provide a few
tips to help you overcome this bright and shiny object addiction. Number one, most important, is to
know yourself. People who are distracted by lots of bright and shiny objects often do so because
they're not clear about what they do best. The more you know yourself and your strengths, the
easier it is to focus your actions on only those strengths. If you need help on figuring out what those
are, you might want to check out my course on discovering your strengths in the library. Number
two is to choose one annual target. Pick one big thing that you're going to accomplish each year. Not
five, not 10, not 12, one. Make it the year of something, like the year I'm going to get a raise, or
whatever it is, and focus on that one thing. By having one thing in your mind, it tells yourself, I am
not going to pursue other opportunities this year. If I want to pursue a new opportunity, I'll have to
wait until next year. Number three is to celebrate your successes. Your brain is hard-wired to focus
on negative events. That's not necessarily a bad thing. That helps you protect yourself from danger.
But we also want to take extra time to emphasize successes when they appear. By doing that, you'll
acknowledge that you are getting success by focusing on what you do best, and that will give you an
extra layer of protection of chasing after random opportunities. Number four is get better at saying
no to others. When they ask you to get involved in whatever it is that they're doing, ask for them to
send the request via email. Number five is get better at saying no to yourself. When those great
ideas pop into your head, put them on what I call the perhaps list. Then you can review that list at
some point in the future, perhaps when you're coming up with your next year's annual goal. You can
overcome BSOS. All it takes is a little bit of focus, and the more you focus on what your strengths
are, the more likely you are to have success.
Make sound your productivity ally
- Each of the five senses have a tremendous impact on your ability to stay productive in your
workspace. Sound in particular can pull your attention away, or give you more focus, depending on
how you have things set up. For instance, you might be distracted by conversations that are taking
place around the office, or noises that are happening outside, or even if you have a home work
environment, you can be distracted by noises throughout the house. I want to give you three options
to consider when it comes to shaping the sound in your work environment. First, let's consider
music. In my book, The Myth of Multitasking, I talk about the difference between switch tasking and
background tasking. Switch tasking is when you're trying to perform multiple attention-requiring
tasks at the same time, and background tasking is where something mindless or mundane happens
in the background. For some, music is background tasking. It's a nice background to the workday
that helps them stay more productive. For others, music is switch tasking. It pulls their attention
away. They analyze it, they think about it too much. I fall into that category. When you think about
using music in the workplace, consider its effect on others. It might be making some people more
productive, but it's making others less, so I recommend if you listen to music, use headphones. This
leads to the second area to consider, which is white noise. White noise is a constant sound that
doesn't draw attention to itself. Think of a fan, or the sound of a waterfall. For many people white
noise helps them stay focused and blocks out the sounds around them. You can use headphones
also to listen to white noise in a way that doesn't disturb others. I recommend that you just do a
simple search for white noise generators, and you'll find many free resources online that will create
white noise for you. The third option is just silence in general. Creating as little distraction through
having as little noise as possible. This is actually the hardest option, and the most expensive. When
you start to look into what is required to soundproof an office, you'll realize that this is a significant
investment of time and money to create silence, but it can pay off. A simple way to start the process
is by adding more rugs to your room, or drapes around your office. These things have a deadening
effect to reflection and echoes in your office. You also may consider investing in headphones or
earbuds that have active noise cancellation technology. They're consistently drowning out constant
sounds, such as if you're on a long flight. By looking at these three options, you hopefully will find
some areas in which you can improve your sound work environment, and if you do that, you'll be
able to find more focus, which will lead to more time and more control of your workday.
Embrace the power of doing nothing
- What would you say, if I asked you to do nothing? Absolutely nothing. Not read a book, not pull out
your phone, just sit there. How long could you pull that off? For most people, the idea of doing
nothing is frightening. The reason behind that is we live in a world that is used to constant
stimulation, and our brains and our bodies have been conditioned to constantly be in motion. Yet
there's so much value in doing nothing. Even being bored, occasionally, can be helpful. This space of
nothing gives you opportunity to be more creative, it gives you space for personal reflection, and it
can have the side benefit of reducing stress in your life. Let's talk about a few things that you can do
to begin getting a little more comfortable with nothing. Number one is leave open space in your day.
Now, I talk about the importance of having buffer space between appointments. This reduces the
opportunity that you're going to multitask, but it also has the side benefit of giving you a little room
to breathe, a little room to do nothing. There's value in just sitting and relaxing and processing what
happened in a previous appointment, before you go into the next. Number two: When you find
yourself with an opportunity to do nothing, do it. Just stop and sit there and allow yourself to enjoy
nothing. For instance, often when I get on the bus at the airport, the first thing that I see everyone
do is pull out their phone. Avoid that temptation and use that as an opportunity to practice
nothingness. Number three is a little exercise I like to do with clients, which is I invite them to wait
five minutes. Just five minutes. Set a timer, and during that five minutes, do nothing. Don't take
notes. Just focus on your thoughts. Doing this will help condition your brain to be less used to
constant stimulation, and conditioning is the most important tool that you have for productivity. And
this leads to step four, which is after you've waited those five minutes, pull out a piece of paper and
a pen, and write down whatever it was you were thinking about. Often, people are shocked at this
process. In just those five minutes, they've learned things about them-self, about their career that
they weren't even noticing before. Why? Because they were so used to constant stimulation. Some
of the best business ideas my clients have come up with have come from a result of doing nothing. I
now invite you to review the steps that I've shared with you, and practice this. Get your mind used
to the power of doing nothing.
Implement a closed door, open calendar policy
- Are you or someone that you work with using the open door policy? The idea behind this is to
make yourself available at any time to anyone who has any question. You want to show that you
value other people, and that your time is not more important than theirs. Unfortunately, the open
door policy has the opposite effect. It actually devalues your time, and the time of others, and it
creates more interruptions for everyone, especially if you get a backup of many people waiting to
ask you a question. So, what do we do instead? How do we validate other people, make them feel
important, but maintain productivity? I would suggest that we use a closed door, open calendar
policy instead. This is the idea that anyone can schedule themselves into an available time slot to
talk with you and then during that time, you're 100% focused on them. So, how do we set this up to
make it work? First of all, create a pattern, create a schedule of when you're going to be available on
your calendar. Each workplace has its own unique rhythm, and often there are times of the day
when most people have the most amount of questions. That's usually a good time to create the
open calendar space. If you create a rhythm, then other people can get used to the idea of
scheduling themselves into an available time slot at a particular time. Number two is, after you've
established that rhythm, then share your calendar. The easiest way to do that is through digital
means, such as Outlook or Google Calendar, where you can share your calendar with your co-
workers. However, you can even get low-tech with this. Just having a piece of paper outside of your
office that shows your available time slots gives people the opportunity to schedule themselves in,
as long as that paper doesn't conflict with your actual calendar. Number three is, after we've
established that calendar, to update everyone's expectations. They've been in the habit of
interrupting you and you interrupting them at pretty much any time. We want to transition to the
idea that, hey, now we're going to focus on each other when we talk, and we're going to do this
through the calendar. It may take a few reminders, but once you talk about it and establish it
consistently, they'll get used to the idea. Which leads to number four, keep your appointments. If
someone schedules themself into your calendar, they've told you that they want to meet with you at
that time, and by making that calendar available to them, you've made a commitment to them, so
keep it. If you keep it consistently, you'll build trust. If you don't keep it consistently, then they'll go
back to interrupting you whenever they can or want to. And, finally, step five is when you have that
appointment, focus on them. Give them 100% of your attention. Let them know that you have
nothing more important to do than to meet with them during that time. This, again, will build more
trust and validate that they are important to you, which is really the whole point of why people
started the open door policy in the first place. Be consistent with this, and people will feel respected,
and all of you will be able to focus more, and have more time.
Become tech savvy
- How comfortable are you with technology? A lot of people think that being comfortable with
technology is just a gift you're born with. There's a group of people who just naturally understand
and take to it, and there's another group of people who it will never work for them and always be a
mystery. That assumes that it's a trait that can't be learned. I believe that we all need to acquire the
skill of being tech savvy, and we can all acquire the skill. We just might have to change how we look
at technology a little bit. I'd like to share with you five tips that will get you on the path toward
becoming more tech savvy. Step number 1 is play. Get comfortable with the idea of playing with
your technology. When you get a new smartphone or get a new program, open it up and just start
clicking on things, move it around, have fun with it. In the beginning, you're not gonna break
anything. You're just exploring. So when you get a new program open for the first time, up at the top
you may see a series of buttons. Ask yourself, what are these for? What do the pictures seem convey
to me? Click on the buttons. Find out what they do. Just have fun with it. As you explore, you'll get
more comfortable with technology. Number 2 is to always have a backup plan. Those who are tech
savvy understand that it's not if a computer is going to fail, but when, which is why it's always a good
idea to have two backups. One is a physical backup that you have at your house or your office where
you back up all your data regularly, perhaps once a month to another drive. The second is an online
backup in the cloud where you subscribe to some service where your data is always getting backed
up constantly. That way when the computer fails, because it will, you won't feel much pain because
you always have a backup prepared. Number 3 is the idea that there's an app for that. It's amazing
how many people have invested time and money into creating apps to make our life easier. Those
who are tech savvy understand that most anything you need help with can be solved through an
app. For instance, I was helping my son with his soccer team, and I was involved with subbing players
in and out of the game. It was kind of confusing for me, so I asked the question, I wonder if there's
an app for that? I looked for it on the Android Store, and sure enough, someone had invested some
time in creating a program to make it easier to substitute players in and out of a soccer game.
There's an app for that. Number 4, understand GIGO or garbage in, garbage out. This is the idea that
most mistakes with a computer don't happen inside of the workings of the computer. They happen
in between the keyboard and the chair. In other words, the person using the computer. Because
we're the ones usually making the mistakes on the computer, we are the ones who can also find a
solution. So before we reach out to having someone else come in and fix our computer, we can
explore what we did and try to re-trace our steps. Which leads to step 5, Google it. If you're having a
problem with your computer, odds are there's somebody who's also had the exact same problem. So
if you search for it online using the error message or whatever it is you're experiencing, odds are
you're going to find a solution. Take a few moments to just explore whether or not you can find an
answer on your own. I have personally become much more comfortable with technology as I have
troubleshooted my own problems. Now there are many other tips that you can use to get more tech
savvy. This is just a starting point. I recommend that you check out the courses here on the library
related to the specific software programs that you use. That will also help you become more tech
savvy. The idea is that computers and technology are our friends. All we need to do is just play
around a little bit and get comfortable.
The two most important hours of your day
- How much are you investing in yourself? It's easy for all of us to get caught up in day to day activity
and just moving forward in the workplace. Yet I recommend that there's great value in investing two
hours out of every day toward our self and our career. Let's talk about these hours and how you
might invest that time. Hour number one is for you personally. You could use that time to read.
Perhaps great books, biographies, uplifting literature. Anything that helps you live the kind of life
that you want to live. Also you might invest in exercise. Exercise has a powerful benefit, not just of
your health but improving your productivity and giving you greater clarity of mind. And of course it'll
improve your longevity. You might also invest in coaching of some kind. You don't need to do this
every day, but perhaps one day out of every week you work with someone who can help you with
your physical training or help you with your counselling or some area of your personal life that you
want to improve. Also, there's a benefit if you invest some of that time in the service of others.
Perhaps pick your favourite charity and give them an hour or two a week. You'll be surprised at how
much you can learn about yourself in the service of others. Now what about the other time? Hour
number two is to invest in your work self. Invest in your career or your business. This is the idea that
you're going to work on your career, not just in it doing your day to day tasks. How do you spend this
time? The first place is in education. I'm not talking about just going back to school, which you may
want to do. There are many other places where you can invest time and get a great education. For
instance, right here on the library there are so many courses that you can invest in that will improve
you and improve your career. You might also find a mentor or a coach. This is someone who has
achieved the kind of success that you want to have or is gifted at helping others grow and they can
push you and hold you accountable in your career. You might also choose a special project.
Something that's not related to the work that you're doing each day but something that you know if
you complete it on your own will help you grown and learn more. There are a 168 hours in every
week. My suggestion is that you invest just 14 of those in yourself and in your career. If you do this it
will pay big dividends over time and help you improve professionally and personally.
Make investments to gain time
- When it comes to money, you likely understand the concept of an asset. Right, an asset is
something you own, and it gives you more money over time, like I own a rental property, and I earn
money because people are paying rent. But what if I told you, you could also have time assets. These
are things that you own, and they give you more time because you own them. These are tools, like
technology, or computers, or phones, really anything that you do that give you more time. The focus
on getting time assets is a 2% increase in your productivity. Why 2%? Because a 2% increase equals
one extra work week every single year. For instance, in my office, I have done things to increase my
productivity by investing in assets. I have more RAM in my computer. I've made sure that I've
upgraded my hard drive to the latest edition. Even your keyboard, you use that on a regular basis. Is
it functioning properly? Is it ergonomic? I have a mouse that I love to use because it has lots of extra
buttons and functions that I can assign to things I perform on a regular basis. Also, having a phone
that's maybe not the latest edition, but something that is working well and is fairly up to date is a
good investment. Now, how do I know if I'm making wise investments in assets? In general, I want to
get two times my investment within a couple of months. In other words, I want to figure out how
much I'm worth per hour, and how much the upgrade would cost, and if it saves me two times that
amount over the course of a couple of months, it's likely a good investment. Now, just a caution, you
also want to watch out for time liabilities. Time liabilities are things that take time away from you
because they're out of date or underperforming. For instance, I saw a business owner once who
tried to save a few bucks by getting a cheap three-hole puncher. I watched him try to punch holes in
a stack of paper, and it didn't work. He got frustrated. He went down the hall, borrowed the
accountant's high-quality three-hole puncher, which worked beautifully. He walked all the way back
to his office. And I asked the business owner, do you realize that because you were trying to save a
few dollars by buying a cheap three-hole puncher, you're actually costing yourself several hundred
dollars in value every single month? This is the perspective that I'd like you to look at. Try to find
ways to invest in assets that give you more time and avoid time liabilities.
Maximize your energy each day
- Having an abundance of energy is critical for getting more done in your day. And, on the other
hand, if you're fatigued, you're going to find it hard to perform at all. Famed coach Vince Lombardi
once said, "Fatigue makes cowards of us all." So, what can we do, how do we increase our energy
and avoid fatigue? I'm going to cover a few of the essentials to keep in mind. First, let's talk about
sleep. Now, you may have heard that the average person needs eight hours of sleep at night, and,
for most people, that's true. However, the National Sleep Foundation has found that some people
can need as few as seven, and some need as much as nine to function properly. Find out what's right
for you. Also have a consistent sleep schedule. Avoid changing it up on the weekends and staying out
late. Also, an hour before you go to bed, avoid bright lights. This includes things like television, your
phone, any kind of glowing screen, power it down about an hour before you go to bed. Now, what
about exercise? In general, studies have shown that consistent, moderate exercise is best for
increasing your energy. Find something that you enjoy doing, schedule it to do on a regular weekly
basis, and make sure that it's of moderate intensity. And, nutrition. Pay attention to what you're
eating. Which foods give you energy when you eat them? Do you find that you get a boost after
having a pack of nuts an hour later? Or, which foods take energy from you? I've learned that I can
never eat any kind of sugary or starchy food when it comes time to perform. Now, I recommend that
if you want to dive deeper into this, go talk to your doctor or a nutritionist, or any kind of physical
coach. Have a discussion with them about the things that you can do to increase your energy.
Remember, the more energy you have, the better you'll feel, and the more you'll get done.
Focus on the person
- In my book The Myth of Multitasking, I talk about the three effects of multitasking: Things lake
longer, you make more mistakes, and you increase your stress levels. But there's also a fourth effect
that's critical to understand. When I speak to large audiences I do a little exercise that you might
want to try in your next team meeting. It's simple, have one person talk to someone else for 30
seconds while that other person multitasks on them. Plays with their phone, looks at their papers. In
the end, I ask everyone who was just speaking and being multitasked upon in one word how did that
make you feel? The one word I hear almost every time is unimportant. Imagine that, you wake up,
you start your day, you go downstairs, you see a loved one and you say, "Hi, you're unimportant.
"What are you going to do today?" Or someone calls your office and you answer and say, "Thanks for
calling XYZ Company where you're unimportant. "How can I help you?" You would never do that,
and yet we do that. Whenever we multitask on a human being we're communicating to them that
they are less important than whatever it is we're doing at that time. So how do we avoid doing this?
I'm gonna give you a few tips. Number one is make the commitment that when you're talking to a
human being you focus on them. It's one thing to multitask on watching TV and playing with your
phone at the same time. It's completely different to do it on a human being. They'll always tell.
Number two is manage people's expectations and create a schedule. In other words, let people
know that you are going to listen to them and you do want to hear their questions, and here is a
time when you can sit down and talk to each other face-to-face or on the phone and give each other
100% of your attention. Number three is to remove distractions. Occasionally you're gonna see
things that make it hard to focus on people. Personally whenever I'm on a phone call with one of my
coaching clients I turn off my computer monitor and get up and walk away. That makes it easier to
focus on the conversation. And fourth, when talking face-to-face always make eye contact. That idea
of always having to look someone in the eye keeps you from looking down at whatever device you
might have at hand. When you focus on human beings, you actually stand apart. You're different
because you communicate to people that they're important. And that's a powerful differentiator in a
world that's addicted to the myth of multitasking.
Use your email archive effectively
- So let's say that you're going through your email inbox and you get done with an email, you've
completed it, well where does it go? Now some people keep their email in their inbox because they
want to be reminded of something or make it easy to find it in the future. This sets up a situation
where you're going to multi task every single time you look at your email inbox screen. You're going
to be jumping back and forth between twenty, thirty, forty emails every single time. Instead
whenever you've scheduled time to deal with an email or you've responded to it, simply archive it,
put everything into one folder. For instance in outlook.com it's very simple to select one email and
hit archive. And it goes into the archive folder. Regardless of the email program you're using, either
set up one folder or use the archive. Now why not categorize all these emails? Maybe it will make it
easier to find things in the future right? Well taking all that extra time to set up folders and sort
emails is actually counter productive. Because it's so hard to do it, because it takes extra time people
are less likely to do it. Instead put everything into one folder and then rely on the search engine of
the email program. Most of them are very powerful and it's easy to find things with just a few simple
searches. Now if you need to take action on an email in the future and you need the notes from it,
copy the email and put those notes into the calendar appointment. This way it keeps everything
simple, quick and easy to find. And the more simple we make email the more effective you'll be with
time management.
How snacks and scents affect productivity
- I'm a fan of considering all of the five senses when it comes to your productivity. Now, many people
are good with the senses of what they see, or what they hear, or what they touch, yet often neglect
smell and taste. These do have a huge impact on your ability to be productive and focused. The idea
is that we want to reduce distractions. For instance, from an unusual odor, or just being hungry in
the middle of the day. Every time you switch your attention to one of these things we have to pay
switching costs to refocus back to whatever you're working on. So, let's take a look at these two
neglected senses. First, smell. Well, this is fairly simple, just take a whiff. What do you smell in your
workplace? Is there anything that you'd change, or is there something that you'd add? Or, perhaps
you just need to clean something. We want to regularly assess how things smell in the workplace,
and if we have customers, the impact that that smell is having on them. Now, what about taste? We
start with the snacks that you have close at hand. Do you have things that give you energy? Or do we
have lots of sugary snacks that will cause a sugar crash? I've also seen situations where snacks create
a distraction. For instance, a person has a bowl of snacks or candy in front of their workstation and
so everyone comes to take things and it's a constant interruption for them and for that employee.
Instead, keep snacks reasonably far away and not in a place where it will distract you. We do want to
have things close at hand and we want to have snacks that are filled with protein, and also have
water and other hydration options to keep us focused during the day. Also, be considerate of others,
especially when it comes to the sense of smell. Avoid wearing any kind of perfume or cologne that's
so strong to the point of distraction. Little changes to these often neglected senses can have a huge
impact in productivity and helping you stay focused.
Stay engaged in video meetings
- Do you use video conferencing in your workplace? Many people do, yet also many people report
that it's distracting and it's hard to actually have a productive meeting because of everything that's
going on on the screen. I find that there are two places where we need to get the most from a video
conference. One is how we prepare and the other is what we do during the conference itself. First, in
the prepare part, we want to test the platform that we're going to use. We want to test the
equipment we will be using, both video and audio. We also want to send clear instructions to
everyone in advance about how to log in and access the platform. We also want to make sure that
we're sitting in a chair and in a place where we are comfortable. You may be sitting there for a while
and you want to make sure that you're relaxed and able to focus. Also, shut down any programs that
are running perhaps in the background that might access data. This can actually gum up the flow of
the video conference and make it harder to see people. And also have all the materials that you
need on hand in advance, whether that's a report or even just a bottle of water. And finally, arrive
early. That gives you time to log in and make sure everything is set up before the meeting begins.
Now what about during the meeting itself? One tip is to move the screen where you're looking at
people as close to the camera as possible. This makes it possible for you to look people in the eye or,
at least, give them the illusion that you're making eye contact. Also, frame your head to the top of
the camera screen. That way you're using all the space rather than putting it in the middle, which is a
mistake many people make. Also, minimize or move into the background any program that might be
distracting. We don't want to get our attention pulled away to a spreadsheet that's unrelated to the
presentation at hand. And also, imagine yourself in the room with people. That will make it easier for
you to give body language and pay attention to the body language of others that may be relevant
during the presentation. And finally, if you're the meeting leader, as much as possible ask questions
of all meeting participants. That will help them feel like they have something to say and want them
to stay more involved in the meeting. We can make video conferences as effective as in person
meetings. All it takes is a little tweak here or there and a change of mindset.
Embrace harmless distractions
- I teach that it's important to avoid switches, to avoid having your attention constantly pulled in lots
of different directions. But is there ever a moment when these little diversions can actually be
healthy and helpful? I'm talking about harmless distractions, things that are little vices, like watching
videos online or spending time in social media, or even just playing the occasional video game. Now,
what we want to do is give these things a place but that isn't excessive. We do not want to say that
these things are forbidden. Because making something forbidden actually creates a tendency for it
to become more addictive and for you to spend more time in it. For example, I once worked with a
business owner who, when we analyzed his time, it turned out that he was spending 20 hours every
week, in the workplace, playing a video game. He thought that I would tell him, "You need to stop
playing that video game." but instead, what I suggested, was that we scheduled time in his week to
play the game. Five hours a week, which was much more reasonable. And it helped him actually
recharge his batteries and do more because he had a little break. So I'd like you to consider for a
moment, what's a harmless little distraction that perhaps you're spending too much time in? How
much would be a more reasonable amount of time for you to spend in it? Then, after you come up
with that number, perhaps you used to spend five hours a week on social media, and you say, maybe
I should spend three instead. Schedule those three hours in your week. Create a recurring pattern of
when you're going to engage in that activity. Then test that schedule out for two weeks, and see
what the results are. If necessary, make adjustments. Perhaps reduce the amount of time, perhaps
add a little more time, change the schedule, whatever little changes you need to make to
incorporate these harmless distractions into your day, so that they become something that helps
you have more energy, rather than steal your focus.
Find focus in an interruption-heavy environment
- I talk about how switches are your enemy when it comes to productivity, but what if you're in a
position that requires switches in attention? Where you need to respond? For instance in emergency
situations. I call these positions responders, and typically you'll see them in technical support or
things like repair or even emergency response. If switches are a requirement in your day, yet we
don't want to have switches take place, how do we reconcile the two? Well there are a few tweaks
that I'd suggest you make to your schedule. First of all, rather than fighting these switches expect
them. Expectations have everything to do with your ability to be happy in the workplace, and rather
than being frustrated every time they happen, just realize this is my job. I have to respond to these
things. Second, schedule less in your day. For instance if you know that you're in a position where
you're going to be interrupted regularly throughout the day, leave at least 50% of your calendar
open, empty. That way you're prepared for these interruptions to happen. Which leads to step
three, shuffle within the day. Let's say, for example, that I had processing, going through my emails,
scheduled at 9 a.m., but an emergency occurred that I'm supposed to respond to what do I do? Well
I move it within the day, for instance, to 1 p.m. I don't abandon the appointment. I just move it to a
time that's more appropriate to make sure that I get it done. Step four, if I find myself with empty
time in my schedule, I use that down time to prepare. That's a great time to gather things into
approved gathering points like my in box, my email, and I use that time to process things. Deciding
when I'm going to accomplish them in the calendar. That way I get ahead of the schedule to prepare
for the next time the interruption is going to occur. The idea here is to be realistic both with yourself
and with your schedule. You can be successful in a responder position. The idea is to be flexible in
your path toward getting results.
How to check email and still stay focused
- In my course on time management fundamentals, I talk about the importance of processing your
email. Processing is simply the act of deciding what the next step is, when you'll do it, and where its
home is. Yet, in between those officially scheduled processing times, we also need to check our
email, right? Maybe something urgent or immediate came in. So how do we handle that checking
time but not get distracted because of it? First of all, you want to create a scheduled pattern for
checking. Now, many people are in the habit of getting notified the moment an email comes in or
they're constantly hitting send and receive. Now we want just enough checking time. Even if you
scheduled every hour on the hour to check email, that's better than constantly jumping in and out.
Second, we want to disable "mark as read." Now, why would we do that? The "mark as read" feature
is honestly a feature I wish didn't exist in email programs. Why? Because when that email moves
from bold to gray, it fools our mind into thinking that it was dealt with. Instead, we want to turn that
off and use whether it's in or out of the inbox as the determining factor of whether or not it needs to
be dealt with. There are lots of ways to do this. But for instance, in Outlook.com we could go into
Settings, Options, Automatic Processing, Mark as Read, and select Don't automatically mark as read.
The other suggestion that I would make is to move the reading pane to the bottom of your screen.
Why? Well, what it does is it limits the number of email that you see on your screen and also gives
you quick access to seeing the reading pane for all of the email. If we have all of the email showing
up, for instance, on the left side of the screen, it tempts us to multitask by jumping our view back
and forth between 20 or 30 email. So again, we can do this many different ways in any email
program. But on Outlook.com, I would go to Settings, Options, Layout, Reading Pane, Show reading
pane at bottom. And also, once I go back to my email program, I would drag that reading pane as
high as possible again limiting how many email I see at the same time. Next, I recommend that you
use flags or starring email but you do it in the opposite way of what many people do. Most people
think of flagging an email of saying "Hey, this is important." Instead, what I want you to do is flag
email for saying "Ignore this now. "I checked it. "I don't need to deal with it "until my regularly
scheduled processing time." That will allow you to ignore lots of emails when you do a quick scan
during your checking time. Number five, be careful with links in emails, especially when you're just
checking. It's very easy to click on a link, get yourself onto a new website or a social media platform,
and the next thing you know, you've completely forgotten about all those email you were just
checking. So avoid clicking on them unless it's absolutely essential. And finally, six, during your
regularly scheduled processing time, bring your email inbox to zero. The idea is to not have any
email at the end of each week or at least at one point during the week. Then the rest of the time, we
can quickly check the email and stay focused on the work at hand.
Manage time before and after vacations
- Taking vacations on a regular basis is important and healthy for your productivity. You need to have
these breaks so that you can be refreshed and have more energy. Yet far too many people feel like
it's stressful, they're stressed out before the vacation, trying to get ready for it. They're stressed out
during the vacation worrying about work. And they're stressed out when they get back because
everything's piled up. I want to share with you a few of the tips some of my coaching clients have
used, to have successful vacations. Step number one is to commit to that vacation long in advance.
Sometimes people have the idea that I'm going to go on a vacation when I have some free time, but
that rarely happens. There's always something in life that creeps up. So, look into your schedule
several months, two, three, four, even six months, a year in advance, and block out time for this
vacation. That will help you be prepared and protect that precious time. Second, add a cushion
before and after the vacation. For instance, if I were to take a week vacation, I would schedule Friday
to be completely empty before I leave, and Monday, after. Which leads to the next tip, what do I do
during that time. I do processing. Processing is the act of deciding what the next step is, when I will
do it, and where its home is. I want to bring all of my gathering points to zero, before I leave on the
trip. And, when I come back, I want to process everything so that I can start my week after coming
back, with everything at zero. This way I have the confidence during my trip that everything has been
taken care of, and that everything will have enough time to be taken care of, when I get back. And,
number four, I want to take a gathering point with me. A gathering point is simply a place to put the
ideas that pop into my head. So I might have a notepad, or a special app on my phone, where
anytime an idea pops into my head, I put it in there. That way I gather anything that is important and
work related, but I can quickly return to just enjoying where I'm at. If you implement these few
simple ideas, you'll find that it's easier to be relaxed and more refreshed when you go on your
vacation, and be more productive when you come back.
Handling tasks that take too long
- Do you find it's a challenge to estimate how long something's going to take? In my course, Time
Management Fundamentals, I suggest that people schedule time in their calendar. Well, that means
that you're going to have to estimate how long something's going to take. But, what if you thought
that it was going to take 30 minutes to accomplish something and it really took an hour? What do
you do in that situation? Here are a few tips, first to keep that from happening, and then second,
what to do when it happens. First, keep in mind that estimating time is like a muscle. I have seen
many clients get better at it over time. If you feel like you need more help with it, start by using a
timer. Whatever you're going to do next, use that timer to estimate how long it's going to take and
play a game, let's see if you got it right. The more you practice doing this, the better you're going to
get at seeing how good you are at estimating and that muscle will build. Number two is over-
estimate. As a general rule, I suggest people estimate an extra 50%. So if you think something's going
to take an hour, estimate that it's going to take 90 minutes. At the very worst, if you find yourself
with extra time, it's going to feel like you got a bonus and you can use that time to get caught up on
something else. And that leads to tip three, which is add buffer space in your schedule. You do not
want to have a schedule that's completely full, back to back to back appointments. That's leaving
you with no room for error in a day where all of us are going to get interrupted. Instead, make sure
that you've got an extra space here and there, and extra half and hour here and there to allow
yourself to catch up if you underestimated how long something was going to take. Now, what if you
do go over? In that case, if you run out of time, stop. Do not try to continue working and then make
everything else get late. Instead, re-gather it. What I mean is, whatever you are in that project or
that item that you are working on, put it down in an approved gathering point. Send yourself an
email, write down something in your notepad and then that leads to step five is, re-process that
note later from what you gathered. And then put it back in the calendar with the extra time. The
more that you do this, the stronger you will get at it and estimating is a powerful skill to helping you
with your time management.
Using quarterly planning for maximum benefit
- Occasionally, people are surprised when they find that I don't recommend that you do planning on
a daily or weekly basis. Part of the reason for that, is that I recommend that you're processing
consistently weekly. That means that you're taking all the items that you have to deal with and
deciding what, when, where. If you're doing that, if you're processing on a consistent basis, your
schedule is probably already full. At least a couple of weeks out, if not a month or two. So does that
mean that planning has no value at all? Well, I believe that it has value if we do it in the bigger
picture, for instance, quarterly. That means that every three months, we want to sit down and
establish new things that we're going to accomplish, make commitments to them and then schedule
some time to work on it in our calendar. So, step one of the this quarterly planning session is to
review our targets for the quarter. A target is something that you want to accomplish that's
reasonable but that will push you a little bit. For instance, let's say that last quarter I said I wanted to
exercise five times per week. I want to assess, did I hit this or did I miss it? And if I missed it, what got
in the way? So if I only exercised four times a week, I'm going to ask what got in the way and figure
out a plan to do better next quarter. Then the next step in the planning session is to set new targets.
What do I want to accomplish over the next three months? I recommend that you establish a target
both for yourself personally and for yourself in terms of your career. So, for instance, I may say I
want to get better at using Photoshop this quarter. This leads us to step three which is to ask ourself,
what is the next step? So in our example of me getting better at Photoshop, the next step might be
to watch a course here on the library, which leads me to step four, which is gathering that step. We
need to take that one thing, watching a course here on the library and put it into an approved
gathering point, such as sending myself an email or writing it into a notepad to be processed later. In
this way, we'll take things that we want to accomplish and break them down into bite-sized pieces
and that will help us move forward as we plan quarter by quarter.
Clearing your mind with note-taking apps
- When it comes to productivity, one of the most powerful tools is having a cleaned mind. Now, if
you have a mind that's filled with all different kinds of tasks and to dos, that becomes very
distracting. What we want to do is the moment one of these things pops into your head you
immediately gather it quickly and put it into an approved gathering point. I'll walk you through an
example in a moment, but first let's talk about some of the principles behind this. First, I recommend
that you stay digital in the way that you gather. Yes, you can use a physical notepad to gather these
things, but there's real value in having a device with you at all times that can sync across multiple
devices. Second, we want to create a folder called inbox where everything goes automatically. If
you're dumping these random ideas into lots of different folders and sections, they're likely to get
lost. Third, is you want it to be able to sync automatically, whether I'm using a desktop, or I'm using a
tablet or a phone, we want them all to communicate with each other so I can gather no matter what
device I'm using. And finally, we want to process weekly. In the same way that we do with email, we
want these inboxes to be cleared out and brought to zero once per week. So, let's walk through one
example using OneNote. Now, you could use any other note taking device and set up many of the
things that I'm talking about here. In OneNote, you want to create a section called inbox. This is
where we want everything to go. Then we can set up a widget on your phone. I recommend you do
that right on the front home page of your phone. That way you're ready at a moments notice for any
idea that pops into your head. You can just click on the widget and type it in. You could even snap a
picture to remind you about that item that you need to process. The same goes for any idea that you
have when you're at your desktop. Capture it, immediately put it in the inbox, then later we have
one place where you'll go to do what, when, where, processing. You'll take one item at a time, just
like email, process it deciding what's the next step, when we'll be done, and where's it's home, an
then after that drag it into the archive section. By having this kind of app at your hand, you're ready
in a moments notice to gather any idea that comes into your head and you won't miss a thing.
Overcoming analysis paralysis
- The first step of processing something or moving it forward toward completion is answering the
question "What is the next step?" Yet, this "what" is often something that causes people to trip up. I
call this analysis paralysis, it's where they're thinking about too many different options, there are too
many different things they can do, and they don't quite know how to move forward. So, in this I'd
like to share some of the tricks that some of my clients use to move past this analysis paralysis. The
first step is to think small. Now, as a leader, as a manager, as a creative person, you like to think big
picture, right? It's good to have a vision about what you're going to accomplish, think about all the
different aspects of a project. However, when it comes times to accomplishing something, only think
about the first minute of activity. What's only the first minute of the things that I need to do in order
to accomplish this. Thinking about that will help you focus on just action. Also, when you are
processing things, make sure that you're thinking about one thing at a time, not 10 different steps,
not 12 different steps, just the one next thing that you need to do. Which leads to the next tip, which
is break down these projects. Take big, big concepts and cut them in half, and then cut them in half
again. In other words, if I have a project that's going to take a year, answer the question, what do I
need to do in six months? And if that's too big, think what do I need to do in three months? Or six
weeks. Break it down until you get to a point where it's easy to think about the first step of activity.
Also, sometimes it's helpful to self-impose a time limit. The timer is a powerful tool that can be used
lots of ways. I like this cube that is a fun way to put a limit on myself. Limits actually spur creativity.
They help you come up with new ideas because you're forced into an unusual situation. And last,
focus on progress, not perfection. There's no such thing as a perfect system. There's only the next
draft. And there's no such thing as a perfect solution. Your goal is to just help something move
forward, and any action moving something forward is better than no action at all. Hopefully some of
these tips and tricks will help you make it happen.
Protecting your processing time
- Processing is one of the most important things that you can do when it comes to time
management. Processing by my definition is simply deciding what the next step is, when you're
going to do it, and where its home is. Where do you put it after you're done? It's the keystone of my
time management training program, meaning it holds everything up. If you do this, you will stay on
top of your time management, and if you neglect it or let something get in the way, it's going to
collapse. The problem is many people have obstacles that get in the way of their processing. I want
to share with you a few tools that you can use to protect the time that you have scheduled to go
through and bring your email inbox and all your other gathering points to zero. First is understanding
the value of processing. I was working with a client once who was a little frustrated, and said, "Dave,
how can me spending time going through "my email like this be worth anything? "I should be doing
bigger projects." I explained to him that processing in the way that I was explaining to him, on a
schedule, was worth ten times or more what he was making per hour. The reason for this is he, like
most people, are deciding what, when, where, but most people are deciding here, there, and
everywhere, constantly throughout their day. They're spending far more time than if they had a
regular schedule, and stuck with it. In fact, an hour processing on a schedule is probably worth ten
hours or more throughout the course of a year. Second, many people feel that they are too busy to
process on a schedule. They have so much going on that they don't know when they're ever going to
do it. One tip that I recommend is that you schedule your processing time to occur during times of
the week where you're least likely to be interrupted. For instance, if early in the morning, the office
is usually a very quiet time, that's probably a good time to schedule your processing to occur.
Number three is failing to adjust your processing schedule. Sometimes people start with a schedule
that works, but over time it breaks down. Things are getting in the way. Their position has changed,
whatever it is. When that happens, don't abandon processing altogether, just readjust the schedule.
Take that five hours a week and break it down a different way. Perhaps you'll do it in the morning,
perhaps you'll do it in the afternoon. Test it out for two weeks. Then after two week, reassess and
adjust again if necessary. The next obstacle is when people are too flexible with their processing. Yes
we want to allow for emergencies, but most things that happen in your day aren't really
emergencies. You want to treat that processing like it's sacred, and when you schedule it in your
calendar, be firm. Make a commitment to it, and protect it as much as possible. Processing is
incredibly valuable, and it's worth it for you to protect that time. If you do, it will pay huge time
dividends in the long run.
Time management for moms and dads
- If you're a parent, you may experience the all too common issue of trying to be productive, trying
to get things done, and have your children constantly interrupting you. This is a common issue for
many people, and I'd like to share with you some tips that you can use to not only help yourself be
more productive, but help your children grow in the very important skill of understanding time
management. The first principle is, just try it. You may be surprised at how well children respond to
these principles. I've found that often many of the things that I teach about time management
principles, children can learn very quickly. For instance, even my three year old son understood the
principle that when my door was closed when I work from home, that meant daddy was working. He
also understood that at 5:00 everyday, I open my door and that meant daddy was done and didn't
touch work at that point. Number two is to recognize that this is an important life skill. They must
learn how to respect the time of others, and also help themselves and others focus when it's time to
work. One little way that you can help them start learning this is by instituting quiet time. Quiet time
is a special time during the day where our children understand that it's time for them the play or
work quietly by themselves. They don't need to be entertained constantly by their parents or anyone
else. This little skill of instituting quiet time helps children calm down, find ways to be creative by
themselves, and then of course when it's done, they can go back to playing and having fun around
the house. Step three is the question that you're asking. In particular, can this wait until? For
instance, let's say that you're working on something at home, and one of your children comes and
interrupts you. "Hey, daddy, mommy, I've got a question." You can ask them, "Can this wait until
2:00?" Or, "Can this wait five minutes?" The idea is you're not saying, "Don't interrupt me, "leave me
alone," you're saying, "No, you're important, "I want to listen to you, and this is when "I'm going to
be available to do it." Now, if it can't wait, if it's an emergency, then of course you're going to have
to respond, but asking this question consistently will help them get more conditioned to understand
that your time is important. Step four is teaching them about gathering. Now I talk about how
everything has a home and there are no visitors allowed. If something's out of place in your office or
at your home, you need to gather it by putting it into the inbox. One of my clients heard about this
and talked about it with her young daughter. They created the visitor patrol, with a fun name badge
that she wore, and she went around the house finding all the visitors, all the items out of place, and
she put them in the inbox. Which is something by the way that your children can have. All of them
can and should have their own inbox. If anything's out of place, don't have them put it away, have
them put it in the inbox, which leads to the last tip. They should have processing time. Processing is
the act of deciding what the next step is, when will it be done, and where is its home, and children
can understand the idea of putting everything in its home. Even children who struggle with the idea
of cleaning up know that something needs to go to its home. You want to help them grow in how
they understand time management. Our goal is not perfection, it is progress. Hopefully you've found
some of these tips useful and will help your children grow in the future in this important skill.
Efficiently setting appointments with others
- What's it like for you when you try to schedule an appointment with someone else? Are you
experiencing a lot of the drain in productivity that happens when you do that? You go back and
forth. Does this time work for you, does this time work for you? You can exchange five, maybe 10
emails just to get to the point of actually having an appointment. I'd like to share with you a few tips
that you can use to reduce some of this back and forth switching that's taking place. First, embrace
the principle of no tentative appointments. Occasionally people will say something like, "I'll pencil
you in to my schedule." What does that mean? It means that I'm not committed to the point where
I'm willing to put it down in pen. When someone says that to my assistant, she always responds
with, "what is the time you know "you can commit to?" Make sure that you are making solid
commitments when you make appointments, and request the same from other people. Second, is
never double schedule yourself. Sometimes people will schedule multiple appointments or the idea
that they're going to work on another project just in case an appointment falls through. No, if you're
going to make a commitment, schedule one thing at a time and never overlap. Which leads to
number three, build buffer space around the appointments in your schedule. You want to have time
to relax, to contemplate about what you just discussed, to take notes, to just take care of the basic
needs of life and you want to avoid having appointments that are back to back with no room to
breathe. Number four, consider using an online tool for scheduling. This is something that facilitates
the back and forth conversation and shows all of the options you have available in your calendar so
that someone can compare it to their calendar. There are lots of great tools that you can use, just do
a search for "tool for scheduling." Number five, if you can, I recommend getting the help of an
assistant. Now, for some people this may be out of your budget, however, there are many affordable
ways to do this by using freelancers. You can look for people who act as virtual assistants to many
other people, and it's a very affordable option without breaking the bank. And finally, when you
schedule appointments, send reminders at least a day in advance. This little thing can make a big
difference because honestly most people around you are struggling with their time management. If
you can be the person on top of things, sending these reminders a day in advance, you'll be able to
help them avoid many of the miscommunications that happen when it comes to scheduling
appointments. By using some of these tips, hopefully it will help you respect both your calender and
the calendar of others.
Creating your digital-free zone
- Technology is a powerful tool. It helps us get more done, it helps us communicate faster, it gives us
a world of options right at our fingertips, but is it too powerful? Occasionally, it's so seductive and
alluring that we just have to constantly be looking at our phones and our devices. This is why I
recommend that we occasionally create a sanctuary from these digital devices. Now if you think
about what a sanctuary is in real life, it's a special place set aside to protect something such as
nature or animals. Well, you want to have your sanctuary, a place where you can go to protect your
mind and your emotions and your thoughts, so that you can be calm, and then go back to work and
use technology later. Let's talk about a few ways that we can make this happen. First of all, you can
create a schedule of when you're not going to touch technology, such as a day of the week or the
month or an hour in the day. I have a client who has something that she calls Monkdays within her
month, and she uses those to think as if she is a monk where she sets aside technology and allows
herself to be visionary and strategic for the coming month. A second way to do this is to create a
specific location where you don't touch technology. For instance, it can be a park, when you're
outside and you're at that place, you know I don't use the phone here, or it can be a room in your
house or in the office. Many families establish the dinner table as a place where no one should use
their technology. Having a specific place lets your brain know when I'm sitting here, I can be free
from technology. Third, you can use the settings of the devices themselves to establish a kind of
sanctuary. For instance, you can set up quiet hours in the Windows platform if you go to the Action
Center. Also, Android and iPhones have a Do Not Disturb setting where you can establish certain
hours of the day where the phone doesn't notify you, doesn't ring, regardless of what's happening.
And finally, I recommend that you just enjoy these little moments of sanctuary. Tell yourself that this
is good. Recognize the peace that comes from occasionally taking a break. Yes, technology is
powerful and it can make a huge impact in your productivity, but you can also be more productive
when you occasionally take a break from it.
Prioritizing your work to free up time
- Many people ask me, Dave, how should I prioritize my time? There are lots of different things going
on, lots of different places where I can spend my time, what should I focus on, what's most
important? Well, many people use the perspective of what's urgent and important to prioritize their
time. However, I want to come from a different place. I suggest that you look at what gives you more
time, and this way you can make small investments in the bank of time, so to speak, and that will pay
off dividends of more time in the future. Using this bank of time perspective, I've personally gone
from a place of time poverty to time abundance. I'd like to share with a few steps that I use and my
clients use to get to that place. Number one, ask the question, is there anything repetitive that I can
delegate to someone or something else? For instance, if I spend a lot of time over and over
scheduling appointments with other people, I could delegate that either to a scheduling software or
to a virtual assistant. Making the time to delegate this will free up lots of future hours in my own
schedule. Second, ask the question, am I the bottleneck? Never let someone else wait on you. If
other people are waiting on you, that's essentially saying that I'm holding up all the work that could
be done in the future. I'm stopping other people from being productive and I'm wasting not just my
time, but theirs as well. So, I want to prioritize anything that causes other people to wait on me.
Third, can I create something that works for me while I'm sleeping? Now, what do I mean by that? I
want something that's doing work in the background tirelessly while I'm doing pretty much anything
else. This particularly applies to freelancers or business owners. For instance, you can create an
online advertising campaign or you can create articles or a blog. These things are working tirelessly
for you while you're just relaxing, sleeping, or doing other kinds of work. Fourth, ask what will make
the most money per hour? Now, at this point, we've done everything that we can to make
investments to gain time, so it's now time to focus on what is worth the most. There are lots of
different things that you can do with your time, but some of it is low value time that's worth just a
couple of dollars per hour, and some of it may be extremely high value time that's worth hundreds
of dollars of hour. Put your priority on that which is most valuable. Focusing on your value per hour
and increasing that will actually give you more freedom over time. So, your goal here is to gain time
when you're prioritizing. And by making small investments, you'll find that you have an abundance of
time.
Understanding virtual assistants
- Many people have heard about the idea of having a virtual assistant, yet they don't know quite
where to start. I want to make this a little bit easier for you by exploring four levels of having a
virtual assistant, and each of these might work for you depending upon your budget. The first option
is a one-off situation, in other words, you have one little project, one thing you want help with and
you hire out someone to help you with it. For instance, I might want to dictate an article and have
someone transcribe it. There are many transcription options to help me with that. Really, any little
thing that you need help with, you can go to a freelancer site and they can help you with that. The
second level is to have a traditional virtual assistant. This is one person who provides administrative
assistance services for many different people, perhaps all around the world. They do a variety of
different tasks and their attention is spread out in lots of directions, but as a result, their cost is a
little bit lower. It's a great place to start. The third level is having a part-time assistant. This is
someone who doesn't necessarily come into your office, but from anywhere in the world, focuses on
you for a set amount of time per week, perhaps 20 hours a week where they're handling things like
scheduling, research, and so on. The fourth level is having a full-time assistant. This is someone,
again, who can work for you anywhere in the world, but focuses 100% on helping you be successful.
I refer to this person as the Alfred to your Batman. I personally have an assistant who is full-time and
has worked with me for many years, and it's helped me become more successful because of her
efforts. I recommend this option for people who have a significant steady income and are very clear
about what their most valuable activity is. The idea is to start somewhere. You might be surprised at
how easily having a virtual assistant works for you, so test it out. Maybe you take the next step of
having a larger project and hire two or three different people to work on it and see how well you like
working with them, then if you find a good fit, you can hire them and work on a longer term basis.
One last comment, I recommend that you provide accountability to these people. Sometimes when
people think of a virtual assistant, they treat them like they would a software program, they're
virtual. Instead, I prefer to refer to these people as overseas or outsourced employees, which means
I'm going to meet with them on a regular basis, I'm going to give them bonuses, I'm going to talk to
them and make them a part of my team. They're really human beings, and they should be treated
like that. It's so easy to begin though, just give it a try and find out if having a virtual assistant works
for you.
Regaining focus with reminders
- Ever had the experience of responding to an email and then you click on a link, the link takes you to
a social media site or some other place and all of a sudden you're lost? Or have you started a
project, something that's really important, but then something distracts you and you get lost in
thought and ten minutes later you're no longer working on that project? These happen because of
both internal and external distractions, internal meaning I have thoughts that just take me
somewhere else, and external meaning, well, someone knocks on your door or calls you and says,
I've got a quick question. Focus is like a muscle. The more that we use it, the more that we practice
using it, the stronger we become with it, and we can use a few tools to help us strengthen that
muscle. First of all, I recommend just on the calendar having reminders before appointments and
after, meaning at the end of an appointment. Why do we do that? Well having the reminder
beforehand lets us know, hey, it's about time to switch gears, maybe setting that reminder 10
minutes before you need to switch gears. Also having the reminder at the end gives you confidence
that you don't have to keep checking your clock. The clock will tell you when it's time to shift gears.
Second, we can use apps. For instance, we can use a plugin on our browser to help us stay away
from sites that are distracting or spend too much time on them. A couple of options that I've seen
work well are StayFocusd or LeechBlock. These will let us know, hey, this is a site you might get lost
in. And third, I like to use just the simple timer. Any timer will do. Personally I prefer the cube timer,
and the idea is that that timer lets you know, hey, I need to stay focused on this thing until the beep
goes off. For instance, even I experience getting distracted while I'm processing something like email,
so I'll turn the cube timer to five minutes and that lets me know that I need to stay focused on
processing for the next five minutes, and at the very worst, if I got distracted then it pulls me back
and says, hey, you should be working on processing right now. Technology is a powerful tool, not
just to do more but also to help us stay more focused.
Getting the most from learning opportunities
- Ever attended a great conference, but just came away feeling overloaded? Even watching a course
like this where you're getting lots of ideas and it's just too much for you to take action on? This is a
significant problem, because I believe that the shorter the distance between you learning something
and taking action on it, the more successful you'll become. This is why, before I give any speech to an
audience, I recommend that people don't take notes about what I say, but take action. What do I
mean by that? First of all, I recommend that you listen for actions while you're learning. The
question you want to ask yourself is, what can I do about what I'm learning? You can take notes on
the wonderful things that a speaker says to you; however, what's more important are the wonderful
things that you say to you. Those moments when you say, I should do something about that, those
are the things that are most important for you to write down. Second, as you're taking notes, you
want to highlight actions. As you're going through the presentation, writing down the notes, anytime
an action comes to mind, put a big open box next to that note, put a star around it, highlight it. Do
anything you need to do to draw attention to the fact that here is something I need to do about
what I learned. Number three is process those actions. After the conference, as you're looking
through the notes, you want to look for those highlighted called out actions. In my course, Time
Management Fundamentals, I talk about what, when, where processing, but in short, it's deciding
what the next step is, when it will be done and where its home is, which leads to the fourth step, just
simply take action. When you process something, you decide what's a date and a time that I'm going
to do something about it, and you put it on your calendar. So, when that time arrives on your
calendar, just do it, simply take any action about what you learned. When you do that it helps
solidify the teaching that you heard in your mind, and this will help you continually move forward.
Knowledge is power, but doing something about that knowledge is even more powerful.
Power tips for frequent travelers
- Travel is a necessary part for many of us, but how do we make the most of that time? How do we
minimize the impact of all the interruptions that go along with taking a flight or driving a long
distance and make the most of that time? Let's consider a few areas. First of all, the tools
themselves. Now of course, the most obvious tool is your luggage. I recommend that you get
luggage, if possible, that has lots of homes. By homes, I mean compartments, pockets, lots of
different places to put things. That way, it's easier to make it be a little bit like a mobile office, and
make it faster to pack. Also, you may want to download the travel app of whatever company you're
traveling with. For instance, I used Delta and find that their app saves me a lot of time when it comes
to check in and moving seats. Also, I recommend that when it comes to your tools, maybe you have
double the tools that you normally use. In other words, I have a mouse that I use and I'm most
comfortable with it, so I have one for my office and I have another one that's always in my travel bag
ready to go. That way, I don't have to worry if I lose it, or just taking the time to repack it. Now, how
about preparing for the travel itself? The most obvious tool here is to have a checklist. I recommend
having a checklist that's prepared that has places where you go in your house to gather all the
different things necessary for your travel. You may also want to have different checklists for different
types of travel. For instance, I'm going to pack very different clothing for a vacation than I would for
going on stage and speaking. And finally, if you're going to take a different device like I do, I have a
special laptop that I use for traveling, make sure it's fully synced up with all your other devices
before you go. Now, it's time to pack for your trip. First, I recommend that you schedule time to do
this. Allow yourself to be focused during the packing time. If you're trying to multitask or rush the
packing, that's going to increase the likelihood that you're going to forget something very important.
Now, when it comes time for boarding, we want to make sure that we arrive early. Give yourself
plenty of buffer time. That way, if something unexpected happened while you're trying to travel to
the airport, for instance, you've given yourself a little bit of leeway. Also, if possible, I would invest in
something that allows you to speed up the security process. For instance, I've invested in PreCheck,
and that has saved me hours over the years. Now, what about during the travel itself? The first and
most important principle is to be realistic. A lot of people tell themselves, I'm going to be very
productive on the plane, I'm going to have lots of free time, and then they get on the plane and
there's lots of transition, there's lots of interruptions, perhaps they don't even have an internet
connection. So, what I would recommend is underestimate what you think you can accomplish. I
typically, myself, estimate that I can only use about 50% of the total flight time. Travel is necessary,
but a little bit of preparation and using a system can help you get the most out of the time that you
spend.
Staying engaged in conference calls
- Despite the growth of popularity of video conferencing, phone conferences are still here and still a
popular way of people communicating with each other. The trick is, how can we stay focused when
we're just listening to voices on the phone and how can we get the most out of these meetings?
Here are a few tips. First of all, and this applies really to all meetings, establish the expectations up
front. What is this meeting about and who needs to attend? Often, people go to a meeting simply
because it was scheduled and then they don't even know really why they're there. Second, make a
commitment in your schedule when you go to a phone conference. Sometimes people look at it and
say, well, I'm just going to be on the phone, so I'm going to do something in the background, I'm
going to check my email or whatever. Do not have multiple scheduled activities during this time. We
want to avoid multitasking and give the meeting and the people there the respect they deserve.
Third, check the equipment that you have and make sure that you have the correct equipment. I
recommend that you avoid using a speaker phone. This actually makes it much harder for other
people to hear and sometimes can cause speakers to feel a little bit disrespected. Instead, have
everyone call in on a separate line and, if possible, use a headset to allow you to have the full use of
your hands and to hear everything clearly. Fourth, turn off distractions and turn on any related
programs. What do I mean by that? Well, unless the meeting is about social media, you probably
want to shut down those sites for the duration of the meeting. But on the other side, if you need to
take notes, you might want to have that up and ready to go, also for the duration of the meeting.
Fifth, list the names of all people who are attending. I like to do that in my notes at the start of every
meeting. This way, I can make sure that I remember everyone's name and, more importantly, make
sure that everyone has an opportunity to participate. If you're the meeting leader, you'll especially
want to make sure that you ask specific questions to every participant. And finally, end with action.
The whole point of the meeting is to get something done, to move forward. So at the end of the
meeting, we want to ask, what is the next step? What are we going to do about this? Who is going to
do it, who is going to commit to that responsibility? And when does it need to be done? What's the
due date? By doing this, we can make every meeting move forward. Phone conferences can be an
effective way to communicate. All it takes is a little bit of preparation.
Building transition time into your day
- Do you have a clear boundary line between work and home? Many people struggle with making
that transition. This is a little bit like driving a car, you can't go immediately from first to second gear,
and you certainly don't want to go from drive to reverse, yet many people experience this very
problem when they're in work mode and thinking about all the stress and the challenges of the day,
and then immediately drop themselves into a situation where they're with friends or family. I'd like
to help you make a smoother transition so that when you get home you're ready to focus on being
with loved ones or just relaxing. It begins by creating a buffer space, some amount of time at the end
of your workday that gives you room to make that transition. So, what do we do with that time?
There are several options, I'll explore a few to help stir your thinking about it. First of all, there's the
commute. Now, many people drive or use transit to get from work to home. What do you do during
that time? Now, some people are still answering emails, still doing work. That doesn't get your mind
in that place to be ready to make the transition. I'd recommend doing something or listening to
something that's just enjoyable to you that's non-work related. Another transition tool I've seen
people use is exercise. By going to the gym or going for a run, that helps clear your brain and your
body to get ready to just enjoy being at home. Or, you could use a hobby. Personally, this is
something that I do. At the end of my day, I play video games for 30 minutes. Now, my wife hates
video games, but she loves the result of me doing this because it helps me be more present with her
and with my children. You can do anything that's enjoyable to you. You can spend some time
reading, or any kind of project, playing a musical instrument, just some little thing that helps you
make that transition. All of us can benefit in some way of establishing this clear line and a transition,
the question is exploring what's right for you.
Increasing follow-through by making yourself accountable
- When I speak to audiences about time management, I often get asked a question like this. Dave,
I've heard so many different training programs. I've read lots of books. I've learned so much about
time management, but I fail to follow through, it doesn't stick. Why does that happen and what can I
do about it? Most often I find that a failure to follow through is the result of a lack of accountability.
Now I need to be specific about how I define accountability. I believe accountability is reporting to
and getting training from a third party. You can be personally responsible, but accountability
requires someone else. Someone else continually following up with you, helps increase your follow
through and longevity in anything that you're trying to learn. So, how do we go about making that
happen. First of all, make a commitment to the concept of accountability. Recognize that while you
can make some improvement by yourself, you can improve much faster with the help of a third
party. Second, let's consider some of the options to get that third party accountability. First of all,
you could reach out to a friend and say, hey, I'm trying to lose weight. Can you check in with me on a
regular basis about it? Or perhaps you find a mentor. A mentor is someone who's already had
success in the thing that you're trying to do. For instance, they've run a marathon before and you ask
them to help you. The next option, and this works more in a career sense, is a manager. Perhaps you
want to grow and improve in your knowledge in the workplace. And so you go to your manager and
say, can you check in with me on a regular basis, or can you help me with this? And the last option is
a professional coach. This is someone who is trained and skilled in the art of helping you grow in a
particular area, and it does require an investment. Next, you want to pick one and test it. Just give it
a try. Work with one friend or work with one mentor for about three months. Give it a try for a
quarter. Then ask yourself the question, did this person speak to you? Did they help you in a way
that you responded to? Everyone's a little bit different, and everyone has a different style. I'm a
business coach, yet I recognize my style works well for some people and not as well for others. And
that leads to number four, adjust accountability over time. Perhaps you need to change the way in
which you're reporting or meeting. Maybe in the beginning, you need to meet in person, face to
face, once per week, but over time, you could transition to occasionally just checking in via email.
Continually retool and rework how you have that accountability relationship. I believe accountability
is the key to continued growth. The key is testing it out, and finding out what works best for you.
Time management for students
- All of us are students at some point, whether it's in a formal classroom setting or just going through
a course like this. However, for this video, I want to provide a few tips that are helpful for people
who are full or part-time students. The first is have a clear motive. Now, there are many reasons why
someone might go to school, yet you might forget those in the hectic pace of going between tests
and classes. Instead, take a moment and just think about it. Why am I here and what do I want to get
out of it? And then write down a few thoughts and put those thoughts in a place where you can see
them. That will help dictate how you make choices with your time. Second, have good sleep
patterns. Now, I know that it's common to want to have a lot of fun while you're a student. I'm not
saying don't do that. However, the more consistent you can be with your sleep, the better off you
will be. So, if you can avoid changing your sleep patterns on the weekend and make sure that you
get a consistent amount of sleep, you'll be much more productive. Third is carry with you two
gathering points at all time. A gathering point is a place where you capture ideas or assignments or
paperwork that come at you throughout the day. The two gathering points I recommend you have
are number one, having a digital notepad, such as OneNote, and having a physical padfolio, some
place where you can put paperwork as it's given to you. Number four, listen as if you have to teach it
to someone else. Now, when you're in a class, the tendency for many people is to just write down
lots of notes as if we're preparing for a test. That's not nearly as effective as writing down notes as if
you're preparing to teach it to a friend. This puts you in the mindset of really retaining what you
learn and applying it both to your life and to their life. Number five is process at the end of each day.
Now, in Time Management Fundamentals I talk about what, when, where processing. The idea
though is to have a scheduled time after all your classes are done where you go through all the
actions, all the things that you picked up throughout the day and decide when and how you're going
to deal with them. Have a consistent schedule for this. And number six, have a designated
assignment time. This is a block of time that you set aside in your calendar just for completing
homework or research, whatever it is you need to do from your classes. Protect this time. It's critical
that you keep a consistent schedule for this. You'll get more done that way. Now these tips are just a
starting point for students. You might find other useful tips in this course, or by completing Time
Management Fundamentals here on the library. I wish you the best of success in your learning.
Handling the inefficiency of others
- Some individuals are blessed to be what I call focus masters. These are individuals who have never
had any issue with time management whatsoever. The biggest challenge for these people is the
disorganization of everyone else around them. I'd like to provide a few tips for you focus masters, to
help you find a little more patience and guidance with how to deal with the struggles of others. First,
be understanding of others. Most people are struggling with time management. In fact, when I
speak, I usually do a straw poll of the audience and find that 95% of them or more are having
significant time management challenges. Just having that expectation in your mind will perhaps help
you be more patient with others. Second, provide a clear when. And when I say when, I mean when
you ask someone to do something, give them a deadline, give them a date of when you expect it
from them. And if they ask you to do something, ask the same from them. When do they want that
from you. This will help both of you stay on track. Third, build buffer into your schedule. Now you
may be perfect with your time management. However, because others aren't, they're very likely to
interrupt you. If you build a little extra room, a little open space into your day, you'll be prepared
when those inevitable interruptions occur. Fourth, provide reminders for people. This means that
midway between the point at which an assignment is due, we want to just send out a little reminder.
Hey, looking forward to getting this from you. And perhaps, just the day before, we send another
reminder. Remember, 95% or more of people are struggling with time management. Because you
don't, you can help them out. And number five is follow up. Consistently, the day after an
assignment is due, we want to follow up with people. Now, we want to do this always, not just when
they didn't do the assignment, but when they did do it. That way you can compliment them or say,
"Hey, thank you for being on top of this." The more other people see your example, the more they
will expect it of themselves, that they can do better with time management. And this will help
recondition their behavior and their way of thinking, which will help them improve, as well.
Time management for managers and leaders
- Most people struggle when it comes to time management. This means that if you're in a
managerial or leadership role, you not only need to help yourself but also others. I recommend
getting some form of in-depth time management training, perhaps the time management
fundamentals course here on the library. Here, though, are a few tips for managers and leaders
specifically. First is establish a one-to-one meeting schedule. Now, it's very common for people to
interrupt each other throughout the day in the workspace, however, I've found that leaders are
most guilty of interrupting their co-workers, why it that? Well, often there's a little bit of a mindset
that your time is more valuable. Instead, let's establish a consistent schedule where you bring your
questions and they bring their questions and then you deal with them in a focused manner. Second,
establish a positive example. This means that if an assignment is due, you want to complete it early.
If there's a meeting, arrive five minutes before the meeting. Doing all of these things not only will
help you not feel as rushed, but it swill also emphasize in the minds of the people who you lead that
time management is important. Third, use a visual tool for task management. Now, if you're leading
a team, you're likely delegating many tasks to lots of different people. It can be a real chore to keep
track of what everyone is doing. If you use a task management tool that helps you see that visually,
it'll put it all in place. Some of these tools will even create something called a Gantt chart that shows
how all of the tasks stack on top of each other and create a timeline. A few resources that work for
this are Todoist, Wrike, or 5pm. And fourth, avoid being the bottleneck. Now, what's a bottleneck?
That's where all the work flows into one spot and it can't proceed until that person completes it. If
you're the bottleneck, that means everyone else is waiting on you. Instead, try to delegate to other
people as much as possible, and if you have a task where other people are waiting on you, make that
your top priority. In short, if you focus on improving your own time management, your example will
help your team grow.
Making the most of extra time
- What do you do with those extra moments of time? You know what I'm talking about, those little
minutes here and there, perhaps where you're on the bus or you're waiting for someone to arrive.
What do you do with that extra time? Here are a few options to consider to make the most of that
time. Number one is perhaps the most important, do nothing. Does that sound strange? I believe
that there's a lot of value in just allowing ourselves to enjoy where we are and just experience the
quiet. We do not have to constantly stimulate ourselves. In fact, sometimes that gets in the way of
productivity. Number two is checking, particularly checking your email or your voicemail. Now, this is
different than the full fledge processing that I describe in Time Management Fundamentals, this is
simply glancing through a list of email and asking yourself one question, can this wait until my
processing time? If it can, then you just leave the email in the inbox, but if it can't, then you're going
to pick it up and quickly do something about it. Number three, you can use the time for learning. For
instance, you could watch a video here on The Library, or maybe you read from a book. These little
moments here and there give you opportunities to create a cumulative store of knowledge. Number
four is do some sort of low level relaxation. I'm talking about playing a quick game or maybe
watching a funny video. They key here though is something that is not involved, something that you
can quickly disengage from when it comes time to get to work. Overall, what you're looking for is an
opportunity to slow down. We don't have to constantly be moving. Productivity is more about
rhythm, not perpetual motion.
Making the most of extra time

- What do you do with those extra moments of time? You know what I'm talking about, those little
minutes here and there, perhaps where you're on the bus or you're waiting for someone to arrive.
What do you do with that extra time? Here are a few options to consider to make the most of that
time. Number one is perhaps the most important, do nothing. Does that sound strange? I believe
that there's a lot of value in just allowing ourselves to enjoy where we are and just experience the
quiet. We do not have to constantly stimulate ourselves. In fact, sometimes that gets in the way of
productivity. Number two is checking, particularly checking your email or your voicemail. Now, this is
different than the full fledge processing that I describe in Time Management Fundamentals, this is
simply glancing through a list of email and asking yourself one question, can this wait until my
processing time? If it can, then you just leave the email in the inbox, but if it can't, then you're going
to pick it up and quickly do something about it. Number three, you can use the time for learning. For
instance, you could watch a video here on The Library, or maybe you read from a book. These little
moments here and there give you opportunities to create a cumulative store of knowledge. Number
four is do some sort of low level relaxation. I'm talking about playing a quick game or maybe
watching a funny video. They key here though is something that is not involved, something that you
can quickly disengage from when it comes time to get to work. Overall, what you're looking for is an
opportunity to slow down. We don't have to constantly be moving. Productivity is more about
rhythm, not perpetual motion.
When work and personal matters collide
- All of these time management principles may be useful, but what about those moments where
things don't go according to plan? That's just life, right? It especially happens at the intersection
between work and your personal life. Perhaps you're working on a major project at work, and then
suddenly, something happens at home, like an illness. What do you do in those situations? First, you
want to be prepared. I call this the hold water story. We were once notified by the city that they
were going to shut off all the water for a day or two. They recommended that we fill up pitchers with
water. Well, you can do the same thing with your schedule. You can fill up your calendar with extra
time, and then that way your schedule holds water. The most important thing to do is to create
buffer in your schedule. This means rather than having appointments back to back to back, you
create 10 minutes here and 30 minutes there so that there's a nice amount of cushion in your week.
Then, when the unexpected happens, you're prepared. But what if it's already happened?! What if
it's too late for that? The first and most important thing is stop. Slow down and take a look at how
much time everything's going to take. Be honest with yourself. And instead of going into debt and
trying to do it all at once, readjust your own expectations for yourself. It's okay to slow down when
this happens. Next, communicate to others. Both people at work and in your personal life, let them
know "Hey, something is going on. "I'm going to be a little slower than average. "When is the latest I
can get things to you?" This both gets them on your side and also readjusts their expectations of
what you can accomplish. And then, finally, what about the end? When this crisis is over, what do
we do? Well, you want to schedule extra catchup time. Typically, this is going to be extra processing,
so perhaps a full day to not meet with other people, not to work on projects, but just to get caught
up with everything that accumulated over time. If you slow down and face these issues when they
occur, you can regain control. It may be uncomfortable for the moment, but things will get better,
especially if you plan for them in advance.
Time management for assistants and gatekeepers
- Many people act as the gatekeeper. These are the first responders when calls or email come into a
business. You can be an assistant or the front desk or an admin. This is a critical position but it also
involves a lot of time juggling because of the interruptions that are going to happen. Here are a few
tips to keep in mind. Number one, make interruptions your top priority. Now, sometimes people
don't want to be interrupted. It's your job though to be interrupted throughout the day. So, no
matter what you're doing you want to make that your top priority, to drop whatever you do, and
immediately respond. That helps set your expectation about what your position is really about.
Number two is to be realistic. If it's your job to respond to interruptions, then you want to make sure
that your calendar has lots of space in it. Instead of packing your day full, only schedule about 50% at
most of your time to do any kind of work. This leaves you plenty of room to respond when those
necessary interruptions come in. Number three is avoid multitasking. Now, I talk about this a lot in
my book "The Myth of Multitasking" and there are three effects of it. If you try to multitask things
are going to take longer, you're going to make mistakes, and you're going to increase your stress
levels. Rather than trying to accomplish multiple things at the same time, focus on one at a time and
be realistic about what you can accomplish. Number four is the yes/no/maybe list. Now, I use this
tool in a variety of ways. In your situation it's a document that you're going to want to create by
sitting down with the person that you're helping. Have a conversation about who goes in the yes list.
What people do I always let through to you? In the no column, what people do I never let through to
you? And in the maybe column, what people do I check with you first? Hey, I've got such and so on
the line, do you want to talk to them? Number five is to have a system for downtime. Now again,
your job is to respond to the interruptions but sometimes that just doesn't happen, right?
Sometimes for a long period of time you're just sitting there. This means that we want to have a few
activities that you've designated in advance that you do whenever you have downtime. This allows
you to make the most of the time but keeps you nimble and ready to respond at a moment's notice
when the interruptions come in. You play a vital role in your position. Hopefully by implementing a
few of these tips you can be even more effective with a little advanced preparation.
Avoiding less valuable activities
- You may have heard me speak about the importance of focusing on your most valuable activities,
the things that are worth the most per hour. But what about your least valuable activities, your
LVAs? These are the things that you really shouldn't be spending your time doing but you just simply
do because they're easy. Examples of this might be running errands to the store or spending too
much time doing janitorial work. Think of the relationship between LVAs and MVAs like a glass of
water, the more time you spend in your most valuable activities, the less time you have for your
least valuable ones. So here are a few tips to start crowding out those less valuable activities.
Number one is just to ask yourself the question, what is the value of this activity? Get in the habit of,
as you go throughout your day, just pausing for a moment and saying, what's the value of this? You
may even start to track this maybe for a week or two to get a gauge on how much time you're
spending on your LVAs. Number two is determine a minimum value. This is the cutoff point at which
you're not going to do these things anymore. So, for instance, if your time is worth $50 an hour, yet
you're doing many things that are under 20, perhaps you create a cutoff point at 15. That's just a
rough example, but the idea is you say, I'm not going to allow myself to do these things anymore,
I've got to find a solution. Number three is also write down any LVA that you perform. So as you're
asking what's the value of this activity you might discover some least valuables ones. Set aside one
note page or one space where you're going to track all of these down. Which leads to number four
which is schedule LVA time. Now that may sound weird, why would I want to schedule time to do my
least valuable activities? What we're going to do is we're going to limit how much time you spend. So
you're going to limit yourself to maybe two or one hours per week to do these kinds of things. That
limitation will naturally create more room for your most valuable activities. And then number five,
ask yourself, how can I offload these LVAs? Perhaps you could outsource some of these tasks to an
online service, or maybe there's just an app that you can install that will help you reduce the amount
of time that you're working on a particular activity. Remember, your value is ultimately determined
by the value of the activities that you perform. By limiting the amount of time you spend in your
least valuable activities you'll naturally increase your value per hour.
Ending meetings with action
- I was once working with a client who complained that it seemed like every meeting they had they
just walked away and didn't really do anything about it. Does this seem like a common problem to
you? I believe it is. It's so often that we have these meetings and then no action comes out of them.
This can leave us feeling like it was just a wasted amount of time for us to get together. Now the
value of a meeting comes from what we do as a result of them. We want to make sure that we end
every meeting with clear action steps for people to take. If you're the facilitator or the leader of the
meeting, it's your job to make sure that this takes place. Here are a few questions that you can ask
to make sure every meeting ends with an action. Number one, what will we do? In other words,
what will we do as a result of what we talked about? Let's have a discussion about it and come away
with a few clear action steps. Number two, who will do it? Not everyone is going to do something
about it. If there are five people in the meeting, for example, let's designate one or two people to
clearly be the ones who are going to take action on it. And then, we can follow up with those people.
And then number three, ask the question, when will it be done? These actions that we created for
these people, let's have a deadline for them. And then if you're the leader, you can write reminders
to follow up with them and make sure that they follow through. Then in the next meeting you can
follow up with everybody and make sure that action took place. Hopefully by using these few simple
questions, you can increase the value of your meetings.
Establishing a productive daily routine
- I like to say that productivity is more about rhythm than perpetual motion. The idea is that if you
find a routine it can be a powerful ally in getting more done. Now, there are only 168 hours in your
week. So, how do you want to allocate those hours to create your routine? I find that there are five
basic areas to consider. Number one is work. How many hours per week do you want to work? But
more importantly, what is the start and stop time to each day? We want to create a boundary, and
that will help you be more productive because of the limitation. Number two is play, now fun is
important in your life. You get more energy, more excitement, and you'll actually be more motivated
by doing fun little things that make life worth it now, not just in the end. So again, how many hours
do you want to spend and what do you want to do during that time? Number three is sleep. This is
critical for your success, and in particular if you can get into a consistent rhythm, a consistent
number of hours and hours of the day, sleep will be your ally. So, create the schedule that you want
to follow in your calendar. Number four is exercise. Exercise has benefit to your energy and also
helps you think clearly, along with all the other things that are good for your health. So, when are
you going to do that exercise? Where are you going to do, and what are you going to spend that
time on? Create a schedule for that in your calendar. And number five is simply quiet. This part of
the rhythm is down time. It's where you can read, or meditate, or doing anything that helps you
clear your mind. By creating a pattern of quiet in your week, you'll also be more productive. Now,
one last thought, sometimes people benefit from having both a weekly pattern and a monthly
pattern. For instance, you might follow a certain schedule of how to work with clients on the first
and third weeks of the month, and then do something else on the second and fourth. You can be
flexible with this. The idea is to try something out and find out what works for you. Maybe test it for
two weeks, then reevaluate the routine that you've created, and find out what works for you.
Time management for working in teams
- Working with a team can sometimes be a challenge. Particularly when it comes to time
management. You're juggling not only your schedule, but the schedule of other people. And it's
impossible to be perfect in that situation. However there are some tips and things that you can do to
simplify the interaction and the communication with your team members. Number one is to create
some ground rules. Have a meeting where you just sit down and say what are the rules that we're
going to use with how we interact with each other's schedules? When is it appropriate to interrupt
someone? What constitutes a real emergency? And when these emergencies happen, what channel
are we going to use? Any other rules that you can think of, of how you're going to facilitate
communication, will have a big impact in how you work together. Number two is to create clear
deadlines. Sometimes when we delegate something to a team member, we don't really tell them
when it should be done. Instead let's ask the question, when is the latest I need to get this to you? In
this way we properly procrastinate. This proper procrastination gives us enough room to complete
something not in a rush, but in a way that juggles all the other priorities that are in front of us.
Number three is to create a shared calendar. Now to a degree, this is an IT issue. But the idea is we
want to set up a situation where all team members can see each other's calendar at the same time.
This gives us a space to schedule appropriate meetings, or other things where we need to
coordinate. Let's also have some boundaries and some rules about how you use that shared
calendar. Number four is to create a consistent meeting pattern. This is particularly important in the
manager employee relationship where the manager and the employee may be constantly
interrupting each other. Instead establish a consistent one to one meeting pattern that we can count
on. And number five, simply communicate. Any time there's a change in your schedule, any time you
run into an obstacle, let everyone know. This isn't complaining, this is letting your team understand
that there's a slowdown and perhaps they need to adjust their expectations in the things that
they're working on. A gifted manager can help a team work together smoothly. Hopefully with a few
of these starting points, you'll be able to better unify your team's time management.
Setting achievable expectations
- Do you ever find that you're over committed, that you're just trying to get too much done in too
little time? The result of doing this is stress for yourself, and disappointment from other people
when you don't meet the expectations that they have for you. Instead, we want to get into the habit
of under promising and over delivering. If you do that, not only will you experience greater freedom,
but greater success. Here are a few tips to get into that habit. First, for any task that you have, come
up with your best guess as to how long it will take, and add 10%. In other words, if I think
something's going to take 10 days, then I'm going to tell people, and myself, it's going to take 11
days. That establishes a more reasonable expectation from the beginning. Number two, I'm going to
use the latest question, which means when is the latest I can get this to you? If someone asks you to
do something, let's say it's going to take a month, then you say I'm going to do this in a month minus
five days, and you schedule time in your calendar that's reasonable for that. You give yourself
enough time, but don't put it right to the very edge. Number three is if we're working on a long
project, we want to break it down into bite-sized pieces. Let's say a project is going to take one year.
So, we want to ask ourselves, at the half way point, six months, where do we need to be? Then we
ask the questions again. At the three month mark, where do we need to be? And then break it down
one more time. At the one month mark, where do we need to be? And then schedule actions to get
us to that one month mark. That makes big projects much more manageable. And, finally, this is just
a general thought. Focus on progress, not perfection. So many of us want to do things right the first
time. We set these expectations for ourself that we're going to be perfect. However, that's just not
the way human beings are really wired. We make progress one step at a time, and if you set your
expectation for improvement, you'll be more satisfied with what you're achieving. Setting achievable
expectations is like a muscle that you need to develop. The more that you exercise it, the stronger
you can become at the skill of estimating how long things will take.
Tips for bill-by-the-hour professionals
- Many professionals, including freelancers, bill by the hour. This means that you want to fill up your
schedule with as many billable hours as you possibly can have. That's a good approach to take, but
there's a better approach, and that is to maximize the value of those hours. Here are a few tips to
make that happen. Number one, is to establish a schedule for when you're going to do the billable
work. In general, I recommend 2/3 of your schedule designated for that, 66%. Next, if you ever come
to that time during those billable hours that you don't really have work to do, then use that for sales
or networking. Reach out to people in your network, email, call, find more work to do. All right, now
that's 2/3 of your schedule, but what about the other third? The first 11%, we're going to set aside
for processing. This is something I go into in great depth in Time Management Fundamentals. In
essence though, processing is deciding what, when, and where for all the different email and
voicemail and things that you have. This is roughly five hours per week. The next 11% is for working
on your business, not in it. Now, having billable hours, that's working in your business. Working on
your business is when you come up with ideas to make the business more valuable, where you do
strategic work to grow the asset that you have in being a freelancer or business owner. And then
finally, the last 11%, well that's buffer time. That's where you don't want to schedule anything. You
want to leave a little open space in your schedule. You will be interrupted, so expect it and be
prepared for it. Your goal as a billable professional is not just to fill up your calendar, but also to
increase the value of your time.
Helping others improve their time management
- What if you are in complete control of your time management? Perhaps you learned how to
control from a system, or maybe just from birth you were a focus master. You have all these people
around you who struggle with time management. How do you help them? Here are a few things to
avoid and a few things to do as you help other people grow in that skill. First, avoid assuming that
your system, your way of doing things, fits everyone else. Your way of doing things is built for you.
Giving it to other people is like handing an eyeglass prescription to someone else and saying, here
try this on. It worked for me. Instead, do recommend a course for people that is flexible. For
instance, my Time Management Fundamentals course here on the library is designed for someone
who's struggled with time management. I was once diagnosed as off-the-charts ADHD. It's designed
for people who are equally disorganized. This way they're using something that is flexible and
adaptable to their needs. Also avoid expecting perfection. Many people struggle with time
management. It's one of the biggest challenges of our day. We want to be patient as people learn
how to improve it. I have small children. I didn't make fun of them when they started to stumble and
fall when they first started to learn how to walk. In the same way, you can focus on progress. As
people make little improvements in their time management system, you want to encourage them
and let them know that they're on the right path. Time management is a skill that can be learned.
The key is to learn correct principles, and then customize them to your situation. I'm living proof that
even the most disorganized person in the world can become an expert in time management.
Make the most of your commute
- For many a commute to and from work is a daily occurrence. This can be a significant challenge to
your productivity. In my time management courses here on the library I talk about the importance of
focusing on your most valuable activities. These are the activities that are worth the most per hour.
In most cases a commute is a zero value activity. What this means is that while you're driving to and
from work you're making zero money and most often adding zero value. In this video I want to talk
about some steps you can take to minimize the impact of, yet still obtain some value from your
commute. First, let's talk about what you should never do. What you should never do while driving is
switch-tasking, what some people refer to as multitasking. If driving requires your attention, and it
almost always does, never engage in any activity that's going to cause you to switch your attention
away from driving to something else. The most common culprits for this are when people try to talk
on the phone while they're driving or they try to text while they're driving. Both of these are
extremely dangerous. In fact, a study out of the University of Utah found that driving while talking
on the phone, even with a hands free device, is as dangerous as driving while intoxicated. And if you
text while you're driving you're six times more likely to cause an accident than if you're driving while
intoxicated. Yet 33% of drivers, in the United States at least, between the ages of 18 and 65 have
reported that they read or wrote a text message while driving during the previous month. I care
about you and I care about the people on the road with you, simply don't do it. But what can we do
instead that's positive? I first recommend breaking your commute down into going to work or
coming from work, because the purposes of the commute change depending on the direction you're
going. If you're going to work you want to get your mind in focus and in a state of readiness to
perform at work. This means that while you're driving it would be beneficial to listen to something
like the audio from one of these courses, or a podcast, or any kind of audio program that will enrich
you and help you gain more knowledge to be more successful at work. Just make sure that when
you're setting it up do it when you're not distracted. If you're able to have a more active commute,
let's say that you're riding on the train or a bus, you can do things like read a book or use something
like the LinkedIn Learning app and watch video courses like this. Incidentally, this implies that using
passive forms of transportation may have more benefit, because you can get more out of the
commute. What about when you're returning home? I like to recommend that people use this as a
transition time. You've been working hard, you've been focusing on work the entire day, now it's
time to turn that dial down and get ready to focus on being with family or just simply enjoying your
life outside of work. This is why when you're returning home from work I recommend, if you're
driving, you listen to something that is not work related and is fun instead. Perhaps it's your favorite
sports radio program or your favorite talk show. Personally I like to listen to comedy. If your
commute allows you to do something more active, say you're on a train or a bus, you could do
something like play a game on your phone. The idea is that we're giving your brain time to calm
down. We're sending a message to it that work is done and it's time to enjoy life. Making productive
transitions will make it easier for you to be both more focused at work and a more balanced human
being.
How to handle interruptive ideas
- By now, you likely know that I'm a huge fan of having focus, which is vital to staying on the task at
hand and not allowing interruptions to get in your way. The more we can minimize interruptions, the
more productive you'll be. But what if you're the one doing the interrupting? What if it's not just
phone calls or someone knocking on your door, but you're in the middle of an important project and
an idea pops into your head, something completely unrelated to the task at hand? Some people are
afraid that they're going to lose that idea, so they immediately act on completing that idea,
switching away from the project at hand. The problem with this is you're going to pay a lot of
switching cost, lost time, and momentum. You're going to have to stop, transition mentally to
whatever this new idea is, complete it, and then transition mentally back to the task you were
completing previously. This little interruption could cost you 10 to 20 additional minutes of switching
costs if you allow it. I recommend that you be prepared for these kinds of situations. Your tool, have
a gathering point on hand at all times. A gathering point is a place where you send incomplete ideas.
For example, Microsoft OneNote is a great place to capture those ideas. Evernote is another
commonly used tool. Create a section or notebook folder in your favorite note taking app and call it
Inbox. Then, for every unresolved task that comes to mind, add a new note in that section. For
example, if I'm in the middle of one project and a task pops into my mind, let's say I need to buy an
anniversary gift for my wife. Rather than stopping the task at hand and buying that gift, I would
quickly switch over to OneNote, create a note, and type in quickly, buy anniversary gift for my wife.
And then close OneNote. How do I know that I'm going to take action on what I just wrote? Because
every week, I have regularly scheduled recurring processing time. I recommend, in my Time
Management Fundamentals course, that the average person has about five hours a week of
processing. This is usually enough to get through all of your unprocessed items including notes like
this. When that processing time arrives. In my case, let's say it arrives on Friday, I'll see that note and
then take action on it at that time. Or if it's going to take longer than 15 minutes, schedule time in
my calendar to complete the task. In this way, the ideas that pop into my head have a minimal
disruption to my productivity when I'm trying to be focused. Yet, I know that I'm never going to lose
a wonderful, important idea.
Dealing with overlapping responsibilities
- Working with a partner can sometimes help you be more productive, but sometimes it can be very
distracting. When I use the word partner, I'm referring to any kind of situation where you're sharing
responsibility with one or more other people such as spouses working together or co-managers or
actual partners within a business. The idea behind creating a partnership is that by spreading out the
work among many people, we're going to get more work done. However, what can also happen is,
well it's something that I learned while playing volleyball back in the day. Now, it may not look like it,
but I used to play volleyball a lot and one thing that I learned was something called the hubby wife
serve. The hubby wife serve is where the server on the other team puts the ball right between two
people. If you serve the ball down the middle like that, there's a high likelihood that both players
say, "You've got it," and that results in no one getting it and a point for the other team. Sometimes
the opposite also occurs where both of you say, "I've got it," and you run crashing into the middle
resulting in bumps, bruises, confusion, and perhaps slightly damaged egos. One way to avoid
experiencing these effects in your partnership is to make sure there are clearly and cleanly defined
responsibilities. For whatever reason, many of us feel we don't need to have a formal conversation
with a partner or that it feels too restrictive to pin people down and maybe will make the
relationship less friendly if we do this. However, I find the opposite to be true. If we take time to
clearly define responsibilities, it helps maintain a better relationship because we can be clear with
each other and not step on each other's toes. If you're in a partnership situation, I recommend
scheduling a little bit of time, maybe an hour, maybe 90 minutes, to have a conversation about what
are your partner's roles and what are your roles. Simply take a piece of paper. Put a line down the
middle and put your responsibilities on one side and their responsibilities on the other. Then you can
both refer to this document and use it as a guide to avoid overlapping or confusing responsibilities.
What if you and a partner are working on multiple projects? You may want to consider delegating on
a project-by-project basis. For instance, you can delegate the leadership responsibility of project A to
partner A and the leadership responsibility of project B to partner B and so on. This gives you the
freedom to ask the other partner for help, but it's clearly understood between the two of you that
the person who has the project assigned to them takes the lead. It's their job to make sure the
project gets completed and to ask for help when needed. The other partner doesn't rush in
whenever they see a perceived deficiency. Creating divided responsibilities also has the bonus effect
of helping both of you be more focused and staying focused is the name of the game when it comes
to productivity.
Stop coworkers from encroaching on personal time
- Ever have a situation where a coworker needs your help after hours? It's during your personal time.
You're trying to relax. You're spending time with family. And then they call or text you needing help.
How do you deal with a situation like that, but still come across as a supportive coworker or leader?
This can be a tricky balance because most of us want to be helpful and care about others, but at the
time, we also need to have a personal life. If we allow people to infringe on that from time to time, it
can be very disruptive, not just for you, but for the other person. How can we live a balanced life yet
help others be more productive? The first thing that we need to establish is a 1:1 meeting schedule. I
covered this topic in depth in Leading Productive 1:1 Meetings here in the library. The basic idea is to
have a pre-established recurring time in both of your calendars where you will meet to discuss all of
your quick questions. To establish a 1:1 meeting, think of one person who interrupts you most often
or perhaps someone you interrupt frequently. Establish a weekly meeting to begin. I find that most
people function well with one meeting per week at about 25 minutes per meeting. This gives you
enough time to stay on top of things without there being too long a time period between these
meetings. If you feel that weekly isn't frequent enough, perhaps try twice a week with a shorter
length of time, maybe a 15-minute check-in twice per week. The meeting helps you establish an
outlet for after hours questions. So if someone comes to you with a question outside of work hours,
you can remind them that the two of you have a 1:1 meeting established. Ask them, "Can this wait
until the 1:1 meeting?" The first time you ask this question, it will likely be a shock to them. The
second time you ask that question, "Can this wait until our recurring meeting?" They'll likely
apologize and typically they won't ask again after that because they know what you're going to say.
But if they still have an after hours question and they say, "No, this can't wait until our 1:1 meeting,"
then ask them to set up an extra meeting into the calendar just for this one question and ask them
to send you an invitation. Now, this requires that you have avoided overbooking your schedule.
Many people keep their schedules far too busy and sometimes this can perpetuate other people
asking you after hours because you haven't given them any room to talk to you. A little bit of open
space in your calendar helps you be prepared for true emergencies or extra meetings when they
arise. Now finally, if you're in a situation where they say, "No, it can't wait until this 1:1 meeting "and
no we can't schedule this in our calendar," then it's likely a true emergency and you're going to need
to deal with it right now. After you deal with it though, make a note for yourself to assess why this
emergency occurred and how to create a system to prevent it from occurring in the future.
However, I believe that if you follow this system I've outlined in this video, both you and the
coworker will realize that what most people are interpreting as emergencies really aren't such. They
only feel like emergencies because we don't have a clear understanding of when we're going to get a
chance to deal with them. With a little preparation in advance, I believe you'll find these after hours
interruptions become fewer and further between.
Organizing and using stacking trays
- Occasionally, people reach out to me with questions about my Time Management Fundamentals
course here on the Library. The most popular question is, "What should I do with stacking trays?" I
recommend that people who go through that course have a variety of supplies on hand, one of them
being a set of about six plastic stacking trays. What are we supposed to do with these things? In
short, stacking trays are for creating homes. Homes are the resting place for things after you process
them. Homes are different than what I refer to as a gathering point, which is a place where
unresolved, unprocessed items go. In other words, you take something out of a gathering point, you
process it, and then, if you need to keep it, put it into a home. A home can be anything like a filing
cabinet or a Tupperware container or stacking trays. Personally, I have four stacking trays that I use. I
have the luxury of working in a home office. So my first stacking tray is for my wife. When I'm
processing, any time something pops up that I need to give to her, I put them into a home called
Katherine outbox. Then later, when I'm done with processing, I take the entire outbox for her and
dump it into her inbox, her gathering point. And then she processes it according to her schedule. The
next stacking tray that I use is Waiting for. This is where I put short-term things that are really too big
to file away or would take too much time to do that, and I just want to have quick access to them in
the next week or two. That way, when the appointment pops up on my calendar, that tells me I need
to work on an item, I know that I can simply reach into my Waiting for tray, and there it is. The third
tray is for Shredding. Any kind of sensitive documents that I have, I don't want to take up time during
processing to shred them one by one by one. No, instead I put them all into that one tray, and then
once it gets full, I do it all at once. Well, in my case, what I do is I pay my son a couple of bucks to do
all the shredding for me since that's not the most valuable use of my time. And last, I have a tray for
Reading. This is for magazines or books that I want to go through at some point. Whenever I go on a
trip, I just grab a couple of magazines or a book and put it in my briefcase for reading on the flight.
Alternatively, if you have a Reading tray, you can schedule time in your calendar to do reading on a
monthly or a weekly basis. Then you just pull something out of that tray when the time arrives to
read. Hopefully, that gives you a starting point of ideas. Kind in mind, there's no limit to how many
homes that you can create. While I recommend that you have six or less gathering points, you can
have hundreds of homes. Feel free to have as many stacking trays or places where you can put stuff.
Just be sure that when you create a new home, you clearly label it and don't let anything else get in
there. Remember, everything has a home, and no visitors allowed.
How to avoid unnecessary meetings
- Meetings, they're designed to help us be more productive, right? If we get everyone together and
we sit down and we collaborate, then everyone will be on the same page and all of us will know
what to do, right? The problem is, meetings are used far too frequently. How can you and I reduce
the frequency of meetings while still being a supportive coworker or leader? Meetings are like a
double edged sword. They can help you be more productive, but they can also kill your productivity.
Here are a few questions that you can ask someone else when a meeting is proposed. Now, you may
or may not be comfortable with all of these questions. Feel free to take what I present to you and
put them into your own words in a way that you're comfortable with. Question number one, can we
handle this issue without having a meeting? This question prompts creative thinking. Rather than
defaulting to we need to have a meeting, instead, default to can we do this without a meeting?
What might we do instead? Could we collaborate on a shared document online? Can we discuss this
via email? And if we absolutely must have this meeting, can we execute it in a very efficient way?
Can we meet via phone, or can we make sure that it's a stand up meeting? In other words, having a
meeting shouldn't be the first place that we go. It should be the last place that we go and we want to
minimize how much time we spend in meetings. Question two, do we need to discuss and
collaborate or do we need to just delegate and calendar? In a situation where a group of people
need to discuss what we're going to do and collaborate together, and come up with ideas together,
then a meeting likely makes sense. However, so many meetings become nothing more than a
calendaring session where things are delegated out and we're checking to make sure that people are
on schedule. In this situation, we often don't need to have a meeting. It's probably better handled
through email or through project management software that will be much more efficient and won't
be so interruptive to people in the middle of their workday. Question three, if this is just about
training, can it be delivered via video? We live in an age of online training and video. It's an amazing
thing. Right now, you're getting instruction from me and I didn't have to get on a plane and leave my
home in Utah to come personally and share this with you. Yet, for some reason, in a workplace
context, we often feel that whenever we have a training, everyone needs to get up out of their desk
and go into someone's room. While there are situations where that makes sense, I've seen many
leaders deliver training via video very effectively. For example, they get in front of a webcam and
they set up a recording session where they walk people through the training and then ask for
questions via email afterward. I find tools like Camtasia or Snagit are very effective for creating
quick, brief trainings that you can send out to a lot of people. This allows team members to digest it
on their own schedule rather than being interrupted. The key though is, if you do this, make sure
that there's a deliverable, something that they need to do, and there's a clear due date by which
they need to complete that action. Finally, you can ask the question does attending this meeting
support my most valuable activity? Or, if you're a manager, does attending this meeting support my
team members' most valuable activity? We can focus our work time on a variety of activities, but
only two types of activities are most valuable. The things that are worth the most per hour to you
and to the company. For example, let's say that your most valuable activities are developing
marketing and creating training programs. If attending the meeting doesn't directly support these
two most valuable activities, perhaps it's better for you to just get the minutes of the meeting or get
a recording of it afterward just to check in and see if it helps support what you do best. Consider the
next meeting you have on your schedule and ask these four questions I shared to discover if this
meeting is the best possible use of your time.
How to deal with a reading pile
- Processing is the act of going through each item in your inbox and deciding what you're going to do
with it. Occasionally, I'll have viewers report that they run into a conflict when it comes to processing
their reading material. By reading material, I'm talking about news related to your industry, books,
even links to articles or a video someone suggested you watch. Many people find themselves
overwhelmed with how much reading material ends up in their various gathering points during the
week. Because reading is rarely considered urgent, it gets neglected and pushed off, even though it
has value. What I teach people to do in my time management courses is to schedule time for
reading. Putting it on your calendar to read specific material is the ideal action to take. So, if you
have material that's important, you simply open up your calendar and schedule time to read it and
digest it. While that's the ideal course of action, in reality, I personally have found that sometimes it
just doesn't work, especially when the reading material that you're getting is of unknown value. If
you don't know how much of a priority it is, how can you schedule time in your calendar? Because
this is a common occurrence for most of us, I recommend that you just get faster at reviewing
reading material. When I teach about processing, I recommend doing something now if it will take
you five minutes or less to complete. When I get an article, I almost always assume that it's going to
take me five minutes or less to read. Occasionally, I'll even set up a timer for myself to limit my
reading and scanning to five minutes. In most cases, I toss the article after reading, but if the article
looks juicy enough and is providing valuable information, then I'll schedule additional time in my
calendar to really consider it and act on it. What if scanning through things quickly isn't your
strength? The great news is there's a course right here on The Library called Learning Speed Reading.
Investing an hour to go through that course will likely save you tens of hours over the course of the
next couple of years. One extra tip that may not apply to everyone is something that I personally do.
If you're a leader and you have people on your team who have different specialties, sometimes it's
wiser to delegate the reading of an article to them. For example, sometimes I'll start reading an
article and realize that it's more relevant to John, who is my project manager and graphic designer,
so I'll delegate the article to him and ask him to summarize using bullet points the top three actions
to take. This gets the double benefit of saving me time and helping him learn, and to improve in his
position. Education and knowledge are powerful, but they are most powerful when we focus our
attention on what we do best.
Handling unexpectedly long tasks
- In Time Management Fundamentals, I teach people to process items in their inbox. If an item is
going to take you five minutes or less during processing time, you should do it right then. This is
because it's much better to quickly complete a brief item rather than switching your attention over
to scheduling it into your calendar, which will take a few minutes, and then later also have to switch
your attention to stop whatever it is you were doing to complete that brief task. If you're processing
and if it will take five minutes or less, do it now. But there's a problem with that, sometimes. What if
you think something is going to take five minutes or less and it turns out after you give it a go that
it's really going to take 10 minutes, or an hour, or more? The solution is fairly simple, it just takes
some awareness. The answer is if something turns out to take longer than expected, put it back into
a gathering point. A gathering point is a place like your inbox or your email inbox. So, let's imagine
that I had a task where I needed to call someone. I thought it was going to take me five minutes or
less. I call Stratton on the phone to get a quick answer to a question, but he doesn't answer. Now I
have to leave a message. This means that it did not take me five minutes and I'm still going to have
to reconnect with him. In this case, I'm going to immediately put that task, call Stratton, back into
the top of my inbox. And since I process from the top of my inbox, it's time to immediately re-
process that item. I ask myself, the what, when, where questions. What is the next step? When will it
be done? And where is its home? In this case, my next step would be I'm waiting for Stratton to
respond to me. When will it be done? Well, I'm going to create a task reminder for myself, perhaps
tomorrow, or in two days, that I'm waiting for Stratton to get back to me. And where is its home? In
this case, now that I've processed this task, it's resolved. Because it's on a task reminder list. So I can
archive this email, or if it's a piece of paper, just throw it away. One final word, your ability to
estimate how long things are going to take is a bit like a muscle. There's a part of your brain that
determines how effective you are at estimating lengths of time. The more you process consistently,
the more you will need to estimate how long things take, which will also strengthen that mental
muscle. If you find that you're always getting your time estimates wrong, get in the habit of doubling
your estimates. This will help reduce the number of instances where you find that something is
taking too long and helps you be more realistic with your expectations.
Processing long projects with many steps
- Occasionally, graduates of my time management programs ask me a question about how to deal
with projects, things that are going to take a very long time to complete. How should we process
something that's going to take months or years to bring to completion? There are two approaches
that you can take and both get you to the right destination. As you listen to these approaches,
consider which would work best for you. The first is to take everything one step at a time. What this
means is that even if you have a project that's going to take a year, you just process one step at a
time. This is particularly effective for people, like myself, who get overwhelmed with the thought of
completing a long project. This approach also works best for people who are working mostly by
themselves, such as a freelancer or a solo business owner. Since others are not dependent upon you
to create a long-term plan, you can take everything one bite-sized action at a time. To use this
method, consider a large project you're working on. Ask yourself, what is the next thing I need to do
to move it forward? Then schedule time to complete that step in your calendar. Later, after you
complete that step, process the project again. For instance, if the first step was to research your
competitors, the time arrives on your calender and you do that. Then, after you research your
competitors, you put the project back into your inbox and reprocess it for the next step. Ask, what is
the next step I need to take to move it forward? Then schedule time to complete that step in your
calendar. This is an effective way to move projects forward and help you feel less stressed in the
process. But that doesn't work for everyone. Some people need to see the big picture. Also, if you're
coordinating with other people in a group, they need to see it as well, and we need to figure out how
all the moving parts work together. The second approach is to divide and conquer. I recently used
this method to complete my book, The Power of Having Fun. It works like this, begin by determining
the required completion date. What does the milestone look like for completion? Define it clearly
and schedule that final due date in the calendar using the notes field to include details about what
the completed project will look like. Then divide the project by asking, what is the midway point
between now and that date? For instance, if the completion date is a year from now, at six months
from now, what does the milestone look like? Using my book example, perhaps I needed to
complete my first draft. Then we go from now to that six month mark and divide in half again. So,
the three month mark, what is the milestone that I need to complete three months from now?
Perhaps I need to have the first draft halfway completed. I can repeat this process one or two more
times asking, what's half the distance between now and the next milestone I've scheduled? Finally,
I'll be left with one question, what is just the next step? What's the first thing I need to do this week
to move that project toward the next milestone? So, using the book example, I might determine my
first step is to create a table of contents. Now I'm ready to schedule a block of time in my calendar to
create that table of contents. While the divide and conquer method doesn't schedule out every
single action along the way, it creates a useful framework that you can go back to later on and fill in
the remaining detail. Long projects may seem more complex, yet, in the end, it's about getting down
to just one question, what is the next step? What is just the next action to move it forward? Figure it
out, schedule it, and then do it.
Connecting personal values to productivity
- Occasionally in the midst of all this getting stuff done, of accomplishing things in your calendar, you
might start to feel like you're just a hamster in a treadmill. You're working really hard, but you're not
actually going anywhere. Even worse, what if you're doing all this work, but you feel like it's pushing
you in the opposite direction of where you want your life to be? Clearly, this is a multilayered issue
that should fill an entire course. What I want to do is just talk about how to make sure that your
daily actions are connected to your values. In particular, your personal values, the things that you
believe in. You can call these principles, you can call them your beliefs, whatever you want to call
them, I'm just going to refer to them as your values. First, in order to make sure that you're living
these values, you must define them. Again, there are entire books devoted to this subject. I'm simply
going to suggest to you that you figure out what three words or phrases best describe what you
believe in. If you want to create more than three, that's fine, but having three to start with gives you
something meaningful to create. Do you believe in honesty? Do you believe in hard work? Do you
believe in having fun? Schedule some time on your calendar to go out on a personal exploration of
sorts. Think about this question. Read books that are meaningful to you and then write down some
thoughts about it. Your answer doesn't have to be perfect. In fact, there's no such thing as a perfect
answer here. It doesn't even have to look great or have perfect grammar. We're just creating a
starting point, a first draft of your values. Next, put those values up somewhere where you can see
them everyday. Frame them, post them on a wall in your cubicle, make them your desktop
background. Whatever you do, make them visible, which will help you remember what matters most
to you. Next, when processing, occasionally, not every time, ask yourself a fourth question. Now,
before I share that question I might need to explain what I mean. I teach in my time management
courses that processing is the act of deciding three questions. What is the next step? When will it be
done? And where is its home? The fourth question that you can add to these from time to time is:
why am I doing this? Now I don't recommend doing this with every task and every email in your
inbox, but perhaps once a day you ask yourself this question about one of your activities. Why am I
doing this? Why am I processing? Why do I even care about completing this? In fact, to make this
easier to remember, ask this why question with the last item that you process in any gathering point.
So, if you're processing your email account and you get to that last email of the day, then ask
yourself, why am I processing this? Then consider that email in terms of your values. Does it match
up with them? This reminder will get you recentered on the values that you said were meaningful. If
you ever come across something and you ask, why am I doing it? And you don't have any reason
why, that's a good opportunity to reassess the kind of work that you're doing. Or, how you're going
about doing that work, and finding a way to make adjustments so that you can realign your daily
activities with your values. If you work in a company or an organization that has a set of values, you
can also add this fourth why question to occasionally review those. Also, post up your company
values and occasionally ask yourself, why are we doing this? Does this action align with our values? If
you see a misalignment, that's a great opportunity to have a conversation with your coworkers
about how to change things, so that you can get your workday back in alignment with the things
your company believes in. Productivity isn't just about getting stuff done. Productivity is about
focusing on the activities that are most valuable and most meaningful to you.
Building a not-to-do list
- Ever catch yourself doing something that you knew was not the right thing to do? I'm not talking in
a moral sense, I'm talking in a productive sense. You find yourself running an errand to buy a box of
paperclips on the other side of town when your time is far better spent working with a customer,
that sort of thing. It's common in this interruptive world that we live in to find ourselves trapped in
these kinds of low value activities. You've likely heard of the to do list which is incidentally
something, in my time management courses, I encourage people not to have. What I do encourage
you to have, instead of the to do list, is the not to do list. This is the list of things that you know will
get you into trouble in a productivity sense. The leaders I coach and speak to who are most
productive have learned to say no far more often than they say yes. This is a principle of success. You
want to avoid entangling yourself in doing things that are low to no value. I believe it's a helpful
exercise for everyone to go through to discover what should be on their not to do list. If you need a
starting point for your personal not to do list, here are a few suggestions. Do not attempt to
multitask. It makes things take longer, you'll make more mistakes, you'll increase your stress levels
and you'll damage relationships. Do not agree to meet with people unless there is a clear objective
for that meeting. This protects both your time and their time. Do not constantly check your email.
Rather than having your email in a constant state of send and receive, have a scheduled time to go
through it. Do not do something for someone else when you can teach them instead. Part of being a
leader is helping other people learn and grow, and if you do things for them, not only will it hurt
your short term productivity, but it will hurt their growth. Now, these are four ideas that are just a
starting point. I recommend, at the end of this video, that you take a few minutes to create a list of
at least 10 not to dos. Then, share that list with people, either through friends, through email, or
post it up on social media. By making a public commitment of the things that you will not do, it will
help reinforce your personal follow through and protect your time.
Putting news in its proper place
- Does checking the news make you less productive at work? Let me provide some context. There
was a 500 company study but The Better Works Group. They found that 87% of workers reported
reading and getting involved in a social media argument. 50% of employees reported witnessing a
political conversation turn into a verbal jousting match on company time. Many people will admit
that extreme events such as an election, or a disaster even if it happens on the other side of the
world can have a negative impact on their personal productivity. Now, I don't want to say that you
should never check the news. Or that talking about politics is a bad thing. That's one of the benefits
of living in this day and age we can have these kinds of conversations openly. But, we must also
remain focused in order to be productive. It's crucial that we protect our attention and become
more effective at using our time wisely rather than allowing our work place to become news
distracted. So, how can we stay aware of what's happening in the world, while not allowing the
world to disrupt our productivity? First, feed your focus not your newsfeed. What this means is that
the majority of your work day is scheduled to focus on, well, work. Then, also schedule times in your
day, or week, to check things, like social media, and the newsfeed. Outside of those times, stay
focused. This includes, being aware of any apps on your phone that would give you notifications
about news. Set those to off. This allows you to check the news rather than having the news check
you. Next, protect your focus by building a mental firewall. I go into this in greater detail in my
course on improving your focus. Basically, the idea is to create a yes/no/maybe list of the things that
you will pay attention to. In your yes column, are the things related to to your most valuable
activities at work. No, well, these are the things you will not pay attention to, that you know are
mental black holes. And in the maybe column, you list things that you might review, but at a future
date. This forces you to choose your lanes when it comes to current events. Choose the area in
which you'll focus. If there's news that's related to your career, that's worth checking out put that on
the yes list. But if there's news that you know gets you upset and distracted, then either don't check
it, or, check it at a time when it's not going to disrupt important activities such as focusing on work,
or focusing on being with your loved ones. Third, build relationships with other people. This may
seem like an odd suggestion when it comes to productivity and time management, but it's relevant.
Your ability to build connections with other people has a direct impact on the success of your career.
And how much you are worth per hour. When we allow inflated news stories that hyper focus on the
negative aspect of one geographic region, one nationality, one type of person it cripples our ability
to make positive connections with other people. I've had the privilege of traveling around the world
and meeting people in a variety of situations from a variety of countries. I've even spent time in
prison speaking candidly with people who have committed violent crimes. What I can say is this.
While there is always a chance that a very small minority of a certain group of people are going to
make bad decisions, on the whole, people are good. People want to do the right thing and most
people also need help. And they feel a bit insecure. By taking time to reach out to real people like
this and get to know them personally, you expand your network rather than just reacting to negative
headlines or sound bytes you'll find it easier to see the good in other people. After all, none of us can
achieve maximum productivity by ourselves. You'll need the help of others to be effective with your
time so make time to connect with others.
Making peace with the truth of time
- One day, I was coaching a successful business leader who had accomplished many things for her
company and in her community. However, she reached out to me for help because she had started
to run into a problem. She was neglecting many of her responsibilities and commitments that she
had made to others. She was falling behind on projects, and occasionally neglecting important
relationships in her life. I asked her to go through a process with me of listing all the obligations she
had, and roughly how much time in the week it took her to do each of those things. As we reviewed
the results, we both realized that she had committed far more hours in a week than the 168 she had
available. It was then that I said to her, "You are "capable of accomplishing anything you put your
"mind to doing, just not all at the same time." Many people, when they begin the process of learning
about time management, have the belief that by getting more organized and being more productive,
that they'll be able to accomplish absolutely everything that they want to do. Occasionally that does
happen. But more often, people begin to realize that they are over-committed. They're expecting
too much of themselves, and because they have unrealistic expectations of what they can
accomplish, they end up having many switches in their attention. They rapidly jump back and forth
between tasks trying to solve everything at once, which ironically gets less done. When I see this, I
talk to people about the truth of time. I joke that this is why I get paid lots of money, to teach people
the truth of time. Are you ready for it? Here is the truth of time. That's it. Now, seems obvious,
right? Why would anyone need to hear that, let alone pay me for it? Well, the reason why people
need to hear that, is because for some reason many of us believe in the back of our minds that we
can cram 65 minutes of activity into a 60-minute hour. Or that we can cram 25 hours of
commitments into a 24-hour day. Making peace with the truth of time is the idea that you and I
need to accept the fact that we are not going to be able to accomplish everything we want to do. In
fact, we should under-commit. We should try to spend 23 hours in a 24-hour day. Rather than going
to war against this truth, and trying to fight it, surrender to it. Give up. Realize that there is nothing
you can do to change the fact that there are a limited number of hours in your day and your week.
When you do that, it will force you to make decisions about what is truly important in your day. It
will force you to say no to some of your commitments, and some of the expectations that you're
putting on yourself. And if you can't say no, at least say, "Not now, but later. "I will do it, just not
today, because there "aren't enough hours, and there's only one me." When you make peace with
the truth of time, you will likely experience a pleasant surprise, which is that you can get more done
by trying to do less. Why? Because you're being realistic and reasonable, and not going into the
inevitable time debt that comes with attempting to multi-task. Make peace with the truth of time,
and time will become your ally.
Avoiding the crowd mindset
- Let's imagine for a moment that you're shopping at the grocery store. You see several checkout
lines in front of you. A couple of the checkout lines are long, but another two are shorter. Which line
do you get into? The value of using the shortest line at a grocery store is obvious, right? Yet so many
people, when it comes to time, put themselves in the longest line, so to speak, because of the
choices that they make in terms of prioritization. For example, in the US, April 15th is generally tax
day. It's the day when everyone needs to submit their tax report to the government to make a
payment or to get their tax refund. Now occasionally, leadership at accounting firms ask me to help
them be more productive. What they'll report to me is that the weeks leading up to April 15th are
the craziest, busiest weeks of the the entire year. Why, because almost everyone waits until that last
moment to get their taxes in. But when you do that, it means you're going to get less attention from
your accountant. It means it's going to take longer to get everything done. Why, because everyone is
doing it at the same time. The time management principle here then is to figure out when everyone
else is going to do something and then try to not do it at that time. By adopting this simple practice,
you'll save incredible amounts of time. Think of some activity that you do on a repeated basis,
whether it's at work or in your personal life. Ask yourself, when is it that everyone else does this
task? When is it that most people do it? Here's a personal example. My wife and I make it a point to
go on a date every single week. However, we don't want to get caught up in the weekend evening
crowds that grow when it comes to eating at a restaurant or going to a movie theater. So we begin
our dates early on Saturday afternoon. This allows us to go at a time when it's easy to get tickets to
any movie that we want to see and we beat the evening dinner rush so that we don't have to wait
half an hour or more to get a seat. It even makes it easier to find a babysitter. If you take a look at
each day and each week, you'll notice times where everyone else is doing something, everyone else
at work is submitting that report on the last day of the month, everyone else goes to get gas in your
neighborhood at the same time at the end of rush hour. Instead, try to find a pattern of doing these
things at a less busy, less popular time. If you make a habit of doing this consistently, in a variety of
areas, you'll save yourself hours of time, year after year.
Placing a value on your time
- In my course on time management fundamentals I help people identify their two most valuable
activities and to put a rough value of their time spent in these activities. I want to explore this with
you in a simplified way. Simply take whatever money that you make per year from all your sources
and divide it by 2080. Why 2080 because that's roughly how many hours there are in an average 40
hour work week over the course of the year. It's just a way to standardize your value per hour. For
instance, if I said I was making $50,000 per year and I divided that by 2080 that means that my time
is worth $24 an hour. I know that in real life things don't always neatly align that way but it gives you
and me a starting point. This number sets up a question we can ask ourselves for prioritizing tasks.
The question is if I hired someone else to do this task for me would I make money from it? Here's an
example that isn't perfect for everyone but it illustrates the point. Imagine that you're in a sales
position. You have an important meeting tomorrow and you know that for some reason when you
show up they're going to see your car and right now your car looks dirty. It's important for you to
make a good first impression. So you have two options for getting this car clean before you get to
the meeting. Option one, you clean the car yourself. Option two, you put the car through a wash to
have someone else clean it for you, what should you do? Let's say that you estimate it's going to
take you a half an hour to clean this car. We already determined your value per hour is $24. So in
this example the time that you would have spent on cleaning your car is worth approximately $12.
This also means that if it's going to cost me less than $12 to have someone clean the car for me it
would be a better investment of my time and my money to have someone else clean it for me. Now
this only works if I reinvest this time gained into something valuable. So rather than getting out the
bucket and the hose and soaping down the car, I pay someone else to do that and then use that new
time to set up sales appointments or to do things that are high value. There are two exceptions to
this rule. First, if cleaning the car didn't have a direct impact on my income, if I was just doing it at
home and didn't reinvest the time, then it may just end up costing me money. Also, maybe I'm
someone who gets enjoyment out of washing cars, then I might choose to do it myself. From a time
management perspective, what I'm suggesting is that you at least ask the question could I earn more
money by having someone else do this particular task for me. This is the perspective that I've seen
many successful and productive leaders use to not only get more time but to increase the value of
their time as they progress through their careers.
Celebrating success for improvement
- One man told me of how his brother made an exceptional sale for his business. The man asked his
brother what are you going to do to celebrate it? And this business owner said well, there's lots to
do, I need to get back to work so, nothing I guess. While this may seem like the business owner is
hard working, he's actually short changing his success. This is an interesting phenomenon that I
discovered as I was researching studies for my book, "The Power of Having Fun". One study from the
University of Washington found that mice, when deprived of the naturally occurring motivation
chemical dopamine, took significantly longer to perform a simple task. The more they persisted in
that task, without dopamine, the worse their times got. On the other hand, mice that had a little pick
me up of dopamine at any point in the process cut their performance time roughly in half. Now,
we're not mice yet some of us are treating ourselves like a rodent in a maze, doomed to repeat the
same experience over and over with no joy in sight. Instead you can choose to inject a little fun and a
little celebration into your daily performance. And if you have responsibility for managing and
leading other people, it's even more critical that you pause and allow them to celebrate their
successes when they occur. How do we go about doing that? First, whenever something positive
happens, stop. Imagine a big stop sign in your mind that says we need to take a look at this. Second,
use your mind to intellectually acknowledge that something positive occurred. All you need to do is
think something like, that was great that we just completed that big project, or whatever your
success is. Next, ask yourself the question, what level of celebration is appropriate for this success?
Now, if I got positive feedback from a customer, maybe a high five or a good job is all the celebration
we need. But, if our team received a public award for outstanding customer service then that would
be a completely different level of celebration. There's an element of subjectivity but the point is that
you're taking the time to consider what is appropriate. And finally, celebrate. Take action and do
something enjoyable. It may take a little time from your day depending on the level of celebration,
but in the long run enjoying these positive moments will help you and your coworkers be more
productive. Remember, when you have success and celebrate and acknowledge that success, you're
injecting positive chemicals into your body that reinforce your desire to have even greater success.
Take the time to celebrate and you will find that success comes more easily to you and those around
you.
Exploring the weekly planning session
- Do you need to have a weekly planning session? Some people ask me this question after
completing my Time Management Fundamentals course. Why? Because I specifically don't give any
recommendation to have weekly planning. In fact, personally, I don't do any weekly planning. First,
I'll explain why that is and then, I'll explain some things that you could do if you still see value in
holding a weekly planning session. In my Time Management courses I talk about the importance of
processing. Processing takes roughly about five hours a week. It's time you have scheduled in your
calendar where you decide what you're going to do with each item, when you're going to do it, and
where is its home. During that step of deciding when you're going to do things, you are making
prioritization decisions. Things that are high priority you are scheduling time to do them soon.
Perhaps, tomorrow or, in the next week or two. Things that are low priority you're scheduling to do
further out into the future. Perhaps, several months from now. In this way, what most people
consider to be planning is automatically taking place as part of the processing schedule. It naturally
occurs and therefore, you don't need any dedicated time to do it. The concept of weekly planning
really came out of the 70s and 80s during a time when people weren't inundated with constant
interruptions. But in our age, we have far too many activities coming at us, more than we can
possibly put into our calendar. Which means, that, just going through the course of processing you
and I are likely to eat up all of our available time. I find it redundant to processing and therefore,
don't do it. Now, if you're still finding you have available time or, if you feel that your life would have
more balance by taking time to reflect on your week, there are some things you might do during
weekly planning. First, you could double check everything in your schedule. Look ahead, and see if
there's anything that seems out of the ordinary. Did you make a mistake in scheduling something?
Perhaps, do you see any double booked appointments? Did something change in the last week that
caused, what you originally scheduled into the calendar, to no longer be a priority? Make
adjustments to your schedule, as needed. Next, you could answer the question, what is the single
most important thing that I will accomplish this week? Being focused on one most valuable result
will help you become more productive. By focusing your actions during the week on just one thing, it
will help you discover times that may be wasted on lower value activities. It may be too late to adjust
the week right in front of you but, it may provide insight for future weeks so that you start to make
wiser decisions about your priorities. Next, you can ask, are there any relationships that I want to
pay attention to? For instance, is there a spouse, or a child, or a loved one that you want to make
time for? This can also apply in the work place. Such as making sure that you're taking time for team
members. And that you're giving them the attention that they need. Finally, if you have a partner in
work, or in life, you may want to spend just a little bit of time coordinating schedules with them to
make sure that everything lines up for the coming week. Again, weekly planning is not an absolute
necessity. If you do choose to make it a part of your schedule, have it at a consistent day and time
each week so that it becomes an integral part of your productivity plan.
Coordinating family schedules
- If you're part of a close family, coordinating schedules can be a recurring challenge. Let's talk about
some ways that you can get on the same page with your family members, each week. First, have
some time set aside on a regular basis to coordinate your schedules. For example, my wife and I try
to sit down once a week or so, and we just make sure our schedules align when it comes to where
the children need to be, or when we're going to have a date, or any unusual changes to our
schedule. This consistent meeting can help you avoid a lot of confusion. Next, I recommend getting
everyone who's using a calendar to use the same application. There are many wonderful calendaring
tools available. Some of them, you're familiar with, and you use every day, such as Microsoft
Outlook or Google Calendar. Some of them are specific apps to the needs of a family, Cozi being one
example. No matter what tool you choose to use, if everyone in your family is using the same tool, it
can help streamline things when people have technical problems, such as syncing up their calendars
with each other. That leads to the next tip, which is, making sure that everyone has access to each
other's calendar. Now, if you have young children, they're probably not to the point where they're
using a calendar on their smartphone. Well, maybe not. But if you have teenagers, we want to set
things up in all of your calendars, so that you have the ability to see what the other person is doing,
not so that you're checking up on them, but more so that you can make it easier to make
appointments when you need to connect. If you need help on setting this up, search here, on the
library, about your favorite calendaring tool and how to share it with others. Next, use your calendar
and encourage everyone to do the same. Now, this is probably going to be harder for young adults,
because they're not in the habit. Yet, getting used to using a calendar and scheduling everything in
the calendar, is an important life skill. Now is a wonderful time for them to start learning. When
every family member uses their calendar on a consistent basis, coordinating schedules becomes
much easier. Last, and this is optional, one suggestion based on my book, The Power of Having Fun,
try to find one time per week where you can all come together as a family. It's too easy in our day to
feel that we're disconnected from each other, with this person going to sports practice, and another
to music lessons, and someone has a deadline for a school assignment, and work is demanding you
put in extra hours. If you can have just one time per week, even if it's just for half an hour, where
everybody knows that we're all going to come together and spend a little time together, it creates a
sense of groundedness and a connection with each other. In this way, your family can transition
from just a group of people working together to a close team and a source of strength to each other.
Tracking your daily activity
- Are you aware of how you are spending your time? Many people when they do a self audit of
where their time is going are shocked at the inefficiencies in their day. This is why that I recommend
that occasionally, not all the time, you do a self assessment where you track how your using your
time. What I mean is that you make a minute by minute assessment of what activity you're working
on and where your focus is. In it's most basic form you'll want to create a chart that looks a little bit
like this. You have a column for activity, a column for start time, a column for end time, and then a
total of how much time was spent in that activity. It's not necessary but if you wanted to go the extra
mile you could also add a column for category. Meaning the type of activity such as marketing and
sales or free time or time with family. Don't get too caught up in the details though because the
value of this exercise comes primarily from the awareness that it brings to your day and to your
mind. As an alternative to a hand written chart you could search for time tracking apps which will
show you a variety of tools available for your smartphone. Now, how long should you do this
exercise for? Personally I don't think it's practical to try to track your time for more than one day.
The act of tracking your time itself becomes extremely cumbersome and distracting. If the whole
point of time management is to help you get more time excessive time tracking is going to get in the
way, but if you did this once every three months or so, every quarter, and we did it for just one day
that can provide some valuable insight into how your spending your time. As you track your time, be
aware of the following. First, be conscious of how many switches are taking place in your day. We
want to look not just at what kind of activities you are doing throughout your day, but also how long
you can focus and be single minded on one task until some interruption of some kind gets in the
way. My guess is you're going to be shocked at how many times you're being interrupted. Many
people are interrupted 20 times or more per hour whether it's due to a message popping up, to
someone calling them or coming by their office, to just themselves interrupting their own work with
their own great thoughts. Look at how many interruptions are occurring in your hour. Then consider
steps you can take to reduce interruptions. Reducing these switches in your attention can have a
multiplying effect in freeing up available time. Next, be aware of how much time you spend in your
most valuable activities. If you need help in figuring out what your MVA's are, you might want to
check out Time Management Fundamentals where I walk you through the process. Most people are
spending far too little time in their most valuable activities. Then take a look at how much time
you're spending in your least valuable activities. These are the things that are worth very little,
perhaps minimum wage type work. Most people are shocked at how much time they spend doing
minutia that could be delegated easily to someone else. Finally, after you run this test for a day and
look at the results ask yourself one question: what is one thing I'm going to change as a result of
what I've learned? There will likely be many changes that you could make, but by focusing your
improvement to one clear actual item you'll increase the likelihood that you follow through and
make a positive change in your schedule.
How to schedule a meeting
- In many positions, you often have to schedule a meeting with someone else, however, the back
and forth of you and the other person trying to figure out a time to meet can become a headache
and a distraction, let's talk about a few things to help scheduling meetings go a bit smoother. First,
try to schedule quick meetings. Google Calendar has a built-in feature for this called Speedy
Meetings, this automatically schedules rather than an hour meeting, a 50 minute meeting, leaving
10 minutes of buffer space at the end, or rather than a half an hour meeting, a 25 minute meeting,
whether or not you're using Google Calendar, I recommend you make speedy meetings a common
practice when scheduling appointments with other people, it will help you be more relaxed, help
give you transition time for the next meeting, and help you both be more focused during the time
that you meet together. Next, if you share a workplace with this person, try to set things up so that
you can see each other's schedule, most calendars let you set things up so that the person doesn't
see the specifics of your appointments, just if you are busy, this way you can maintain some privacy,
but still allow other people to see your availability, as a side note, I don't recommend that other
people have the ability to schedule appointments for you unless they are a dedicated assistant,
rather, I prefer that people see what you have available and then suggest times, with you doing the
final scheduling, this helps avoid a lot of frustration and confusion, next, whenever scheduling,
provide multiple time options, usually two to three, so rather than saying, can you meet next Friday
at 10:00 a.m, offer something like, I'm available on Friday at 10:00 a.m, or Monday at 2:00 p.m, or
Monday at 3:00 p.m, this makes it easier for people to find an option that works for them, also, if
you know that you're going to meet with this person on a regular, recurring basis, try to find a time
that works in both of your schedules at least 80% of the time, what this means is that, if you have an
appointment every other week, not every single one of those appointments has to work perfectly,
but if you find a time slot that works most of the time, it creates a starting point in both of your
schedules, then, whenever a conflict comes up, you move the appointment to a different time within
that week, which allows you to keep the meeting and be flexible, but also have a schedule that you
can both count on, one final note, if you're trying to schedule a meeting with many people across
different organizations, not in your company, you may find it helpful to use a third-party app, for
one-off situations, you might want to take a look at the apps such as Doodle or MeetOMatic, which
provide a quick and easy way for people to vote on all the times that they have available so that the
organizer can find common ground, when you make an appointment with someone else, keep it,
remember the time and the trouble that you went through in order to create that meeting, by
keeping your appointments as scheduled, you'll reduce distractions and inefficiencies in your week.
Prioritizing learning opportunities
- Learning is wonderful, right? That's why you're here on a site like this because you're hungry for
knowledge that you want to improve yourself and grow in your career. What about when your eyes
are bigger than your stomach? So to speak, when it comes to your ability to learn. As a speaker and a
trainer, I occasionally see this. People who get in the habit of going to so many conferences, or going
through so many courses that it becomes overwhelming to them. And they're unable to follow
through and take action on what they're learning. This is neither ideal, nor productive. When
considering learning opportunities first, ask yourself, what result am I trying to achieve? Just, filling
up your mind with knowledge in and of itself, is not a virtue. You want to be focused with your time.
So, consider this question for a period of time. For instance, over the next month. What result are
you trying to achieve? During this month, what are you trying to learn for yourself about your
career? What will make the biggest difference and is most closely related to your most valuable
activities? Later, you can continue to ask that question for longer time periods. What's most
important for me to learn this quarter, or this year? Your answer to this question will help you
prioritize the different options that you have. Next, take a look at how many learning opportunities
you can give attention to given the available time in your schedule. For every course that you see
here on the library in general, I encourage you to estimate that it's going to take you twice as long.
So if the course is listed as one hour at length it's probably going to take you two hours to go
through it. Why? Well you want to have time to digest what you're learning, to take action on it, to
complete the quizzes that you see and, to just breathe. In the same respect, if we're talking about
going to live conferences or events, be realistic about how much time you have and overestimate
how much time it will take you to get to one of these, and also recover from them. Next, ask yourself
the action question. Am I going to be able to take action on this? When you have more to do than
you have time to do it, it's time to slow down. If you're finding that courses and conferences are
giving you more and more things to do and you're still falling behind on the stuff that you've already
learned in the last training opportunity, it's a good sign you should apply the brakes. You can always
resume learning and, gradually add opportunities back onto your schedule once you've caught up.
Knowledge is powerful as long as you can take action upon it. Make sure that the time you set aside
for learning also includes time set aside to do something about it.
Finding your optimal break cycle
- While working on my book, "The Power of Having Fun", I discovered an interesting principle for
productivity success. It's called the ultradian rhythm. The what rhythm? Well, you've likely heard of
the Circadian rhythm, which is the biological flow of the day. It's typically applied to your best sleep
and awake cycles. The ultradian rhythm is a clever chronobiology term for a cycle that repeats many
times in a day. You and I have a variety of ultradian rhythms dealing with everything from heart rate
to body temperature regulation. In a work place context, however, you have an optimal cycle for
how long you can work until you need a break. The ultradian rhythm was discovered by sleep
researcher Nathan Kleitman. He first discovered that we have ultradian rhythms within our sleep
cycle, and then revealed that same pattern exists within our day. Each person has an optimal cycle
for how long they can work until they need a break. That need varies from around 90 minutes to two
hours depending on each person's ultradian cycle. What does this mean? Well, if you're a person
who needs a break every 100 minutes, and then you push past that 100 minute mark, and do the
101st minute of work, and fail to take a break, every one of those minutes thereafter gives you a
diminishing return. However, by taking a brief break, perhaps a 10 to 20 minute break, you give your
body room to reset the clock, so to speak, and recharge your batteries, so that you can return and
have optimal levels of performance. Discovering your ultradian rhythm is just a matter of trial and
error. Just like discovering how much sleep you need. Here's an example of what I did with one
manager and how you can follow the same pattern. We set up his schedule so that he had a break
every 90 minutes. He opened up his calendar and scheduled a 10 minute break to occur at the end
of each 90 minute segment. If he started at nine a.m. in the morning, then at 10:30 he had a 10
minute break with a little bit of buffer room after that. He went back to work and 90 minutes later,
he took another 10 minute break. After trying that for a couple of weeks, we reassess where he was
at. Did that work for him? Did he still feel that he had gas in the tank, so to speak, when it came to
his energy? He said that 90 minutes was probably too early. He could go longer. So we tried it at 110
minutes. We reestablished his schedule that he could work for 110 minutes, and then have a
specifically scheduled break for 10 minutes. After he did that for two weeks, he discovered 100
minutes was the optimal cycle for him to take a break. Incidentally for his break, he thought it was
fun to do a little shadowboxing. Any kind of activity will work for you, as long as you consider it to be
fun. If going for a walk around the block is fun for you, then do that. If playing a game on your phone
is fun for you, then do that. Just find something that's meaningful to you, and then test it out. Be
aware of the ultradian rhythm with the people around you as well. When you see people pushing
themselves too hard, and their energy is starting to flag, encourage them to also take a break. Of
course, you'll want to be respectful and aware of the policies of the company that you work in.
Finding a regular cycle for peak performance isn't just a matter of personal happiness and job
satisfaction. It's also a matter of the bottom line, and improving the productivity of everyone who
works in your organization.
How to develop flexibility
- Learning how to be flexible is vital skill when it comes to time management in the workplace. Some
people are naturally gifted at being flexible within their day. Others thrive on consistency and
perform best when they get in a flow that is uninterrupted for long periods of time. This is not a
discussion about whether one approach to work is better than the other, rather it's an
acknowledgement that the modern workplace in which we operate is often unexpected and
changing. Because of that, regardless of our preferred working style, all of us must learn some
degree of flexibility when it comes to our workday. Here are a few tips. First, have a conversation
with your employer about what flexibility means to them. The interesting thing about words like
flexibility is that everyone has a slightly different definition. Perhaps to your employer, being flexible
means that you are able to change the deadlines on projects quickly, where to someone else, being
flexible is that you're open to have a conversation at any moment. I think it's worth discussing
flexibility and defining the word and what it means in your workplace so that everyone understands
what the expectation is. Next, be sure to leave enough buffer room in your schedule. I talk about this
frequently in my time management courses. It's the idea that we live in a world in which we are
bound to be interrupted, it's going to happen and so we must be prepared by leaving open spaces in
our schedule. The person who has over scheduled their day with no open spaces is walking a
tightrope, giving them no room for flexibility. This means that when unexpected things occur, they're
going to pay a heavy cost for making any changes in their schedule. This is neither ideal nor realistic.
Leave plenty of buffer room in your schedule and if you're in a position that requires interruptions,
such as IT or technical support or emergency support services, you're going to need to leave even
more buffer room in your schedule. Finally, prepare to be flexible. This may sound odd, but it's
designed for people who want to feel more control in their day. Often unexpected things derail us
because we have expectations that are unrealistic. Happiness is often just a matter of expectations
that are met or exceeded. What's something that recurs regularly in your week that bothers you?
What's something that regularly goes against your plan and what you expected? Rather than getting
upset about it every time, change your mindset to expect to occur. For a personal example, as
someone with an entrepreneurial disposition, one thing that drives me crazy is corporate red tape. I
talk to someone in customer support and they tell me they can't do something simply because
there's a policy. I used to get extremely frustrated about it. I was inflexible. Then, I changed my
expectations and created a weekly budget in my mind for at least one annoying corporate red tape
incident. Now, when such an even happens, rather than getting frustrated, I acknowledge it and say
to myself, there it is. There's my one per week. This budget gives me more control and more ability
to be flexible with an uncomfortable situation. You can do the same thing with anything that recurs
in your work week and threatens your way of doing things. One of my favorite quotes is by the poet
Alexander Pope who said, "Blessed is the man who expects nothing, "for he shall never be
disappointed." You can be the woman or man who sets reasonable expectations and therefore you
will rarely be disappointed and ever ready to be flexible.
The trouble with texting
- I want to tackle a challenging subject, perhaps even a controversial subject when it comes to time
management. I ask for your patience as you and I explore this together. The topic is text messaging.
Because people are so comfortable with text messaging in a personal context, they may have the
tendency to carry text messaging into the professional context, into business. When they do this, it
creates all sorts of problems. One of the biggest problems is that people typically keep their text
message app open, meaning they've set it up to notify them at any time. If you're familiar with my
work on the myth of multi-tasking, you'll know that if you leave yourself open to switches in
attention like this, it's going to chew up your productivity very, very quickly. Constantly jumping from
one thing to another is switch-tasking, and it's highly counterproductive. This isn't to say that text
messaging doesn't have value, it just needs to be used in an appropriate manner that doesn't
perpetuate switch-tasking. So, what is an appropriate way to use text messages in a professional
context? For the purpose of this video, whenever I'm referring to texting, I'm also including any kind
of instant messaging app. First, you can use texting when you need quick information. For instance,
if I just need to ask a coworker, "Hey, what was the measurement on that window "that we were
working on?" Or, "Can you give me the address of where "I'm supposed to go?" These are questions
that can be responded to without having long, complete sentences or attachments. Also, text
messaging can be used in emergency situations. For instance, I see people who work in network
support, who use text messages to be notified when something catastrophic happens to a client's
network. It makes them quickly aware that something's happening and they need to take immediate
action. However, outside of these two quick needs, texting starts to lose its value. One principle of
business productivity is to move from a culture of now to the culture of when. The culture of now
says if I have a question, I need it answered now. That culture perpetuates a lack of focus and
constant switches of attention. Text messaging is one of the worst culprits when it comes to the
culture of now. On the other hand, the culture of when says I'm going to respond to every single
message that you send me, and this is when I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it in a timely manner.
This is why the primary method of communication in business is email. Email allows more room and
more space to clearly explain what you mean. It allows easier sending and retrieving of attachments.
Perhaps most importantly, it allows people to respond to and process the messages in their time.
They can create a schedule, such as the processing schedule that I talk about in my courses, where
they check and respond to their emails in an appropriate manner, but not in an immediate manner.
If text messaging is necessary for your workplace, I recommend having a candid conversation with
everyone in the company about ground rules. When is text messaging appropriate, and when is it
not? Getting on the same page when it comes to texting will help reduce frustration and help
everyone be more focused.
Yearly planning to support goals
- A common time management need is long-term planning in support of big yearly goals. These
yearly goals can be career related, such as working into a promotion, or business related, such as
reaching previously unachieved sales numbers, or even personal, such as running a marathon for the
first time. In all these examples effective time management is required. In this video I'll provide a
very simple breakdown of how to take large goals and plan for them in your calendar so that you can
achieve them. If you want a more detailed walkthrough of the goal setting and goal planning process
I recommend you look at my course here in the library called Achieving Your Goals. Of course, the
process begins with having your goal in mind. What is it that you want to accomplish in the next year
or so? Make a note of your goal. To illustrate the process I'll use the example of writing a book. Just
insert your goal into the steps I discuss. First, start with the end date. What this means is we're going
to determine the date by which we want to accomplish the goal. Let's say that I am starting on
January 1st and by December 31st, the end of this year, I want to have my book complete and ready
to go the printer and to go to online publishers. I'm going to schedule out that entire day, December
31st, for finalizing the book. Step two, determine and schedule the midway point. So since today is
January 1st, the midway point is going to be July 1st. What do I need to have accomplished by July
1st? Answer that question for the goal that you have in mind. For this book I'm writing the midway
point might be that I have the first draft of the book 100% complete. The next step is I'm going to
determine the 1/4 point. In other words, what do I need to accomplish between now and that date
that I've put in my calendar of July 1st? So we're looking at around the 1st of April. What do I need to
have accomplished? In my example the result is fairly straightforward. I need to have completed
writing about 50% of the book. Next, I'm going to cut it in half again, or to make it easier, we'll just
say the one month point. At the end of one month where do I need to be? I might say, I have the
first chapter written or something like that. Time to break it down one more time. What needs to be
done this week? Perhaps I say I create a rough table of contents. To best follow through on this step
I'll want to gather the idea and then process it, as I teach in Time Management Fundamentals.
During processing I'll schedule the time it takes to complete that table of contents. Likely between a
few hours and a full day. That's good to get things rolling, but we're not quite done. The final step in
this planning process is to fill in the blanks. This means determining how many hours I need to work
in the week leading up to the first draft. I want to schedule time for that in my calendar. I'll also want
to determine what needs to happen between the midpoint and the end point. So I might budget
some time for that in my calendar as well. This is much easier to do, because I have a rough
framework built into my schedule for the coming year. Repeat this simple planning process for every
yearly goal that you want to accomplish. Just be careful that you don't try to accomplish too many
things at once. You're more likely to succeed when you can be very focused on just a few most
valuable goals.
Create a perhaps list
- It's important to keep your mind free and clear of all the many to-dos in your life. Sometimes these
to-dos are items that aren't necessary, or you haven't yet fully committed to them. In my course,
Time Management Fundamentals, I recommend you put these uncommitted ideas into what I call
the perhaps list. The perhaps list is a reservoir of ideas, opportunities, and actions that you might do
someday. This list allows us to free up our schedule for the things that's we're truly committed to
doing. But it leaves a question Time Management Fundamentals' students ask me, "What do we do
with this growing perhaps list?" First, it's essential you have one and only one place for all these
perhaps list items. I find the most convenient place for this is in a digital notepad, such as Microsoft
OneNote or Evernote. I have one digital notebook within OneNote that is designated for perhaps list
items. Some people prefer a manila-type folder where they just put in handwritten notes. Whatever
you choose, keep them all in one place. Next, we want to have a recurring schedule to review that
perhaps list. This may vary from person to person. I find about once every three months is more than
enough for me. Schedule this perhaps list review as a recurring appointment in your calendar. I find
that it doesn't take long to review my entire perhaps list, maybe 30 minutes at most. Then, when the
appointment arrives, pull open that folder you created, and just sort of browse through the items.
Glance at them one by one, looking for answers to three questions. For example, let's say that I had
a perhaps list item that said create a new website to sell my services. Question one, did I already
complete this? That may sound strange because the perhaps list is technically the place where
you're supposed to put things that you're not going to do anything about, but I've found it's very
common to have ideas that you put on the perhaps list magically get completed. Maybe it's because
life suddenly made it a priority or that you had forgotten about it and then found new energy to
follow through on that wonderful idea that you had. If you already completed it, delete it from your
perhaps list. Question two, am I willing to take action on this? To make this idea a reality, you must
have some desire to complete it. If the desire isn't there yet, such as I don't have a strong enough
reason to create the website in my example, then there's no need to force things. Just leave it on the
perhaps list, and move to the next item listed. Question three, does completing this item support my
most valuable activities? There are a variety of things that you can do with your time, but only one
or two are truly most valuable. Your success is determined by your ability to stay focused on those
one or two things. So if the item doesn't directly support them, maybe it's best to just leave it on the
list for now. If it turns out that it does support your most valuable activities, then simply move that
item from your perhaps list into a gathering point. A gathering point is a place like your email inbox
or your physical inbox. You'll process those items following the system I've outlined in Time
Management Fundamentals. In this way, we move from just having an idea to acting upon it. One
last piece of advice, when reviewing the perhaps list, saying no is always an option. In fact, I believe
it's the best option. Leaving items on the perhaps list is something you should do more often than
not. I have ideas that I have left in my perhaps list for more than 10 years. For example, I mention in
my Small Business Secrets course I had a wonderful business idea of creating a reverse Benihanas,
where cowboys cook steaks in front of Japanese business men in Tokyo. It's a great idea! And so I
captured it. But am I ready to take action upon it? No, now is not the right time. And it may never be
the right time because it's so far outside of my most valuable activities. So perhaps you'll beat me to
the punch. The perhaps list gives you all the freedom and space to look at every wonderful idea
objectively and then only pick them up when you're ready to take decisive action, when they
support what makes you valuable.
How to deal with incomplete tasks
- Occasionally, people go through my time management course, Time Management Fundamentals

here on the library, and they follow the instructions I give about gathering items, about processing
items, about putting them on their calendar. But when the time arrives to do something about that
thing that they've scheduled, it just doesn't get done. This might happen because you
underestimated how long something should take, or perhaps something unexpected happened that
got in the way. Or perhaps you just don't have the motivation to follow through when that moment
arrives. Before we explore what to do with incomplete tasks, let's first discuss how to prevent them
from happening. Imagine giving a person a bucket and telling them to empty a lake. If they begin
attempting to empty the lake a bucket at a time without first damming the stream leading into the
lake, then they'll be doomed to repeat themselves over and over and over again. In the same way,
it's vital that we first resolve the source of the problem rather than getting better at dealing with the
problem itself. So if you aren't completing appointments on your calendar because you're
underestimating how long something takes, then get in the habit of overestimating everything. For
example, if you say that something takes an hour and discover that it takes an hour and a half, get in
the habit, when you first schedule a task, to schedule twice as much time. So schedule two hours for
a task you think will take one hour. This overestimation is surprisingly a healthy thing. It gives you
more room to breathe, more room to deal with inevitable interruptions that are going to happen. It
also gives you the added bonus of being more focused in your day. The most successful people I
know try to accomplish only a few things in their day. If you attempt to complete 10 or more tasks
within the same day, you're decreasing your odds of success. Overestimating also helps with the
second obstacle, when interruptions occur and get in the way. The extra time gives you room to
respond to emergencies and then still return to the scheduled project and complete it in time.
Additionally, if you find yourself getting constantly interrupted, I recommend checking out my course
here in the library, Improving Your Focus. It will help you build systems and structure in your day to
reduce interruptions. But what if your problem isn't systems-related, it's motivation-related?
Recently a coaching client of mine talked about how he kept putting off a large project because it
would take him too long to complete. If that's your challenge, then get in the habit of scheduling the
first minute of activity on your calendar. In other words, if I tell myself that I need to create a 20-
page financial report, which is going to be overwhelming for pretty much anyone, then when I
schedule that on my calendar, I also want to put a note about what is the first minute that I'm going
to do. And the first minute of creating that report is opening my word processor and creating the
file. It makes it easier for your mind to emotionally deal with the amount of work you're asking it to
do. If you follow these suggestions, odds are you're going to find that the frequency of incomplete
tasks is going to dramatically decrease. But what if you follow all those steps, and you've still got
incomplete tasks? It happens to the most prepared of us, myself included. The good news is the
solution is simple. Put incomplete tasks back into a gathering point to reprocess. If you've been
through Time Management Fundamentals, you'll remember the part where we gathered everything
into the baskets before we started to process them. We want to do the same thing with incomplete
tasks. Put any incomplete task or project back into the in box, and reprocess it. However, this time,
process it with keeping in mind the suggestions of overestimating, protecting your focus, and
scheduling just the first minute of activity. Do this, and the odds are you're going to find it much
easier to follow through and complete every task that's in front of you.
Reduce attention switches
- I'm a huge advocate of focusing on one thing at a time and avoiding switch tasking, what many
people call multitasking. Constant switches of your attention are the enemy of productivity, as they
cause tasks to take longer, decreases the quality of work done, and increases stress levels. So what if
you understand that principle and you want to stay focused and want to avoid switch tasking, but
you work in a company culture or have a boss that still actively promotes multitasking as productive,
despite all the research to the contrary? What do you do then? The first is to try to help them
understand the true cost of switch tasking. There's an exercise that you can walk them through.
Rather than repeating it here, search for a video titled Addressing the Myth of Multitasking here on
the library. What do we do with this? I recommend that you show this video to some coworkers or
even your boss. If you have a group meeting and are given the opportunity to train, that would be a
great way to do it. You can also follow up this with the next video titled Understanding the
Consequences of Multitasking. This exercise helps people experience the true cost of switch tasking
for themselves. It helps them see, in roughly five minutes, what switch tasking is costing them every
day. Helping people see the truth will change their behavior far faster than talking about changing
their behavior. Also, I recommend that you go through my entire Time Management Fundamentals
course yourself, even if your workplace is addicted to multitasking. Why? Because the example that
you set for your boss and for your coworkers makes a difference. If you perform well, they will likely
want to know why. When I speak to audiences all around the world, I do an informal poll about how
many people are completely in control of their time. Would it shock you to know that 2% or less of
people feel that they're in control of their time right now? If you can be in that 2%, you stand out,
and other people who are feeling the pain and frustration of a lack of time management will want to
learn how you got to that spot of focus. Now, what if, even after following these suggestions, you
still have a boss that constantly wants to interrupt you with questions or continually asks you to
switch task even in spite of your best effort? We want to build systems to help you stay as focused as
possible. One way to do this is by suggesting a recurring meeting schedule. Your biggest problem
with a boss who likes to switch task is likely an abundance of quick questions, where they jump in
here and there, and they want to ask you what you're work on or need fast answers to projects
they're working on. You want to suggest, in a polite and a professional way, the idea of replacing lots
of little interruptions with having a consistent meeting schedule. Allow me to share a suggested
script, and then you can make it your own. I recommend that you use this script not right after
someone asks you a question, but rather bring it up at another time when they haven't interrupted
you. Here's the script. One challenge I'm running into is that we're interrupting each other so much
that I'm being less productive for you. I want to get the work done you're asking me to do and I want
to do it on time, yet I feel these little quick questions are getting in the way. I'm wondering if we
could set up a consistent one-to-one meeting schedule. That way, we both know we can count on
that meeting every single week, and we'll interrupt each other less. Is there a schedule that would
work for you? Then let them come up with the pattern and times. The resulting meeting schedule
may not be perfect and may not completely alleviate their interruptions, but any improvement will
start to have a significant impact on your productivity. Approach it from the standpoint of what
matters to them, how doing this will help you help them be more productive. By having a respectful
conversation, I believe that you can find ways to reduce the switches in both of your workdays.
When to fix, and when not to fix, a problem
- We're surrounded by little time thieves. One of these time thieves is when we try to solve problems
we should not try to solve. What do I mean by that? Let's take a simple example. Imagine you are
using your smartphone to type in a text message, and suddenly it freezes and turns itself off. That
would be pretty annoying, right? Or what if we see someone on your team say something mildly
rude to a customer? It just came out the wrong way. What you should do about these events? The
answer depends on how many times they occurred. When something annoying or frustrating
happens once, it is an incident. In general, you should ignore incidents. Life is sometimes weird, and
random stuff just happens to us. If we stop and try to solve every single one of these random
incidents, we're going to waste a lot of time trying to solve a statistical anomaly. Now, of course, the
exception to this is if something very serious or life-threatening occurs. In the absence of that,
though, ignore incidents. They're not worth your time. As a parent, occasionally I see my children do
or say foolish things, but if it's the first time I've seen it, I've learned to just let it go. They're children.
They make mistakes, and they'll learn from it, likely. Even grownup people are the same way.
However, if something occurs two or more times, then it is a pattern. Patterns are very different. A
pattern means that there is a high likelihood that this will repeat over and over and over. Allowing
this to repeat over and over is not productive. It will steal our time and focus. This is why we want to
process patterns. So, ignore incidents and process patterns. By processing, I mean that we take that
item and put it into a gathering point to take action on it. You can do this by sending yourself an
email or writing a note for yourself and putting it in your inbox. For instance, you could write a note
that says your phone has turned off more than once and you need to resolve it. Stop my phone from
turning off constantly. That's enough. Then using the system I outline in Time Management
Fundamentals, you will process that note. You'll decide what the next step is, when you will do it,
and where the home for that note is after you're done with it. In this way, you reduce the constant
annoyances and problems that you experience in life, and you get better and better over time. You
make continual improvements. In summary, when something happens, ask yourself, is this an
incident, or is it a pattern? And then ignore incidents and process patterns.
Make time to build relationships
- Are you making enough time in your day for loved ones and family members? This includes anyone
that you're close to, such as friends, boyfriend, girlfriend, even your pet. While my question may
sound like a personal relationship issue, time spent building relationships has a significant impact on
your time management and productivity. In my book, The Power of Having Fun, I talk about a variety
of studies that show that when you make consistent time for those that you love, not only does it
strengthen the relationship, but it improves your performance at work. Once such study published
by the American Psychological Association referred to this as the Work/Home Resources Model. By
filling up your tank of resources at home, you perform better at work. The same goes for those that
you care about. When they have a strong relationship with you, they'll perform better at work or
school or whatever they're doing. If you want to boost your career and your productivity, make
spending time with loved ones a priority. But don't take my word for it. I suggest that you engage in
a little experiment for a few weeks. First, start by asking someone you care about this question,
"What would you like us to do together?" Then listen to their answer. Have a discussion with them
about the kinds of activities that you might do together. Not only will this discussion make it easier
to plan but the conversation also has the added benefit of bringing you closer together. Next create
a schedule of the times you'll do this activity together. I recommend beginning with a schedule of at
least once per week. Keep in mind that this activity does not have to be long. It can be as short as 30
minutes. Also keep the cost to a minimum. In fact, I recommend you start out by keeping your
budget cheap to free. After you create a recurring appointment in your calendar, stick with it. When
the time arrives, make sure that you protect that time. You'll likely encounter all sorts of reasons
why you shouldn't spend this time together, from just not feeling up to it, to feeling like you have
too much going on and you're too busy. Regardless of how you feel prior to the event, follow
through. My experience working with clients who have done this have shown that when they follow
through, even if they didn't feel up to it in the moment, after they get into the activity with their
loved one, they're glad that they did it. Try this experiment for a few weeks and see what impact it
has on your energy and workplace performance. I believe you'll find what my clients have found.
When you make it a priority to spend time with those you love, both you and they will experience a
boost in your overall productivity.
How to take notes productively
- Many people find value in taking notes. I'm referring to writing down thoughts or important points
when you're attending a meeting or when you're attending a seminar. Some people even like to take
notes when they're watching a video like this. It can help you stay focused, pay attention, and give
you things to review in the future. However, when people take notes, they can also feel a bit
overwhelmed and worried they won't be able to review those notes in the future, let alone take
action on them. Here are a few tips that leaders I've coached use to get the most out of their note-
taking. The first tip is to clearly decide upon one note-taking tool and stick with it. In Time
Management Fundamentals, I talk about the six approved gathering points, one of which is your
notebook. This can be either paper or digital, but it should be one consistent place where all the
notes that you take go. If you have lots of different notebooks or folders within a note-taking app
where you're taking new notes, it's too easy to get them lost in the shuffle. While you can store
notes in the long term in lots of folders, your place for new notes should always be one spot.
Personally, I use a digital notebook like OneNote and have a folder in it called Inbox. I use that one
folder for all new notes. If in doubt between paper and digital, choose digital, because it will give you
more flexibility and searchability of the notes you take. Next, focus less on taking notes and more on
taking action. When you listen to someone speak, they may say wonderful and amazing things. But
rather than focusing on the wonderful and amazing things that they say to you, focus more on the
wonderful and amazing things that you say to you. What I mean is that there will be moments when
the proverbial light bulb will go on over your head, and you will have an idea of something that you
need to do. Those are the most important notes that you can take. When an idea comes to your
mind of an action you should take, make a special note. Perhaps put a big open, unresolved
checkbox next to it, or lots of stars, or circle it. Do something that communicates to you: here is
something that I have told myself I need to do. The third tip is after taking your notes, process them.
In particular, search for each action item you created and decide what we're going to do with it,
when we're going to do it, and where its long term home for storage is. This processing should not
occur in the moment of taking notes, but rather occur during a scheduled processing time. In Time
Management Fundamentals, I recommend that the average person has about five hours a week. So,
some time during that five hours, you're going to open up your notebook, look for all of the action
items that you wrote down, and then decide what, when, and where for each item. As part of the
where step, store that message, ideally in a digital folder, archive the notes, and, if you want, add
tags to them to help make it easier to find in the future. By following these simple steps, you'll go
from beyond just taking notes to taking action, and action is what productivity is all about.
Time management fundamentals at home
- Occasionally, students of my courses will reach out to me and say something like, Dave, I really
enjoyed Time Management Fundamentals, it's helped me be more productive at work, but I'm
having issues with organization and time management at home. What am I supposed to do there?
The answer is surprisingly simple, go through Time Management Fundamentals, again, but do it at
home. All the principles that are there still apply to your living space. Let's explore why this is true by
taking a look at a few of the major principles of Time Management Fundamentals adapted for use at
home. Effective time management is a function of taking control of three areas. Space, meaning your
work space and your physical objects. Your mind, meaning keeping your mind free and clear. And
your time, meaning your calendar. Let's explore how these come into play at home. First, when it
comes to space, the biggest issue most people have at home is that they have way too many
gathering points. These are places where things that are unresolved gather until you figure out what
to do with them. Many people in their home have gathering points strewn all over the place, under
the bed, in the corners of the closet, or the kitchen counter. It can become endless. What we want
to do is the same thing that we did in your office, schedule time to take all those gathering points,
and consolidate them into one gigantic inbox. This one inbox may be represented initially by many
cardboard boxes put together in one place. Anything that's out of place in your home, don't put it
away, put it first in the inbox. Then, just like you did in Time Management Fundamentals, schedule
extra processing time to gradually bring all those boxes to zero. After you complete this from that
point forward, you only have one inbox at home, very likely a large one. Find something aesthetically
pleasing to you, but also large enough to gather anything that may get out of place during the course
of a week. Incidentally, you can also do the same thing with other family members, even children.
My son has learned that he has an inbox and everything that's out of place in his room first needs to
go into that inbox. It makes the chore of cleaning the room far easier because he only needs to focus
on one step at a time. It helps him avoid constantly going back and forth throughout the day, putting
things away. It's too hard for the average 12 year old to do. Next, when it comes to keeping your
mind free and clear, the same principles apply. Always have close at hand some sort of mobile
gathering point, so that when ideas pop into your head while you're at home, you can immediately
put them into a gathering point. Whether the idea is about home, or about work, gather it to the
same place, we still need to get it out of your brain, regardless of context. A lot of people use a
mobile notebook on their phone. Since you likely always have the phone with you, it's the easiest
way to leave a message to yourself. Just make sure that it's going into a clearly designated gathering
point and that you're not creating lots of different notes all over the place. By clearing these things
out of your head immediately, you can be more focused on just enjoying the evening, or spending
time with loved ones outside of work hours. Then finally, time. This is perhaps where the biggest
adaptation needs to happen. In Time Management Fundamentals, I talk about focusing your work
hours on your most valuable activities, these are the things that are worth the most per hour. But
when it comes to your home time, your value per hour matters less than what is most meaningful in
your life. Think about what sorts of things you really want to spend your time doing. Is it spending
time with a spouse, or with your children? Or, is it devoting time to cause that you care about?
Whatever it is that you determine has the greatest worth in your life, make sure that you're
scheduling time consistently in your hours after work to give it the attention you feel it deserves.
Create a time budget for what matters most. If you need help on on juggling the two sides of your
calendar, work and personal, you might also want to take a look at my course called Managing Your
Calender for Peak Productivity. In the end though, the solution can be summed up in one phrase. Go
through Time Management Fundamentals again, but this time while you're at home. Follow the
steps and the principles that I teach there and you'll find that they're just as applicable.
How to cultivate more patience
- I privately coach a handful of leaders. They've learned that there's a phrase that I'm going to repeat
to them many times. The phrase is, impatience is the enemy of success. What does that mean? It's
easy to understand if you think of it in terms of gardening. Let's say I wanted to grow tomatoes in my
garden. I plant the seed, I put it in the soil. I add water to it, and then I wait. I look at it, and nothing
happens. So, maybe I water it the next day, and I wait. And I look at it, and nothing happens. If I'm
impatient, I might start to think, this is a waste of time. Where are the tomatoes? And if I'm really
impatient, I might tear out the plants and start again with something new, something I think will
grow faster. Most of us understand that it takes time and continual care and attention to grow a
plant, yet when we come to our careers, when we come to our businesses, for some reason we
expect fast results. We think that watching a video like this and maybe doing a little something about
it is going to immediately change things in our life. The reality is, change takes time. Improvement
takes continuous effort. Achievement of big goals happens as a result of many small moments strung
together. This is why it's vital for you and me to continually cultivate patience. Patience is not
apathy, nor is it laziness. Patience is the realization that when I invest time in something, will need to
continue to invest time in something repeatedly over and over. I will need to work for an extended
period of time before I can see the fruits of my labors. So, how can you and I cultivate more
patience? It begins with using a schedule. If we want to achieve something long-term, we need to
set a reasonable expectation as to when that is going to occur. It may not be reasonable for me to
expect a 25% improvement in my body fat percentage in a week. If I expect that, I'm always going to
be frustrated with myself. However, it may be realistic to expect that amount of change in a year. So,
I put on my calendar that is the date by which it's going to happen. And that alone helps cultivate
patience, because now I have realistic expectations. This principle of scheduling our expectations is
also helpful for financial and career goals. Many people get trapped in a constant cycle of trying to
get rich quick, simply because their expectations as to when their money is going to accumulate is
too short. Think of a goal you have. Is your expectation for change realistic? If so, do you have the
date by which that change should occur scheduled in your calendar? Next, find ways to quantify
small victories. By quantify, I mean measure with numbers. In a monetary sense, that's fairly easy.
Quantification becomes more difficult with things that are abstract, yet we can still make it work. For
instance, if I said that I wanted to be a more patient person in a year, I can create a scale to help me
measure that. I can say, well, on a scale of zero to 10, my patience right now is at a five, and in a year
I want it to be at an eight. Then, I can gradually assess myself each month. Where is it now? Maybe
it's a 5.5, maybe it's a six. Measuring progress can help you be more patient with long-term growth.
Last, I can give myself regular breaks to do something fun. Never underestimate the power of having
fun. In fact, that's the title of one of my books. This power comes in making time for a break for
some refreshment and enjoyment. This allows you to feel a moment of satisfaction, which on a
physiological level, creates a little dopamine in your system. This is essential, because dopamine
boosts your motivation, which is necessary with goals that may take a long time to achieve. Make it
a priority to schedule regular recurring breaks to have fun throughout your days, weeks, months,
and years. Using these tips, you can trick yourself into being a more patient person, even if it's not a
trait you naturally possess. And by becoming more patient, you will give yourself the time you need
to see your efforts come to fruition.
Adapt your favorite app
- Every once in awhile a student of my Time Management Fundamentals course reaches out and
says, "Dave, I like to use XYZ app. "How can I use Time Management Fundamentals "with this
particular app?" And the answer that I give them often isn't what they want to hear, yet it is the
truth. We're going to get a little philosophical here, so be prepared. My time management training,
including the tips and this weekly course, are built in such a way that anyone anywhere in the world
using any kind of software program or tool can still practice the principles of successful time
management. Let's focus on that word, principle. A principle is something that is true forever. It
doesn't change over time. Like the foundation of a building, a true principle is the foundation of any
successful system. If you study principles of success, you can reapply those principles in a variety of
different situations. It's helpful to visualize the value of principles like a three-tiered pyramid. At the
bottom are principles, the foundation. Next come the systems, which are a way of doing things. And
lastly, above those rest the tools, the implements we use to help us follow a system. For example,
one principle that I teach in Time Management Fundamentals is everything has a home and no
visitors allowed. That applies to any office or any home, any situation anywhere. To live this
principle, we need a system, a process or procedure to follow. Systems are more flexible than
principles. In the example of everything has a home and no visitors allowed, the system we follow is
the process by which we determine where things go. In Time Management Fundamentals, I provide
a suggested system for filing away papers. Yet if a person wanted to modify that system, there's no
issue so long as they abide by the principle of everything has a home and no visitors allowed. Which
leads us to the last step, the tools. Tools are implements that help us follow systems. So, in that
example of putting something into its home, I might use a Tupperware container as the tool to store
my cables, while you might prefer to use an organizer that you can hang on your wall. Tools are
always subject to change based on innovative technology, changes in circumstances, or even shifts in
your personal taste. Because tools change frequently, it's important for us to never become too
dependent upon them. Let's put that in perspective by returning to the original question, "Dave,
how do I use Time Management Fundamentals "with my favorite app?" The app is simply the tool of
the year. It's the implement you'll use today to live the timeless principle, yet you'll likely exchange
that tool for another one over time. When I first began privately coaching in time management
fundamentals, I personally used Microsoft for everything. Over time, I switched to using Google
programs such as Calendar and Gmail, and I'm now thinking of switching back to Microsoft again.
But even with these changes, the systems I follow are relatively stable and the principles never
change. I still follow a system of having roughly five hours a week of processing, and I continue to
live the principle of having as few number of gathering points as possible. Changing the tool didn't
change the value of the underlying principle. So, if you want help with using a particular tool for time
management, improve your knowledge about how to use it. You can search here on the library and
find many wonderful tutorials to use a variety of different tools. Most major programs that people
use for productivity have tutorials on this library. I'll let the experts in each of those tools focus on
helping you learn to use them. But when you and I learn time management together, our focus will
be on flexible systems and universal principles. Please bring your favorite tool and apply it in
whatever way works best for you.
Make time to get more time
- Some people know that they have a problem with time management. They know that they need to
improve. They know they are too busy, and they are constantly multitasking. And someone reaches
out to them and says, Hey, you should go through a course, maybe a course like Dave Crenshaw's
Time Management Fundamentals. And sometimes, these people who are in such a desperate
situation when it comes to their time management may say something like, I'm too busy to take time
to go through a course like that. Sound strange? I've heard this story many times, individuals who
can't find the time to make more time. Perhaps you're in that situation. If so, let me offer you some
perspective and a solution. First, when someone says they are too busy to go through time
management training, it's a bit like saying they're too thirsty to go get a drink of water. Funny, but
painfully true. We must move past the discomfort. We cannot allow the pain that we're experiencing
right now to prevent us from getting the help that we need to remove that pain. How do we do that?
Well, we can trick your mind into finding time to make time. One way to do this is to lengthen your
perspective. Many people are focused only on what they can accomplish during the next week or
two. It's human nature. It's something that I experience from time to time. We feel like we don't
have time to do anything more, because we're looking at what's going on in the next couple of
weeks and see every minute filled. Instead, start thinking about not what you can accomplish in the
next two weeks, but what you can accomplish in the next two months. And if that's still too short-
term, then what you can accomplish in the next two years. Here's how that works. Someone
approaches me and says, Dave, I want you to personally coach me through your program, but I'm
too busy to do it. I ask them to pause for a moment and then say, During the next several months,
could you schedule time to go on a vacation? Or could you schedule time to go to a two-day
seminar? The response is almost always, well, yeah. If I could do it in two or three months from now,
then I can schedule that. And I say, great, then let's put time in your calendar, some time in the next
two or three months to go through this course. You or someone you know can do the same thing
with Time Management Fundamentals. It will take the average person about a day to complete that
course in one sitting, which is the way I recommend most people do it. Look several months ahead in
your schedule. Where can you schedule an open day to complete the course? Block that day out
from first thing in the morning until it's time to quit work, and schedule time that says, Go through
Dave Crenshaw's Time Management Fundamentals. That signals to you and to anyone else who
might have access to your calendar that that time is to be protected. Now, if you work with
somebody who needs this kind of help and have been struggling to find it, they may need your
assistance setting this appointment with them. Also, there's value in checking in with them every
week or two to make sure that they're still protecting that time. Do whatever you can to help them
protect that scheduled date. It may bother them a bit now, but in the long run they will thank you
for caring. It is possible for anyone to take the time to make more time. All it takes is some advance
planning, a commitment to the schedule, and maybe a little help from a friend.
Read vs. unread email
- Most every email program has a feature built into it that perpetuates poor time management, and
that is unread versus read email. Most email programs, if you take a look at an email for just a
second or two, will mark the email as read. Often these programs designate an email as read by
switching it from bold to not bold, but they may use other symbols or design changes to indicate
that change to you as the user. Why is this a problem for time management? Because it has the
tendency to trick your mind into thinking that an email is resolved, at least in the short-term. I see
this often with leaders that I coach one-on-one. They get lulled into a false sense of security, thinking
that they've dealt with email when in fact all they've done is glance at it and then moved on. Instead,
I want you to transition your thinking from read versus unread to in the inbox versus out of the
inbox. Your goal is to reach absolute zero in your email inbox at least once per week, meaning all
emails have been moved out of the inbox or deleted. If you follow the processing schedule that I
recommend in Time Management Fundamentals, you should have enough time to bring all your
gathering points, not just email, to zero once per week. If you've gotten in the habit of skipping over
emails that have been marked as read, you may be missing out on the productivity boost and mental
relief that comes from having a truly empty inbox. Since there are dozens of email programs and
every email program has a variety of different settings, I can't go into the specifics in this brief video.
What I would recommend is that you do an online search for stop marking emails as read in, and
then insert whatever your favorite program is. So, stop marking emails as read in Outlook. You will
likely be able to find a tutorial of a few steps that someone has put together about how to turn that
off. There is an alternative to read versus unread that I do recommend, and this is you manually
marking emails after you check them. It seems like a fine distinction, but it is an important
difference, especially when you understand my definition of checking email. When you're checking
email, you're looking at it and asking yourself one question: can this wait until my next processing
time? Meaning, can I leave this in my inbox until the time that I have scheduled to really bring my
inbox to zero? If your answer is yes, I recommend you manually creating an indicator of your choice,
such as starring it in Gmail or flagging it in Outlook. A mark like this communicates to your mind as
you're scanning through your email list that I've already checked this and I don't need to look at it
until my next processing time on Friday, or whatever time you have scheduled. This saves you time
and relieves stress. Then during your processing time, you clear each and every item out of the
inbox, regardless of importance. This automatic read versus unread feature is an example of a robot
overlord deciding what's best for you using an imperfect algorithm. Instead, take control and choose
for yourself if an email has been dealt with properly.
Use typing shortcuts to save time
- Effective time management is mostly a function of following simple systems and living timeless
principles. Occasionally though, you can find a technology hack that reclaims an hour here or there.
One such trick that I use regularly are typing shortcuts. Sometimes referred to as text expanders or
macros, typing shortcuts allow you to save yourself the time and effort of having to type small or
large phrases or blocks of text over and over and over. There are a variety of tools available from
free to a modest investment. Two I have used and found effective are PhraseExpress and
TextExpander. The concept is simple. If there's a phrase that you repeat over and over and over, you
assign a shortcut phrase to that, and when you type the shortcut, it automatically expands to the full
phrase. One small phrase that I use repeatedly is LinkedIn Learning. I've created a simple typing
shortcut of typing "LIL" and then tapping a function key. When I hit "LIL" and that key, it
automatically types out "LinkedIn Learning." That may seem like a small thing, yet it really adds up
over time. For instance, let's say that I work 300 days a year, and on average, I type the phrase
"LinkedIn Learning" five times each day. If I type out the full phrase "LinkedIn Learning" and have to
get the caps just right for "LinkedIn," it might take me five seconds on my own. I'm not the best
typist in the world. But just using this code, it takes me one second. That means I save four seconds
for every occurrence times 1,500. This means that over the course of a year, I save myself roughly an
hour and a half of time, just by creating this one little macro. You can use typing shortcuts for more
complex phrases as well. Programmers who repeatedly use chunks of code especially benefit from
using typing shortcuts like this. As a keynote speaker, I'm often asked to send my bio to people.
Every time I need to do this, I could look that bio up, wherever it's saved, copy it, and paste it in an
email, which would take me 30 seconds to a minute. Instead, I can simply save it as a text shortcut.
Then when I type the word "bio" and hit a function key, my one-paragraph speaking bio instantly
appears. Again, that saves me probably in the neighborhood of an hour or two every single year. So
a couple of things to consider. First, pay attention during your workday over the next week of small
phrases that you are repeatedly typing over and over. Also, be aware of big blocks of text that you
repeat maybe once or twice a month, but you don't want to go through the hassle of finding each
time. Then download one of these typing shortcut programs. Practice using it with these phrases. It
may take a little getting used to, yet the small effort you put in, can yield you days and weeks of time
over the course of years. Then you can reinvest that saved time into things that are most valuable.
Work across multiple time zones
- I love how connected our world has become. It's easy for me in Salt Lake City to video conference
with leaders in Dubai, companies in Australia, collaborate and work with employees in New York,
and everyone around the world seems to have business dealings in China. The world truly has
become flat. However, this cross-boundary connectivity has also created a risk for distraction.
Switch-tasking, the constant switching of attention is the enemy of your ability to stay focused and
do your best work. And when you work with people on the other side of the world, you're opening
yourself up to distractions at pretty much any hour of the day. Let's talk about a few things that we
can do to maintain your time management and your sanity while working effectively with people in
different time zones. First, when consistently working with people in different time zones, it's helpful
to keep a clock of that time zone handy. A lot of phones have apps that allow you to show different
time zones on your home screen or you can just simply buy a cheap clock, set it up to another time
zone, and put it on your desk. This awareness helps to create a little bit of sensitivity when you try to
communicate with others. I have team members throughout the world and when I video conference
with them and see that they have a clock on the wall set to my time zone, it helps me feel that
they're aware and care about my needs. Second, when scheduling appointments with people in
different time zones, I suggest you start by offering all appointment options in terms of the other
person's time zone. Rather than making them try to figure it out, you do the work first to figure it
out. Not only does this show that you're aware of their needs, but it also goes a long way to reducing
confusion. Third, if possible, find a consistent meeting time. Perhaps once a week where you connect
with each other face to face or via voice. This is a good idea in general in any work place because it
reduces switches in attention. A consistent recurring meeting has even greater value when working
with people in other time zones because you're more likely to interrupt each other at inopportune
times. Last, create boundaries in your day. I sometimes refer to these as the start and finish lines of
your work day, when work begins and work ends. When working with people in a different time
zone, that may seem impractical yet it can be done often by having multiple start and finish lines to
your day. For instance I might start work at 11 in the morning my time and go until six p.m. And then
take a break from work from six until 10. And then I might work again from 10 to midnight because
those two hours overlap with my coworkers who are in a different country. Outside of those start
and finish times, the morning until 11 and from six p.m. to 10 p.m., I want to remove distractions. I
want to stop looking at email and keep myself disconnected from it. Why? Because giving myself a
break from work and allowing myself to have time to relax or spend time with family will give me
more energy and ability to be successful during the work hours that I've scheduled. Working with
people of diverse cultures in different time zones is a wonderful opportunity. You can make the most
of this opportunity by establishing some simple boundaries.
Make time to have fun
- Are you having enough fun in your work day? In my experience with working with leaders around
the world, I find that very few take enough time. Fun is, in fact, a key to success. Consider some
studies that I discovered as I was creating my book, The Power of Having Fun. The Energy Project
and Harvard Business Review found that when someone took a little time to do something fun and
relaxing, at least three times per day, it helped them be more focused, creative and healthy at work.
Yet, less than 10% of workers do so. A study by Project: Time Off found that those who used at least
11 vacation days per year, are more likely to get a raise and promoted at work, than those who take
10 days or less. Yet 55% of all Americans fail to use all their vacation days. Children, when given
more breaks for recess, were determined by the Texas Christian University Linked project to be
better able to pay attention in class, with fewer behavioral problems. Yet, many schools are reducing
or altogether removing recess. The benefits extend beyond just work. A report by the National
Marriage Project, found that married couples that go on at least one date every week, are three
times more likely to report improved marital happiness, better communication, and better
satisfaction in the bedroom than those who don't. Yet, a Redbook magazine survey found a mere
18% of couples go out around once per month. And there is a workplace benefit as well. Companies
that place an emphasis on having fun, are more likely thought of as great places to work, according
to Fortune's Great Places to Work institute study. Yet, not enough companies consider having fun a
necessary part of their strategy. Having fun should be a top priority, an essential part of your
schedule. It adds life and joy to all of this accomplishment and productivity and getting stuff done,
that we're so busy doing. Now, I can't cover a detailed book in a short video like this. Yet, I can give
you one experiment to try for two weeks. First, choose one activity that you find enjoyable. Not
what you think other people would want you to do, and not even what you think you should do.
Instead, choose something that you would like to do, just for fun. It can be active, like running or
shadowboxing. Or, it can be passive like watching videos on Netflix. Personally, one activity I like to
do, for 30 minutes on a daily basis, is play video games. Once you've chosen your activity, schedule
time every single day for that activity, around 20 to 30 minutes of time. Make this is a recurring
appointment in your calendar. If you can't start this week, start next week. Then, experiment for the
next two weeks on a consistent basis, keeping that time. Don't let anything get in the way. Pay
attention to what happens to your attitude about life and your career. Evaluate what happens to
your energy levels at work. If you try this experiment, I believe that you will find what many of my
coaching clients have found: having fun boosts your energy throughout the day, and gives you
greater ability to perform at your best. If you want to be a success, don't sacrifice having fun.
Instead, sacrifice a little work time to have fun. Then, when you go back to work, everything you do,
will be more successful.
Set boundaries with your smartphone
- We all hold in our pocket a device that has changed the world. Whether you call it a mobile phone,
cellphone, smartphone, or even a phablet, we all posses a lot of power. We can communicate
quickly and easily with anyone anywhere. Plus, we have thousands of tools that we can add to our
phone in the form of apps to help us get more done. Unfortunately, because few of us establish
boundaries with our phone, the result isn't always productive. While our phone may give us the
feeling of being productive, all too often, rather than being our servant, the phone has become the
master of our day. Why? Because not only is this a device of great power, but also a great number of
interruptions. I've found people are just as likely to lose time due to interruptions from our
smartphone than they gain in terms of convenience. The good news is it doesn't have to be that way
with a few simple fixes. Let's look at some things that you can do to have a healthier, more
productive relationship with your smartphone. The first thing is perhaps the easiest to do, turn off
notifications for nonessential programs. For example, I'm talking about that simple little time-killing
video game that pops up once a day to let you know you got more lives and it's time to come back
and play. This is an unnecessary distraction. Take a few moments and turn off all notifications for
apps that really don't have much value. To find out how to do this, you can simply search for Turn
Off App Notifications For and then your type of device, as in Turn Off App Notifications For Android.
This one step will help you reclaim a great deal of attention. Next, choose one emergency channel
and then silence all other communication notifications. Often, people have multiple modes of
communication coming at them. Their phone rings, a new text message beeps, an email notification
pops up on their screen. Maybe your chat program causes the phone to vibrate when someone has
replied. All of these notifications are really time thieves, because they switch your attention
constantly. Instead, designate one communication channel as your emergency channel, such as
phone calls or text messages. Then let friends, coworkers, and maybe your best customers know
that if they need to get in touch with you immediately, that is the method to use. Then, in your
phone or app settings, turn off notifications and reminders from every other communication tool.
This doesn't mean that we're never going to check them. In fact, if you've been through my Time
Management Fundamentals course, you'll know that I recommend you have several times for
checking things, like email, in your day. But by turning off the notifications and having one
emergency channel open, you transition back to checking email instead of email checking you. Also,
curate your app installations carefully. Many people have what I call app addiction, the idea that
installing one new program on your smartphone will magically make you more productive. That's
just not the case. Productivity comes from living true principles. Filling up your phone with a variety
of random apps creates confusion and clutter. So, instead, only install apps when you know that
you're going to use them. This includes scheduling time to figure out how to use them properly.
Finally, slow down the rate of phone upgrades. Of course, we all want to have the coolest, shiniest
new device. However, buying a new phone every single year usually has little value in terms of
improving your productivity. There are a variety of rules of thumb that I recommend for figuring out
when to upgrade, but I'll keep it extra simple for this video. Try not to upgrade your phone any more
than once every two to three years. That will keep you from falling way behind, but also keep you
from wasting a lot of time and a lot of money switching phones from year to year. Your smartphone
is indeed a powerful ally in your quest for productivity. Just make sure that you are the master and
it, your servant.
Make phone calls more productive
- It's fun to play around with all the apps and games on your phone, but, occasionally, you're going
to make a real phone call to a real human being. These phone calls can be productive or they can be
a waste of time, depending on how you approach them. Here are some tips to get the most out of
that time that you spend talking to people on your phone. First, never, ever, ever multitask on a
human being. Give them your full attention. If you get distracted by something on your computer
screen or by trying to do another kind of work while you're on a call, inevitably, you will experience
the moment where you will have to back up and somewhat sheepishly say, can you repeat what you
just said? These kinds of moments are incredibly time-consuming. Additionally, if you multitask on a
human being, you're communicating to them that they are less important than whatever it is that
you're doing at the time. If you're going to take the time to get on a phone call with someone, make
it your top priority. If you can't make it your top priority during that time, then try to reschedule the
call. There's nothing wrong with doing this. In fact, it will communicate to the other person that
you're interested in giving them your full attention. Next, as much as is reasonable, try to make and
receive only scheduled phone calls. This is something that I practice myself. If someone calls my
phone, I let them know in the voicemail that I rarely respond to phone calls unless we have a
scheduled meeting. I give them directions on how to schedule a meeting with me. Some may find
that impersonal. But understand my reasoning behind it. I'm trying to avoid the inevitable back and
forth that happens when you play phone tag with someone. When you just pick up the phone and
call someone randomly, unless their job is to respond to your phone call, such as customer service,
odds are, you're going to be interrupting them. It's going to be hard for them to pull their attention
away from whatever they're doing in the moment and focus on you. By scheduling an appointment
with a person, you're establishing a mutual expectation that you're going to focus on each other
during this call. This leads to my next tip, which is show up on time. Not only will this show them that
you respect their time, but it will benefit you by helping you maintain a habit of respecting and using
your calendar properly. The next tip, make sure that you can hear each other clearly and try to avoid
distracting background noise. During my private coaching days, it's not unusual for me to spend
several hours on the phone. And I've found that although there are a lot of wireless headphones on
the market, I have yet to find one that is reliable. This is why I prefer a wired noise-canceling
headset. Currently, I use theBoom, which uses military grade technology. Use whatever headset you
prefer. But before you start getting on professional phone calls with people, test it out with a friend
or a family member, and make sure that they can hear you without glitches or interruptions. And if
you're in the middle of a phone call and you start to experience a bad connection, don't be afraid to
pause the conversation and let them know. Recently, I told someone, hey, I'm only hearing about
50% of what you're saying; should I try to call you again and reconnect? That's much better than
having a lengthened partial conversation where both sides are just sort of understanding each other.
And my last tip, listen for action. When you're on a phone call with someone, many times, there will
be a moment where you or they will say, I'm going to follow up with you, or I'm going to send you an
email. Whatever the action is, gather that into an approved gathering point, and process it according
to the system that I teach in Time Management Fundamentals. And this way, your phone calls go
beyond mere conversation and translate into real action. Like all meetings, phone calls are about the
action you take. And when people see that you speak with them and consistently follow through and
act on what you've discussed, they will come to trust you and depend upon you more.
Prepare your schedule for emergencies
- Many of us experience emergencies in our lives. It's nice to think that if we put something on the
calendar it simply happens like that and nothing ever gets in the way. 20, 30 years ago at the dawn
of time management training we could get away with filling up every minute in our schedules
because there were far fewer sources of interruption. But in our world right now where we're
overloaded with so much information and infinite opportunities we're bound to be interrupted. This
is why it's absolutely essential that we under-schedule our time. I call this under-scheduling buffer
time. Buffer time refers to open spaces on your calendar on either side of every appointment that
you schedule. How much open space you need depends on the kind of work that you're doing. For
example someone who has a job that is very consistent and predictable in terms of schedule may
need only a bit of buffer time. Perhaps 10 percent of their schedule. This means that they need
around 10 minutes of buffer for every 90 minutes of activity. However some jobs such as emergency
response or IT support well you're expected to respond to people when they come inbound you're
going to need a lot more buffer space in your schedule. As much as 50 percent of your total time.
I've coached a variety of business leaders through the years. One of them was the manager of a
successful auto repair shop. He learned, over time, that he could only schedule about four hours of
pre-determined work in his eight hour workday. The other four hours had to deal with the
interruptions and the emergencies that happen frequently with his repair crew. So when it comes to
being prepared for emergencies how much buffer time is appropriate for you? If you don't know
where to start shoot for about 10 minutes out of every hour. For example if you schedule two hours
to work on a project you're going to want no less than 20 minutes of nothing in your schedule
immediately following. The paradox is although this appears wasteful in the long run it helps you be
far more productive because you're living in balance with the truth of time. Now, what if despite
putting buffer in your schedule something serious happens that is more than your schedule can
bear? When this happens to my clients such as a loss of a loved one or a catastrophic business event
or even something positive like the birth of a new child the first thing that I tell them to do is stop.
They must take a moment and change their expectations about themselves and what they can
accomplish. It's not reasonable after going through a significant life event to think that you're going
to work at the same level of productivity you did before. In fact trying to push forward at the same
speed will be counter productive because you'll overextend yourself and fall behind leading to even
more distractions and interruptions. No, stop and tell yourself it's okay to slow down. To help with
the necessary slowdown start scheduling extra buffer time perhaps doubling the amount of extra
space you had previously in your schedule. This will give you more room to deal with unexpected
issues. Next create a reasonable date from when you'll return to normal. Not only does this help
manage your expectations but also keeps you firmly grounded to your calendar. Not long ago I
experienced the loss of my father and it was very emotionally draining. It took a lot of time to sort
through all the details that were necessary for his funeral, for cleaning through his house, and his
belongings. It just took time for me to sort through my own feelings about the impact of his life upon
me. When that occurred I said to myself dealing with this is going to take several weeks so I'm going
to lower my expectations and reduce my workload for the next six weeks. Then at the end of that six
weeks I'm going to return to my normal level of activity. This gave me room in my schedule and
permission to take the time necessary to get back to normal. Life never (chuckles) lines up perfectly
the way that we want yet we can create reasonable, realistic expectations for ourselves. This helps
us maintain principles of correct time management even in the most challenging of circumstances.
Tips for the paperless office
- Occasionally, people who go through my Time Management Fundamentals course ask me about
the paperless office. Will this work with a paperless office? How do I create a paperless office? If this
is something that interests you, I recommend looking at a course here on the library titled Going
Paperless: Start to Finish. That will walk you through the whole concept of how to set this up. In this
video, I don't want to replace what's done there, but, rather, just offer my perspective, which may
be a bit unique. After having taught principles of organization for many years, both one-on-one and
online, I've not become an advocate for the paperless office. It's not that there's anything wrong
with it. There can be some benefit to streamlining and getting rid of the clutter. Yet, all too often, I
find that a person's desire to have no paper at all in their office, in reality, creates slower
productivity and more confusion in the office. My perspective is that of trying to help people be
more productive, to focus on the things that are most valuable, and to take action. When it comes to
time management, the result is more important than anything else. If a system, like setting up a
paperless office, gets in the way of achieving the result, then I discourage people from trying to
implement it. Being organized is not in and of itself a virtue. Being productive is. That said, I
recognize that some people are big fans of having a paperless office. If that's the situation you're in,
then let's focus on one thing. At what point in your system should something that is paper be
converted to something that is digital? In Time Management Fundamentals, I talk about the
importance of processing on a weekly basis. Processing is responding to three questions when you
pick up an item from your inbox, such as an important paper. The questions are: what is the next
step, meaning what is the next action I'll take? When will it be done, meaning when will I schedule
time in my calendar to work on it? And where is its home, meaning where is its final storage place?
Some people try to insert the act of converting something that is paper into something digital before
all of these questions are asked. Whenever new paper comes in, they scan it into a scanner, which
automatically puts it into a folder. The problem with putting scanning before processing is that
keeping that paper might be unnecessary. Also, scanning paper before processing essentially creates
a new gathering point. You've moved something from a physical inbox to a digital inbox that you are
now going to have to check in addition to everything else. And the more gathering points we have,
the less efficient we're going to become. So instead of scanning items first, I move the step of
scanning to where it belongs, which is right after the where is its home question. So I pick up a paper
and first process it. I ask, what is the next step? And maybe I say the next step is that I need to draft
a response. When will it be done? I schedule a time to do that in my calender, on Tuesday at one
o'clock. Then I ask myself, where is its home? And now the answer is scan it. And I put that into my
paperless office filing system. In this way, processing takes precedence over paperless, which is its
proper place.
Create a nightly ritual for sleep
- When it comes to being productive in the morning, few things are as powerful as the actions you
take the night before. Sleep is a great equalizer. We all need it to function, and the quality of the
sleep that we get radically influences our ability to focus and perform throughout the day. This
means it's valuable to take just a moment or two to create a plan of how you're going to end every
night. Let's take a look at a simple process for setting that up. Let's start by determining the hour at
which you'll go to sleep. Often, there will be a relationship between the time that you need to wake
up in the morning and how much sleep you require to function properly. For example, while most
people need eight hours of sleep, the National Sleep Foundation says the amount of time people can
need can vary from as much as six hours to 10 hours per night. Personally, I've found that I require
nine hours of sleep every night to function properly. I got nine hours of sleep last night before
coming into the studio to record this video. This means that if I'm going to start work at 8:00 and it
takes me an hour to get ready in the morning, I must be going to sleep, not just getting into bed, but
going to sleep at 10:00 every night. Take a moment and do the math. What time do you need to
begin work? Then subtract from that the number of hours that you need to get ready. And then
subtract from that the number of hours that you need to properly function in terms of sleep. That
will get you to the time at which you need to go to sleep each night. Now, few people can put their
head on the pillow and immediately drift off into slumber. So you're also going to need to ask
yourself, "How long does it take for me to wind down "and go to sleep once I'm in bed?" Subtract
that time from the hour that you set as your sleep time and now you know the time that you need to
go to bed each night. As much as possible, stick to a consistent routine. It's very disruptive to your
circadian rhythm if you go to sleep at a certain time on the weekdays and then change it up for the
weekends. Of course, occasionally your schedule will need to shift, yet the more that you can be
consistent, the better off your body will respond to the sleep that you're getting. Also, you might
want to consider what you're doing during that time you're in bed and trying to sleep. It's best to
avoid the glowing screen of technology. This means that while you're trying to go to sleep and wind
down in bed, you're not going through your phone. You're not going through your laptop. You're not
watching late night TV or binge watching Netflix. Consider reading a book, especially something
that's relaxing and allows your mind to calm itself down from the cares of the day. I've found E-ink
readers such as Amazon Kindle E-Reader or a Barnes and Noble Nook GlowLight are not nearly as
disruptive as the frequency of blue light that full color screens generate. Some studies show it's still
best to turn off the backlight and use a room's ambient light to read for optimal sleep hygiene.
Finally, just a few things to keep in mind. It's best to avoid consuming caffeine or any other
chemicals disruptive to sleep late in the day. The National Sleep Foundation recommends avoiding
fatty meals, spicy foods, or even citrus and carbonated drinks that might lead to problems going to
sleep at night. Also, you may want to incorporate other elements into your nightly rituals such as
prayer or meditation. Whatever it is that's helpful for you to get in the state of mind that it's time to
stop the day and rest from all your cares, make that a part of your plan. Try out your nightly ritual
and test it for a couple of weeks. Make small adjustments until you find a routine that works for you
and leaves you feeling full of energy the next morning.
Create a morning ritual
- The philosopher Aristotle is credited with saying, "Well begun is half done," meaning if you start
something right, you're already halfway toward completion. Nowhere is that truer than how you
begin each day. However, there's no perfect formula for how to begin your day. What I'd like to do is
offer some suggestions for you to consider, and then you can implement these and see what works
best. First, consider when you start each day. The more consistent you can be with this, the better it
is for your body. Seek to avoid having different times that you start during the weekdays and the
weekend. Of course, this requires that you've established a good routine for sleep the night before.
Next, consider what you need to hear or read in order to get your mind focused in the right
direction. For example, some people find it energizing to listen to a certain type of music. Others
prefer listening to motivational or educational literature or even a podcast. Others find reading a
helpful start to their day in terms of inspirational text or even articles related to their industry. You
don't need to spend a lot of time in this step. For some, as little as five minutes is enough to get their
mind in the right place. Next, some people find some value in beginning their day with exercise.
While exercise certainly has value at any time of the day, I've worked with leaders who find that
exercise get the blood flowing to their mind. It also gives them more energy. Also, take a close look
at what you eat for breakfast. Skipping breakfast is almost always a poor choice, as you're not
feeding your body the nutrients that it needs to perform properly during the day. I'm not a dietician,
so I don't feel qualified to tell you what to eat. However, what I can tell you is to pay attention to
what you eat, and recognize how those foods affect you afterward. For instance, I know if I'm going
to record a video like this, it's a really bad idea for me to have sugars in the morning, because it will
drain me and leave me without energy. You may even want to keep a simple breakfast journal for a
couple of weeks. Write down what you ate, and write down how much energy you had two hours
later. There are also many other practices that you should consider, things that might be unique to
your career or industry, such as a writer starting every day by writing 100 words or a salesperson
starting every day by reaching out and making one business contact. No matter what you choose for
your morning routine, commit to it. Calculate how much time you think all of this activity is going to
take, and budget time for it on your calendar every morning. Give yourself a little extra time in that
budget so that you don't feel rushed. The more you experiment with and implement your daily
routine, the more you will settle into a pattern that helps you achieve the most every day.
Help others keep appointments with you
- If you've learned how to be in control of your time, it's likely you're going to run into a problem
interacting with people around you who are not yet in control of their time. And, if they're not in
control, odds are they are going to miss, forget, or show up late for appointments that they have
with you. How can you reduce instances of this occurring and help the other person without
appearing to be a nuisance? First, imagine yourself in their situation. Think about what it must be
like for them to be behind, to miss appointments, to have too many demands on their attention at
once. Not only will having this empathy help you make the right choices about how to help them,
but it will also change your mindset. Now, with that mindset, what would that person need from you
or want from you? First, make sure that you're sending them appointments that appear on their
schedule. With whatever calendar app you have, whenever you schedule an appointment with
them, send them an invitation. This won't guarantee they're going to put it on their schedule, but it
increases the likelihood. Next, send them some sort of reminder. I'm blessed to have an amazing
assistant, and she sends a reminder out to every one of my appointments for the next day. She
sends those same reminders to me as well. You can do the same. And if you're not comfortable with
a direct reminder that says, "Here's our appointment tomorrow at this time," perhaps you could
send something friendly like, "Hey, looking forward to getting together "with you tomorrow for
lunch at 11:45." If you get in the habit of sending reminders to all of your appointments, people
won't feel that they're being singled out. They'll just realize, hey, that's how you operate. Now, what
if the appointment is more than just an appointment? What if it's about getting together for a
project that you're working on and you want the other person to make sure they're prepared? You
may want to send them a follow-up reminder a few days in advance that also says, "Hey, looking
forward to getting this project "or this report from you during our meeting." Be consistent and be
friendly in your reminders. Odds are, people will view you as a helpful resource and as someone who
can be depended upon to show up every time.
Get your time management back on track
- We're all human, and because of that, we all have the capacity to get off track and forget things
that we should be doing. One of those things is time management. This is a challenge that I've
experienced myself even within my own program that I teach to people. When you, and I, get off
track, how do we get back into the groove of doing things the most productive and focused way?
First, consider an ounce of prevention to keep it it from happening in the first place. I'm a big fan of
accountability, specifically making myself accountable to a third party. I have a coach who I report to
on a weekly basis about my numbers in terms of how I'm processing with my gathering points. I
recommend that you find an accessibility partner as well, be it a coach, a manager, a mentor, or a
friend. Have someone who you'll check in with on a regular basis about simple things. For example,
how many emails do you have in your inbox? How many hours did you spend processing each week?
Accountability slows the rate of knowledge decay. But even then, it's still going to happen at some
point. When you start seeing the symptoms of items not making it to approved gathering points, of
your email not reaching zero once per week, of lots of to-dos floating around in your head, stop.
Take a few minutes. Look ahead in your calendar and ask yourself: When is the next time I can
devote one day to getting back on track? It may take you less than a full day, but I recommend
thinking in terms of one day at your workplace where you do nothing but revamp your adherence to
your time management system. Then block that day out on your calendar. Even if you have to look
two, three, four months out into the future, find that one day and schedule it. Then, what do you do
during that day? It's simple. Go back through Time Management Fundamentals starting at the
beginning. One caution. Avoid skipping something simply because you know it or you've heard it
before. Repetition is a powerful teacher. By hearing the principles again, you'll catch new things and
you will further condition yourself. If for any reason you feel silly that you're having to do this again,
just keep in mind that the time management expert talking to you had to do the exact same thing.
Meetings and conversations that run long
- Ever find yourself in this situation? You're in a meeting, you look at the clock, and you realize that
you're either out of time or you're almost out of time. I certainly have. What should you do when
that occurs? And more importantly, how can you say something without seeming rude or caring
about the clock more than you care about the person? Establish the expectation in advance,
especially if you know you're going into a meeting with someone who goes longer than he or she
should. Beforehand, let them know, "Hey, I've got a meeting at 11:30, "so we need to wrap things up
by 11:25" or something like that. Fix the expectation that not only do you have a hard stop, but you'll
also have enough time to transition to something else. Oh, and by the way, if you're not in the habit
of scheduling meetings under the full hour or under the full half hour, I recommend you start doing
that. My coaching calls are 50 minutes. That allows me time to transition to the next meeting in case
things run long. But even in spite of our best efforts in setting the expectation in advance, long
meetings are bound to happen. So what then? First, say something. You don't need to overthink it.
Simply pointing out the time is often enough. "Hey, I noticed we're running out of time, may be
enough." If you see a particular need to be diplomatic, you might add, "What you have to say is
important to me "but I'm worried I'm not going to be able to hear it all "because we're almost out of
time." Then, if necessary, offer to schedule another meeting if it's going to take a significant amount
of time to do that. But many times people just lack awareness of time, and pointing it out will help
them get on track. One thing that I like to do, especially in a professional context, is simply say, "It
looks like we're out of time." Let's wrap things up by stating the action items that each of us is going
to do. I try to do this a few minutes before the end of the meeting time because it's going to take a
moment for people to state what they're going to do. Find the approach that's right for you, but
whatever you do, don't allow your meetings to run long. We want to establish a pattern that we
respect everyone's time, our own, the person we're talking to, and whoever we're about to talk to
right after this meeting.
When to create new homes
- In Time Management Fundamentals, I talk about the difference between gathering points and
homes. A gathering point is where unprocessed stuff, incomplete stuff, gathers, such as your
physical inbox. A home, though, is like a filing cabinet or a drawer where you put those pens. It's a
designated final resting point for your stuff. If you follow Time Management Fundamentals and set
things up properly as you go, odds are you're going to maintain nice, clean homes for a while.
Though over the course of several years you may start to find that your homes are overfull. As a
general rule, you never want your homes to be more than 7/8 full. That's a pretty particular fraction.
What I mean by that is it's almost full but not completely full. If things are starting to spill out into
other drawers, that's a sign that your home needs an update. First, consider if you can create a long-
term home versus a short-term home. What do I mean by that? I have a drawer in my office full of
video cables. I do a lot of stuff with video. It's pretty big and it's pretty full. The reality is, I only need
to get to maybe 1/3 of those cords at most. The other 2/3 of the cords are older versions of video
cables that I may use someday but probably will never use in the coming year. I need to hold onto
them just in case the need arises, but they don't need to take up space in my office. If you have a
home like this, create a new version of it. Create a second one that's long-term, that you're going to
store some place that's out of the way in the basement, in the garage, in the storage facility,
whatever it is, so that you still have those items if you feel you might need them. But, they're not
taking up space in your immediate workspace. Then go through that drawer, such as my home of
video cables, and put the cables in one of three places. One I'll designate for short-term, two for
long-term, and three, garbage. Throw it out if you know you're never ever going to need that thing
again. When should you do this? The answer is a little bit here, a little bit there. I don't recommend a
full audit of your entire office space just to reduce homes. Instead, when you see a home that's
overfull like my video cable drawer, schedule time on your calendar, perhaps in the next couple of
weeks, to go through it. Create an action for yourself to separate those drawers. That gives you
enough time to buy a new storage device and then go through it. Then repeat this process as
needed, but only doing maybe one or two home updates per month at most. This way you can stay
productive and focused on what's most valuable but give your time management system a little
tuneup from time to time.
Negotiate deadlines with coworkers
- If you work with other people, you'll often run into a conflict over deadlines. You're working on a
sales presentation that needs to be done tomorrow, but your coworker also wants you to deliver
that financial report to them tomorrow. They both can't get done at that time. How do we figure out
what to do in this situation? First, I recommend cultivating the question for both yourself and for
others, "When is the latest that this can be done?" Thinking this way is what I call positive
procrastination. And it forces you to get real about your true priorities. This question goes both
ways. Sometimes what you think is a priority is really an impatientcy, because it's something you're
impatient about. You're going to put it ahead of somebody else's need. And sometimes the reverse
is true. If you create the expectation for yourself and for your coworkers that you're always going to
ask the when-is-the-latest question, it's not going to seem very weird to them, well at least not over
time. The first couple of times you ask this they may feel that you're not treating what they want you
to do as a priority. So in the beginning, you may want to explain the principle to them, something
like, "When is the latest this can be done? "I'm not asking this because it's not important to me. "In
fact, I'm asking it because it's very important to me "that I get this done for you. "And because I'm
juggling other priorities, "I want to make sure I don't miss your important deadline." Something like
that. Then you can pull out your calendar in front of them and take a look at what you have on your
schedule. With the information that they've given you about their timelines, you can find room on
your calendar, except when you can't. Sometimes you just won't have the time, in which case I
would communicate out loud what you're running into. Don't expect them to understand what's on
your mind. You might say something like, "Wow, I'm looking at this, "and I'm having a really hard
time finding enough time "to do this. "I'm estimating that it's probably going to take me "three hours
to work on this project, "and I'm not finding three open hours. "I just wanna check, are you
absolutely certain "that's the latest I can turn this in?" Talking out loud takes the guesswork out of
their minds. It also gives them an opportunity to communicate with you about your assumptions.
Maybe you're thinking it will take three hours, but it's really going to take 30 minutes. They can help
you understand that. And perhaps as they hear you talk about it, they may reconsider their own
expectations and say, "Well honestly, I could probably give you another week," or something like
that. One caution, in situations where you're communicating with coworkers and you know the
latest that something needs to be done, avoid scheduling time to complete it at the last possible
moment. Back it up a little bit. Give yourself a little room in case something goes wrong. Additionally,
if you complete things just a little bit ahead of deadlines, your coworkers will come to trust you and
respect your judgment in terms of prioritization. They'll know that you will beat or exceed the
deadline. Deadlines are all about expectations, and workplace satisfaction is often about meeting or
beating those expectations.
Take responsibility for finding answers
- Ever been in a situation where you have a burning question? Something you really need help with
and you reach out to a coworker, you leave a message with them, but they don't respond. So, you're
sitting there for hours and while you're waiting for them to get back to you, you find an answer to
your problem. Then they finally return your message and they say, "I'm sorry, I got busy." And you
say, "Oh, no worries. I solved it on my own." Sound familiar? This illustrates an important principle of
productivity which is taking responsibility for finding answers to your own problems. This isn't to say
that other people don't have value and it's especially not to say that hiring experts or delegating to
others is not useful, but there's a window of opportunity that exists at the beginning of every
problem and you should use that window to try your best to solve it on your own. Why? Because it
empowers you to become a better problem-solver which is one of the skills expected of you in your
job and second, it will reduce the number of switches that take place in your days and the days of
others. As you remove random questions that you could of answered on your own. Where should
you start? Start with yourself. By this, I mean just step away from everything for a moment. Step
away from the computer, sit in a chair, go to a quiet place and just think. Even if you do it for just
five to 10 minutes, you may find what I have found. We are moving so fast that we are not aware of
the wisdom that we already possess and if you find meditation or prayer is helpful for you to find
answers, then use that as well. But the point is that when you're given the space to use the tools
that you already have, you can often discover the answer on your own. Next, you can turn to the
internet, specifically search engines. Become adept at asking questions that get you answers on the
internet. I've found that most technical computer problems that I have can be solved by a search or
two, or three. It may take a few rewordings of my question to get the answer to pop up, but when it
does, I have a wealth of information from other people who have already spent hours and hours
thinking about this particular problem. On a side note, I don't recommend going onto social media
and asking random questions such as, which vacuum cleaner would you recommend I buy? This
becomes an invitation for you to constantly switch tasks in and out of social media while you wait for
answers. Also, candidly, I've heard many people complain about how interruptive and distracting it is
when friends, family, coworkers, use social media for this purpose. Then after you've tried to solve
the problem on your own and use the internet, reach out to a professional. This includes using a
coworker. At this point, the conversation will be more productive because you'll be able to say,
"Here's what I've tried so far "and I haven't been able to find the answer. "Can you help me?" This
demonstrates to them that you value their perspective but you also value their time enough to
attempt solving the problem on your own.
Stop perfectionism from hurting productivity
- Perfectionism, the desire to get things just right, can be a valuable asset. It can help strive to do
better and improve the work that they do everyday. However, it can be an obstacle to productivity if
we allow our pursuit of perfectionism to get in the way of the result. It can cause us to delay our
work, and it can cause the people around us to be frustrated and also get delayed if we are
overfocused on perfectionism. I believe the solution lies in separating the process from the result.
The process is the way in which we do things. It is the tools that we use to get a particular result. For
instance, if I'm trying to make a sale through a company, the process would include my sales
presentation and any printed collateral that I give to them. It's unreasonable to expect a process to
be perfect. Whether it's through our failure and human nature or just random chance, things can
break down in a process. Maybe we say one wrong word during our presentation, or maybe the
printed material wasn't exactly the right color according to company standards. Because it's
impossible to expect the process to be perfect, we must put our focus on progress, not perfection.
Progress in the process means that we get better and better and better at it each time but that we
accept the fact that there will be always something that can be improved. Instead, let's make our
focus about perfectionism be on the result, so returning to this example, a perfect result would be
making the sale. Even I make mistakes, I can still make the sale. I can still get a perfect result. If you
look at gold medal athletes on championship-winning teams, you'll notice that they made mistakes
along the way, yet they still won the championship. So if you catch yourself stuck in the mire of
trying to get everything exactly right and trying too hard to make everything perfect, ask yourself, is
your focus on the result or on the process? If you're focused on the process, seek to make progress,
not perfection, and get clearer about the result that you want. If you need help, have conversations
with your coworkers about the result and write it down. Then, you can all have a discussion about
how to keep your work moving forward in spite of the team's natural imperfections.
What to do with business cards
- Business cards aren't going away any time soon. There's something tangible and meaningful about
handing someone a piece of well printed card stock with your name and picture on it. It's a physical
reminder to that person that you met and had a conversation. And it's an invitation to continue that
conversation in the future. Yet many people trip up when they are handed these business cards. The
productivity process breaks down. Let's take a look at the workflow, so to speak, of receiving a
business card. First, after thanking the person for the business card, I have a choice to make. The
choice is which gathering point am I going to put this business card into. A gathering point is where
you accumulate items until you deal with them later during your scheduled processing time, per my
course Time Management Fundamentals. The gathering point you choose is up to you, but I would
recommend one of two options. Number one is your portable inbox, which you should be carrying
with you at all times. Number two is to put it into your digital notebook. For instance, when
someone hands me their business card, I typically take a picture of it and store that picture as a note
in my OneNote file. With either option, you have a reminder during processing time that you need to
do something with this card. Then we walk the card through what, when, where processing. What is
the next step? Well, if the next step is that I want to reach out to this person and want to continue
the conversation, let's say they were interested in hiring me for speaking. Then the next action might
be to reach out to them. Then I move to when, which means determining when it will be done. I'll
schedule time on my calendar or create a task reminder, or even take care of it right then. Prior to
putting it in the trash, I ask myself the question: Do I need to keep this contact information? If there
was no need for follow-up, then the answer is no so the card goes in the trash. If there was a follow-
up action, then I can either enter that information myself or forward the picture of the business card
to my assistant, who will enter it for me. Some people also use business card scanners, although in
my experience they aren't 100% reliable, and the hassle usually far outweighs the benefit gained
from using them. In this way, the business card served its purpose. It reminded me of the person, it
reminded me of meeting the person, and moved us toward the next step of working together. Let
business cards serve their purpose as reminders of action. After they do that, remove business cards
from your workflow to reduce clutter.
Manage the rate of communication
- What you're waiting for a response from someone and you need the information urgently, it can be
really frustrating to not hear back from them. On the other side, we also fall into the trap of
communicating too frequently with someone about issues that are of minor importance. How can
you speed urgent communication up while slowing down less urgent communication so you have
less switches in your day? There are two selections to this: expectations and frequency of response.
First, if you're going to be working on an urgent project with a team member and you're fast
approaching a deadline, it might help to take just two minutes to set expectations for response
rates. Something like this: We've got a deadline fast approaching on Tuesday. Because of that, I think
both of us should be more responsive on email for the next few days. Let's try to check our email
once every two hours at minimum and get back to each other whenever we see a message. You can
also manage expectations for urgent things by using a messaging service. I personally believe text
messages and chat apps should only be used for urgent and emergency situations. You could also
communicate with the other person that because you've got an urgent deadline, you can use these
services more for the next little bit. Now, on the other side, if you are finding that people are sending
you emails too frequently about things that really don't matter, one of the easiest ways to manage it
is by slowing down your frequency of communication. If someone sends you an email about a less
important topic, and you reply to them in five minutes, you're communicating to them that you
really want to talk about it. Send me more about this as quickly as you can. Past patterns of
communication will indicate future likelihood of communication. So simply take longer to reply. But
what if you poked your head into the email, checked it, and you saw something you want to deal
with because it's top of mind? However, at the same time you don't want to reply too quickly
because you want to slow down communication. One tool that you can use to do this is scheduled or
delayed sending. For instance, in Outlook there's an option that many people are not aware of which
enables you to delay delivery. You can create your email response and then set the time that your
email program should send it. Other email apps have this feature sometimes, usually with the help
of an add-on. By managing the expectations of others and controlling your frequency of response,
you can make small changes in the pattern of communication. These changes can save you big
amounts of time in the long run. One tool that you can use to do this is scheduled or delayed
sending. For instance, in Outlook there's an option that many people are not well aware of which
enables you to delay delivery. You can create your email response and then set the time that your
email program should send it. Other email apps have this feature sometimes, usually with the help
of an add-on. By managing the expectations of others and controlling your frequency of response,
you can make small changes in the pattern of communication. These changes can save you big
amounts of time in the long run.
Share email with a team member
- Most of the time, most of us are the only ones using our email inbox. However, there are times
when it's a wise strategy to share your email inbox with someone else to distribute the load and be
more productive. Some examples include if a team member goes on medical leave and someone
else needs to help them with their email while they're gone, or where someone has an assistant,
virtual or otherwise, who is trying to lighten the load. First, you'll want to establish one person as the
primary email user. In other words, they're ultimately in charge of what gets sent out of the box, and
the other person acts as the secondary user. It doesn't matter who you choose for which role so long
as there's a hierarchy. Second, you're going to need to set things up technically so that you can both
access the email. This may be as simple as sharing a username and password, or it may be more
complex where you need to involve your IT department to create a shared account. Once that's
established, now we need some rules of the game. How are you to work together with this email
inbox? Many of my clients have used a yes, no, maybe tool to establish a way of working together.
Think of this as a simple piece of paper with three columns written on it. In the yes column are all
the emails that the secondary user can deal with on their own. For example, response to frequently
asked questions, sales inquiries, junk email, and so on. List all the different kinds of email that might
fit into the yes column. In the no column, these are the ones where you and only you should work on
them, things like more complex responses, personal email, or emails from top or best customers
that you absolutely need to make sure are done right. Then in the maybe column you list emails that
you could discuss together. This could happen on a weekly call where the secondary user asks the
primary user whether or not they can handle them or what they should do with them. Then the
work flows as follows. The secondary email user regularly logs in to the email and deals with every
kind of email that they can fit in the yes column. For every email that is in the no column, they will
flag it or mark it in a way that both people have agreed upon. For example, in Gmail, starring the
email in yellow communicates to the primary email user, these are your emails to deal with. Then for
the maybe emails, flag them in some different way using a different color coding. Then you both
know that you can talk about these in a one to one meeting. Or if the primary email user wishes,
they can send a note to the secondary email user that they took care of it, or they can instruct, you
can take care of it and this is how you do it. This creates a clear pattern of communication that both
of you can use to quickly and cleanly conquer that inbox.
When and how to use video in email
- Many of my clients have found that using video and email is a much more productive way of
communicating with their team and sometimes with customers. By using a video in an email, I mean
inserting a link within the email that connects to a video that you recorded personally for someone,
or using an extension that embeds a video directly into the email. This allows you to communicate
much more information to someone than you normally would and also allows you to convey more
emotion. Because of these things, a video email is most useful in two situations, although you could
probably think of more. The first situation is where you need to train someone on a detailed process.
Number two is where you're trying to persuade someone or convey information that is perhaps
emotionally charged, and you don't want your meaning to get lost in the faceless text of normal
email. There are a variety of tools that you can use to do this. A simple search for video email will
show you a lot of options. I'll refer to two of my favorites that I'm currently using. Number one is
Snagit. Snagit is a small app for your computer that's particularly effective for recording screenshot
training. For example, I use it when I need to explain to one of my team members how to input a
contact into our CRM database. Rather than typing out all of the steps, I can select a portion of my
screen, hit record, show them how to do it while I'm talking into the microphone, and end the
recording. Then I generate a link that contains the video and paste it into the email. The second tool
that I like to use is BombBomb. This allows me to quickly and easily record more of a webcam-style
video where someone's looking at my face and I'm talking to them. I used this recently to invite
many of my closest friends and clients to a birthday event. I found that the response rate was much
higher than if I just sent a plain email saying, "Please come to my birthday." If you choose to use
video in your email, keep this rule in mind. It's the same rule that applies to normal email: the
shorter, the better. People will only have an attention span of a couple of minutes, maybe one or
two more, when it comes to video email. Don't be afraid to practice a few times until you get the
message right and get it concise. Then you can add video email to your arsenal of effective and
productive communication.
How to reduce spam

- One common obstacle to productivity is an abundance of spam, or junk e-mail. If left unchecked,
these unimportant and distracting e-mails can cause a lot of attention switches in your day, they can
pull your focus away from what is most valuable. The good news is, there are several ways to
combat spam. First, let's talk about what not to do. Occasionally, I'll meet someone who says, "My e-
mail address got out and I'm getting too much spam. "I need to change my e-mail address." I believe
this solution is not only overkill, but is not really a solution at all. Your e-mail address is bound to get
out at some point, you might add it to a spammers web form accidentally or someone might carbon
copy your e-mail address in a mass e-mail. Sooner or later, somebody who shouldn't have your e-
mail address is going to get it. I checked my private e-mail address for this course, and just in the last
week or so, I've received over 200 new spam messages. However, the good news is, none of these
messages are a distraction to me. Why? First, I'm using a good spam filter. Most e-mail programs,
such as Outlook or Gmail, come with a built-in spam filter and, usually, it's pretty smart at figuring
out what is and is not spam. Most of the time. This is why you also need to train your filter. Most
filters have a default algorithm that they use, however, you can train that algorithm by marking
messages, either as spam or as not spam. When you see a spam message in your inbox that should
have been filtered, don't just delete it. Using your e-mail program, select it and indicate that this is a
spam message. This helps your filtering program get smarter. On the other side, occasionally go
through your junk e-mail to make sure it's not accidentally catching things that it shouldn't catch.
When you come across these things, most e-mail programs have a place where you can indicate this
is not spam. In the beginning, this may feel like a hassle, but over time your program is going to get
smarter and smarter. Pay attention to news letters that you subscribe to that once provided value
for you, but not longer do. These, technically, aren't spam, but it's a good idea to unsubscribe from
them, to reduce that amount of clutter in your inbox. By the way, the worst thing that you can do
with spam is respond to it. Don't write back to someone telling them to remove you from your e-
mail list. If the person is spamming illegally, all that does is communicate that they have a working e-
mail address and that they should keep sending you more spam. Also, when sending out a message
to a group of people, avoid using carbon copy, unless the people all know each other personally and
work in the same organization. Instead, use blind carbon copy, which allows you to e-mail a group of
people, but keeps the addresses hidden. This helps reduce the chance that someones e-mail ends up
in the wrong hands. Spam is inevitable, being distracted by spam can be prevented.
Why repetition saves time
- When I say the word repetition, what comes to your mind? For many people, it's going to be a
feeling of annoyance or boredom. However, repetition is a powerful principle of productivity. We
understand that it's necessary for great performers and athletes to repeat. They practice again and
again until they reach automatic mastery. Jerry Seinfeld is arguably one of the greatest entertainers
of all time. In 1981, he got his first opportunity to appear on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.
How many times do you think he practiced his five-minute set before he got up on stage and was
broadcast into millions of homes across the United States? If you guessed in the neighborhood of
200 times, you'd be correct. That's how many times he went to various New York nightclubs and
practiced that same five-minute set over and over. Why? Because he understood that mastery
comes through powerful repetition. And yet, in the workplace, it's something that most of us try to
avoid. Or we think that we should just give someone direction one time and they'll do it properly
from that point forward. I sometimes see this with leaders. They have employees who don't perform
the way they want them to perform. They go to that employee and they say, why aren't you doing
it? I told you how to do this. I showed you how to do it. But what the employee really needs is
repetition. Sometimes I'll see feedback on a course like this, or my other time-management courses
and someone will say, he repeats himself too much. However, that's by design. I firmly believe that
conditioning is more powerful than discipline, and conditioning, learning a new pattern of behavior
so that it becomes automatic, can only be achieved through repetition. Think for a moment about
one skill that you want to master to the point that it's automatic. What's your perfect five-minute
set, like Jerry Seinfeld? Consider for a moment, are you getting enough reps? If not, look at your
calendar and schedule some time to practice. This time is just to repeat that moment over and over
and over until that skill is magic and automatic. Repetition may not be a pleasant experience, but it's
certainly your friend when it comes to productivity.
How to be prepared for anything
- Are you prepared for any situation that might arise in your career? Being prepared is essential, not
only for your success, but for your productivity. Here's a little story to illustrate this principle. I was in
New Jersey for a speaking event and had an extra day. So I decided to take trip into New York. I hired
a driver to take me there. Halfway through the trip he turns around and looks at me and very
seriously asks, "Do you know how to get there?" Not only had his GPS stopped working, but he was
unfamiliar with the area. Luckily, I had a phone with working GPS and was able to give him directions
to my destination. You and I cannot afford to caught unprepared like this. Often, this requires having
duplicates of everything that we need. In this driver's case, rather than having just one phone, or
one GPS unit, he should have had second one, a backup. Think about your workday. What it is
something that could possibly go wrong? And do you have a backup for it? Another way to be
prepared is to give yourself extra time. This means that if a project is due at work by a certain date,
we don't need to rush through the project immediately. We want to ensure that we schedule our
completion date to happen several days before that due date. Why? Because if something goes
wrong, we've got that extra time built-in to address the problem. This is why, as a speaker, I always
arrive at least one hour before the event to do a soundcheck, to make sure that everything is right in
the room. Another way to be prepared is to double-check your work. It's always very time
consuming to retrace your steps and fix mistakes when you make them. Make it a habit, whenever
you have an important project to deliver, double-check it. Review critical emails for errors before
you send them out. If you're like me, and don't trust yourself to do a good job of reviewing, enlist
some help. Get in the habit of using a friend or a co-worker to review your work before you present
it for completion. A little attention toward preparation, can save you tremendous amounts of time.
How to shake off negative experiences
- Think back to the last time something really made you upset. Perhaps someone said something
rude to you, or you saw something on social media that bothered you, or maybe you just made a
mistake that you regretted. When you have an experience like this, how do you move passed it and
become more productive again? It's a critical question to answer. I've seen story after story of how
entire workforces slow their productivity because they're upset about the outcome of some political
event or something in their company. As productive leaders, we need to learn how to move passed
it. Now just a note, I'm not talking about clinical depression. If you're having emotional challenges
that are ongoing, then I recommend that you seek the help of a professional. In this case, I'm talking
about the normal life events that naturally cause us to feel upset, and less motivated at work. First,
recognize what you can and cannot control. You can control how long you let that problem bother
you. You can control what actions you're going to take next. You can control, to a degree, how your
team performs. You cannot control the environment. You cannot control what other people say. To
a large degree, you cannot control political outcomes, or even what your company does if you're
working in a large corporation. A lot of people's negative emotions result from the frustration of
trying to change things that they cannot control. So shift your focus to what you can change and
then ask yourself, what actions can I take to make a difference? Gather those actions into an
approved gathering point, and make a plan to address them during your processing time. Also if
necessary, find a sort of reset button for your mind. This could involve taking a break and going for a
walk, doing a little exercise, or watching a funny video. Whatever it takes, find something that hits
the rest button in your mind and says, I'm going to stop thinking about this. I'm a geek and I love
nerdy stuff, so I when I feel those negative emotions pounding at my door, one thing that works for
me is thinking of Gandalf from the Lord of the Rings standing at the chasm shouting, you shall not
pass. It's a funny image but it helps. Now last comment, what if it's about something you did? What
if you caused a failure through your own choices or lack of ability? Try to turn that failure into a
learning experience. Ask yourself what did I gain from this failure? What lesson can I take into my
life? I have certainly failed many times, and I have made choices that I deeply regret. The only way
that I've moved passed them is to count them as part of my education as a human being. Then, I
make a commitment to never repeat that lesson again. Remember, failure is only failure if we fail to
learn from it.
When someone doesn't respond to your email
- It can be very frustrating and occasionally time consuming and distracting when someone doesn't
respond to your email. I'm referring to expected emails from people you know and work with, not
unsolicited emails. You're trying to get work done, you need their response, and they're not getting
back to you. What should you do in this situation? First, I recommend that you put yourself in the
other person's shoes. See their workday from their perspective. Most people are out of control with
their time. When I speak around the world, I conduct hundreds of informal surveys from the stage. I
find that about 2% of people feel that they are actually in control of their time. Everyone else to
some degree feels frustration and annoyance with time management. Odds are, the person that you
emailed hasn't even seen the email yet or saw it quickly and then got distracted by something else.
With that in mind, we can send a gentle reminder, something like forwarding the email again and
asking, "Hey, have you had a chance to take a look at this email? "I know now things can get crazy. "I
just wanted to make sure you didn't miss it." Put it in your own language in a way that you are
comfortable with. But the idea is you're trying to help them. You're not trying to nag them. Also,
take a look at your original message. If you sent someone a wall of text, you are decreasing the
likelihood that anyone is going to reply. Instead, we need to break down larger emails into quick
replies and quick responses. If, for some reason, we have to cover multiple concepts within one
email, use bullet points or numbered bullet points. This way, the person can respond bullet by bullet
to your questions. Make it as easy as possible for people to respond. Also, consider the timing at
which you're sending these emails. For one obvious example, if you're sending an email to an
accountant during a business tax season, you should expect one of two outcomes. A, they're not
going to return your message quickly, or B, they're going to lose that message in the pile of all the
other messages that are coming at them. I try to consider the time of day that my clients are least
busy and send messages to them at that time. In my industry, Friday is a very effective time to reach
out to people. Yours will likely be different. The more you consider things from their perspective,
and the easier it is for them to respond, the stronger the likelihood that you'll receive a productive
reply.
What to do when appointments are cancelled
- Canceled meetings can be a major distraction in the workplace. Not only do they increase
frustration when you show up prepared and the other person doesn't arrive, but they also cause
many small attention switches related to rescheduling the meeting. It's more productive to keep
most meetings than to reschedule them. So first, make sure you're using best practices when
scheduling your meeting. If you haven't yet, watch the video in this course titled how to schedule a
meeting, to review those best practices. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure as they
say. But despite your best efforts, meetings will sometimes fall through, that's just life. If a meeting
falls through because of an emergency such as a health problem or an unexpected catastrophe,
that's normal and not too big of a concern. We simply need to reschedule. Often I don't worry the
first time a meeting is canceled because it's very likely just an isolated incident. But if it happens
more than once, a pattern is developing, and we need to get to the root cause of the pattern. While
there are a variety of reasons that lead to multiple meeting cancellations, they can be summarized in
two categories. Conflict or commitment. By conflict, I mean that we are trying to schedule a meeting
during a time that conflicts with other things, important projects, busier times of the day. Perhaps
it's too close to another meeting in their schedule. By commitment, I mean that the other person
does not see the value in the meeting. And because of that, they'll always view something else as a
higher priority. If a meeting gets canceled multiple times, take a moment, then talk with the other
person to find out why they believe the meeting keeps getting canceled. Many times, people are
moving so quickly that they're not even aware of the reason themselves. So give them a chance to
explain. Try a question like, what do you think is causing these meetings to get canceled? They can
assess the cause for themselves. If the reason is conflict, ask if there's a better time in their schedule.
There should be a time that they can commit to, when they're least likely to be distracted or
interrupted. And if the reason is commitment, in your own words, ask if they believe this meeting is
a priority. If not, perhaps you two can find an alternative way to communicate. For instance, people
often reach out to ask me for meetings but they're vague about the reason. I am never committed to
a meeting like this. So instead I, or my assistant, politely ask them to send a summary of the meeting
topic, and the best possible outcome they'd like to achieve. If after doing this, one of us fails to see
the importance of having that meeting, having no meeting is always an option. Appointments are
designed to be a two-way street. They should benefit everyone or not be scheduled at all.
How to leave an effective voicemail message
- Not everyone uses voicemail. However if you're working with someone or communicating with
someone who uses voicemail, it's important to leave messages in a productive way. By productive, I
mean the message helps you communicate more clearly and helps the other person take action.
Often, people leave vague voicemail messages. Hi, this is Dave, give me a call back. That may work
for a best friend, or a close family member, but it's not productive in a work environment. When you
leave a voicemail message, think in terms of answering four questions. Who? Why? When? And
what? Who of course is who you are, in most cases that means leaving your full name. Why?
Because unless you have a very unique name, it's possible that the other person communicates with
lots of Daves. They need to know which Dave is leaving a message. Next, is why. Explain to them the
reason for the call and be specific about it. Avoid general statements like, I need to talk to you about
something. Not only does this not help the other person understand how to prioritize the message,
but it can cause anxiety. State something specific like, I'd like to talk to you about the report that's
due next week. There are a few minor corrections we need to make. Next is when. When simply
indicates by when they should get back to you. You could say something like, could you get back to
me by the end of today? Or by the end of the work day tomorrow? What is what action you want
them to take. In most cases it's going to be a call back. If so, you'll want to clearly leave your phone
number, or if they don't need to call you back, be specific about what action you'd like them to take,
such as sending you an email, or a text message. This leads to my final tip, many voicemail systems
now provide a very productive tool in the form of transcription. This allows the other person to read
your message faster than they could listen to it. Because of that, be careful about your diction, and
your rate of speech. This means speaking a little bit slower than you would normally speak and
speaking with clearer pronunciation. This applies especially if you leave your phone number. Often,
we're used to saying things quickly. We don't realize that the voicemail recipient will be reading
what some complex algorithm determined we were saying. Voicemail can save us time, provided we
use it in a productive way.
Gambling with time for profit and fun
- In my time management courses I encourage people to focus their time on activities that are most
valuable, activities that are worth the most per hour. However what if you're engaged in an activity
where you have no real idea what the value per hour is? Maybe you're working on some new
innovation for your company that's never been tried before. Or perhaps you're trying to start a
hobby business that might become its own career. How much time should you spend on things like
that? I say the time isn't necessarily money but it behaves like money. Many of the lessons that we
can learn from money also apply to time. In the example that I'm using we're essentially gambling
with time, we're investing a certain amount of time and we are uncertain of what the return on this
investment will be. Now, I'm not personally a fan of gambling nor I participate in it, but if I were to
gamble I would not take every single dollar from every one of my bank accounts and investments
and gamble it all on one roll of the dice, that would be foolish and irresponsible. However I might say
you know what, I'm comfortable with losing $50 and gamble with the $50. Why? Because I am
prepared to lose that amount. Similarly when it comes to your time you want to ask yourself the
question, "What amount of time am I willing to lose?" Call this the Las Vegas principle of time
management. Look at the available time that you have in the week, then ask if I invested five hours a
week for the next year and got nothing back for this amount of time would I be willing to lose that
amount of time? Find a number that is comfortable and responsible for you in relation to all your
other responsibilities. Then make a conscious investment into that opportunity in this way you are
able to pursue something that is exciting to you and has some risk associated with it, but you can do
so without putting yourself in a dangerous position. In this case with time management. So ask
yourself, "Is there something that I'm pursuing "that may not pay off in terms of money and time?"
Then ask yourself how much time you can responsibly afford to lose to invest into that thing? Then
use the Las Vegas principle to invest time into the opportunity, and may the odds be ever in your
favor.
When others fail to keep their commitments
- I believe the most important rule of success is to do what you say you will do when you said you
will do it. However, from time to time it's natural for all of us, myself included, to fail to keep our
commitments. What if someone does that to you? What is the most productive way to respond? If
you're a manager with accountability for that person, I recommend you visit my course, Time
Management for Managers, because the level of responsibility is a bit different. But here I want to
talk about friends, family members, or even coworkers who don't follow through. It's frustrating for
you when it happens. Here are a few things I keep in mind that might be helpful. First, don't take it
personally. It's a normal human reaction to feel that we have been personally slighted when
someone doesn't do something. Yet often, the reasons have very little to do with us and everything
to do with what's happening in that person's life. The more you can remove yourself and your
feelings from the situation and can focus instead on how to help that person, the easier you'll find it
to be compassionate. This will make them more receptive to anything that you have to say. Second,
separate incidents from patterns. An incident is something that happens once. In general, I try not to
focus on helping someone improve their follow through when it's the first, and perhaps only, time
they've missed a deadline. But if it's happened multiple times, this means there's a pattern, which
implies there's a systemic issue causing them to do this over and over. These deserve our attention.
Third, when talking to them, focus on actions and results, not assumptions. An assumption is telling
the person that they're a slacker. I don't know that for certain. It would be accurate to say, "Hey
friend, I've noticed over the last couple of months "there have been multiple times "when you
haven't turned something in on time. "What can I do to help you keep your commitments "and make
your job easier?" Stick to just the facts. After you state the fact, simply listen. Allow the person to
think through what's happening. Don't rush them to an answer. In fact, if they can't come up with an
answer, give them time to think about it. Finally, give whatever help they tell you that they need. It's
important to get permission from them first. But if they're struggling in a certain area and they want
some help, offer it to them. It may turn out that after doing all this, they still fail to keep their
commitments. In that case, you can decide whether you want to continue relying on them for
certain things. Yet by first taking a compassionate approach and by being a helpful resource, you can
create an opportunity for the other person to grow while keeping your friendship and positive
relationship intact.
How being kind improves productivity
- Few people would disagree with the idea that being kind is a good thing to do. But what if I told
you it's also a productive thing to do? The words that you use and the tone of voice that you use
when you say those words can have a direct influence on your time management. First, let's
consider the alternative. We've all seen something like this, or perhaps experienced it firsthand.
You're dining at a restaurant. Another diner is extremely rude and condescending to the person
serving them. As a result, the server decides to take a little extra time, because they were offended.
Perhaps they get something incorrect in the order. As a result, the rude person gets their food
slower, and perhaps it's incorrect. One might argue the server should be a professional and do their
best, in spite of their customer's behavior. To a degree, this is true. However, even if they did their
best, their performance time and ability are likely to decrease because of the negative physiological
reaction they have to unkind words. Our brains are naturally built to have a fight or flight instinct
during conflict. This is normal. However, while it's a great skill for survival, it's not a great mindset
when trying to do work. I'm not saying that we shouldn't hold people accountable. We should. And
I'm also not saying that we don't need to directly correct team members sometimes. We do. But
even during those moments, respect and kindness shown toward other people facilitates better
work and faster work. A study at the University of Warwick found that happy workers were 12%
more productive and unhappy workers were 10% less productive. Think of kindness as spreading
happiness and think about the next interaction that you're going to have today. You can implement
this principle immediately, yourself. Ask, what can I do to spread just a little bit of happiness to this
other person? It doesn't take much. A smile, a professional compliment, even a high-five or a fist
bump for a job well done, whatever fits your comfort level and your personality. Practice kindness as
an experiment. Pay attention to what happens to both your productivity and the productivity of the
person you're communicating with. I believe you'll find what I have found, that being kind is effective
time management.
What to do about unsolicited phone calls
- Among the biggest annoyances that people report in their work day are calls from unsolicited
sources. I'm talking about sales calls, or those courtesy calls that your bank makes to you. Now, I
recognize that this is not a one-sided issue. Getting connected with the right sales rep can indeed
save your company time and money. Problem is, you already have so many interruptions in your day
including questions from coworkers, incoming email, and the thoughts in your head. Even from the
best of sources, unsolicited calls are unwanted distractions. Here are a few things that you can do.
First, you can add your number to a do not call list. I'm not familiar with every country, but I do know
that in the United States at donotcall.gov they have a place where you can list your phone number.
It's added to a registry that alerts telemarketers that they are not allowed to call that number. Take
a look at the laws where you live and explore the options you have for something similar. In the US,
keep in mind that this does not stop non-profits or true survey companies from calling you. It also
doesn't include companies with which you've done business in the last 180 days, but it's a starting
point. Next, I do recommend that you use a caller ID service. Some mobile phone providers include
that for free. I have to pay a few dollars each month, but it's well worth it to see the name and
location attached to the phone number. As a general rule, if I don't recognize the name and location
I do not answer the phone. Additionally, you can add an app to your phone, such as Hiya, that not
only provides the caller ID but will flag numbers that have been reported by other people as spam or
unwanted calls. This makes it easier for you to know which numbers you should reject. There are
many similar apps that allow you to blacklist a phone number. This is the best approach to use,
because if you pick up a call from a telemarketer, all it does is communicate that this is a valid
number that people are using. Rather than distracting your day and telling someone not to call you
again, just set up the app to automatically block the numbers. Finally, a comment about corporate
environments. If you have a gatekeeper, such as a receptionist, clearly communicate to that person
what kind of calls should always be rejected and what calls should be pushed through. Also, teach
them how to properly screen those calls in a friendly, but professional way. A few minutes spent
addressing the issue of unwanted phone calls can save you hours every single year.
What to do when someone is multitasking on you
- If you've been through my time management fundamentals course or read my books, you'll know I
firmly believe that multitasking is one of the biggest thieves of time in any day. It causes delays. It
leads to more mistakes. It increases your stress levels, and when you do it to human beings, it
communicates to them that they're unimportant. Hopefully, if you're watching this, you already
believe in this and try to reduce multitasking in your day. But what do you do when someone else is
multitasking on you. You're trying to have an important conversation with them and they're playing
with their phone, or they're trying to answer their email, shuffle through their papers or some other
task. How do you do handle that? First, make sure you are setting a positive example. You're not
going to make much of an impact on someone else's multitasking behavior if you do the same thing
to them. In fact, I would emphasize that you turn off electronic devices and set them aside when
that person is talking to you. They will notice this because, unfortunately, it has become normal
behavior for people to multitask, despite its negative impact. Next, when you're talking to someone
and they're multitasking on you, stop. Stop talking. Stop trying to do anything. Just wait. You don't
need to say put down your phone and pay attention to me. Just stop. There may be a lag time of a
few seconds. Then they're going to realize nothing else is happening other than them playing with
their phone. At first, they might say, no, go ahead. In this case, my response would be, no, it seems
like you're doing something that's really important. I would say that not with any sarcasm, but with a
genuine sense of respect for the other person. Then I would wait. Then one of two things is probably
going to happen. First, they might say, no, I'm sorry, I'll pay attention to you, and they'll put away
their device, or they might say, you know what, you're right, I'm distracted, I have to take care of this
right now. Here, you could say, great, when is a better time for us to talk? And then set up an
appointment. Even if that appointment is five minutes from now, you will both be focused on each
other because of the commitment you've made. It also wouldn't hurt to have a team training about
the impact of workplace multitasking and the importance of focusing on people. If you need some
training material for that discussion, check out my video, Focusing on the Person in this Course. Will
these tips change behavior immediately? No, but with patient repetition over time, you can change
the culture to one that is more focused on human beings.
How to deal with feeling overwhelmed

- It's easy to get buried by email and not know how to dig yourself out. Perhaps you have hundreds
or thousands of emails in your inbox. Here are some tips to get you out of that situation. First, get in
the habit of using your calendar. Sometimes people store emails in their inbox in the hopes that it
will remind them of unresolved tasks. Instead, schedule time to complete those tasks in your
calendar. Or use task reminders that pop up at appropriate times. Second, whenever you're done
with an email, archive it, or delete it. Email search engines are powerful and you don't need to keep
everything in your inbox. Instead, use the archive, or designate one folder for archiving all your
email. Use the inbox only for incomplete or unprocessed items. Third, create a schedule to deal with
email in a focused way. This means that you have a recurring time every day, or multiple times a
week, where you do nothing but respond to email and bring that gathering point to zero. If you need
help with processing your email inbox, check out my course, Time Management Fundamentals. But
what if you have thousands of emails that you feel you'll never be able to dig out of? I recommend
that you pick a date in the past, perhaps 30 days ago, and declare email bankruptcy as of that date.
Don't delete everything, instead power archive everything in your inbox that's older than the date
you choose. This gives you a more reasonable space to work yourself out of this feeling of being
overwhelmed. It also makes sure you don't lose any email info, just in case. There is hope for getting
out of email overload. You just need to create a plan and then execute that plan.
What to do when major life events occur
- Life will often throw unexpected events at you. Sometimes, these are positive, like a marriage, a
major vacation, or a new baby. Sometimes these events are painful, such as the loss of a loved one,
or a significant health concern. When either type of event occurs, the most important thing to do, is
stop. Give yourself a moment to process what has happened. Give your mind and body permission
to reassess your schedule. It's not reasonable to expect the same level of performance at the
moment. So, slow down and change your expectations for yourself. This means pulling out your
calendar, looking at everything you're trying to do in the short term, and stretching everything out.
Find ways to delay commitments as much as is reasonable. Change the deadlines to occur later,
whenever you can. Often this requires you to communicate to others the challenge you're
experiencing. I've found, that if we're open and honest about our challenges, very often others are
eager to help out. Ask if you can delegate work to them, at least for now, so that you can get back to
your normal level of performance in the future. And, in some instances, you may need to completely
decline opportunities. Don't be afraid to say no. Also, you may find that it's helpful to seek
professional help in the form of a therapist or psychiatrist. These professionals are skilled at giving
people the support they need. The feeling of being overwhelmed is something we all occasionally
experience. When that happens, remember to stop, slow down, and give yourself some time.
Productive passwords
- Passwords can be a challenge to productivity. Productivity and security are often at odds with each
other. The more secure things become, the longer they take to complete. The easier we make
things, and the less secure they are. So where's the balance? First, I want to say that my tips are
coming from the productivity perspective, and what I offer you may be at odds with what your IT
department wants of you. You'll need to use your best judgment when using these basic tips. First,
when possible use passwords that are complex phrases of words strung together. Not only are these
easier to remember, but they are often more secure because they are longer and unusual. Aim for
passwords that are around 16 characters or more. Some sites will require special characters and
numbers so just do the best you can with this. Next, make sure that you use different passwords for
each website you access. Sometimes people get in the habit of using one password for every site.
This is a major security concern, as the moment one of those sites is compromised, all your websites
are. And if that happens, your longterm productivity will be severely hindered. So, always mix those
passwords up. Finally, if you must share passwords with others, use a secure password sharing
service, such as Passpack. There are a variety of options available. So do a quick search online for
password sharing service to find an option that works best for you. These services make it easy to
securely share passwords with team members, as well as revoke access when needed. These tips are
just the starting point. The main message is have a plan for password productivity and use that plan
consistently.
Productive web browser tips
- Many of us spend most of our workday with an internet browser open and looking at a screen. I
certainly do. Here are some productivity tips to make the most of that important tool. First, set
boundaries for yourself. Establish a schedule in your day for when you will use the internet or certain
sites and when you will not. If you have a hard time enforcing the schedule on your own you can use
browser add-ons, like StayFocused that will create time limits for various sites. Next, use pins for
sites that you use consistently, such as Outlook on the web, LinkedIn, or that spreadsheet you're
always looking at. Pins preload websites and allow you to quickly and easily change from site to site
with less attention switching cost. Most browsers allow you to create a pin by right clicking on a tab
and selecting Pin. Similar to pins, I recommend using the Bookmarks bar and saving frequently used
sites so they're one click away. To save space, I delete the title of the site and just use the icon. Also,
there's a difference between bookmarking something so that you can have easy access to it versus
saving a web address that you want to revisit and review. If it's the former, a simple bookmark will
do. If it's the latter, be sure to copy the whole web address or even the page and put it into an
approved gathering point, such as digital notepad, like OneNote. Then you can take action on it later
during your processing time. With just a few small tweaks your internet browser can be a powerful
productivity tool.
Using reply to all and carbon copy
- When replying to email, be careful of the Reply versus Reply to all buttons. Often they're too close
together, and because of it people click Reply to all when they really should click Reply. Improper
use of Reply to all may cause unnecessary interruptions for people. There are only rare cases when
large groups of people need to be looped in on a single email message. Be careful when selecting
email recipients. This means that if several people have received an email and you reply, take a
moment to look at the To section. Remove anyone who isn't necessary. If you include someone in
the Cc or carbon copy, explain to them in the body of the email why you're sending this email to
them. For instance, if I include my assistant, I'm going to add a little note that explains why she's
getting this email and what action I'd like her to take. Sometimes you may want someone to be
aware that you replied, yet still remove them from the chain of future Reply to alls. In this case, you
may want to add them to the blind carbon copy instead. And in the body of the email, let them know
that they've been moved to Bcc. By taking just a moment or two to carefully consider email
recipients, you can be respectful of everyone's time.
Writing a productive email
- The primary goal of email is to allow people to get information and to act quickly upon it. So it's
essential that we write emails in a productive way. I recommend starting with a friendly greeting and
the person's name. It's a small nicety that acknowledges that you're dealing with a human being who
matters to you. Then when you write an email, try to keep it brief using as few sentences as possible.
Consider something called the fold. In website and mobile app design, the fold is that point at which
someone has to scroll to see the rest of the screen. If someone must scroll to read through your full
email, it's possible you're trying to cover too much detail. Take a moment to review your writing to
remove unnecessary sentences or filler words that don't add value. The shorter, the better.
Sometimes details are necessary, though. If so, use bullet points to call out the important details of
the email. We've all had that experience where we've received an email that's a long wall of text.
Often in that situation, we miss out on important points and fail to reply to everything. Bullet points
help make it easier for people to catch everything you intend to say. Finally, consider the subject line
of the email. Often you'll have a conversation that goes back and forth about one topic, but then the
email branches out into a new subject. If this happens, change that subject line to something more
appropriate. This makes it easier for everyone to find the conversation in the future. By keeping your
emails brief, clear, and on topic, you'll make it easier for everyone to stay productive.
What to do before sending an email
- Ever find yourself in that mindset of trying to clear out your email inbox quickly, but because you're
in a rush, you make a mistake in replying? Then you have to send a follow-up email to clean up your
mistake. I think we all have. There's a simple trick to make sure this doesn't happen to you. Count to
10 before you send. Cultivate the habit at the end of every email to pause, count to 10, and review
your work. What are you reviewing? First, check the subject line, and make sure it's on topic and
typo-free. Second, check the body of your email for any obvious mistakes. Many email programs
have a built-in spellchecker. So if you see any red squiggly lines warning you of a potential error,
resolve them. Third, make sure you're not sending an emotional email. Email is for information and
tasks. Conversations are better for emotion. So if what you're trying to convey is your opinion on a
sensitive subject, perhaps a phone call or even a video email would be better. Last, check for
attachments. If you said you would send someone something in the email, double-check that the link
is correct or the file is properly attached. One extra tip, some email programs, such as Outlook on
the Web and Gmail, have an option for Undo Send. This provides a small delay before an email is
delivered. And during that delay, you have the opportunity to click Undo Send if you change your
mind. I've found that useful on many occasions. Remember, take a moment to review that email.
Count to 10 before you send.
Understanding why you procrastinate
- If you look up the dictionary definition of procrastination, it will say something like to delay or
postpone action. Sometimes that's a good thing: positive procrastination. But negative
procrastination is when you know you're supposed to do something soon and you keep pushing it
off. This procrastination is counterproductive and is most often driven by an emotion that you're
feeling. You may be afraid of how difficult the task will be, or perhaps you feel uncomfortable or
embarrassed. Maybe the task makes you feel bored. Often we feel these emotions just before
attempting to complete a task. Our brains are hardwired to resist change. This isn't all bad. Resisting
change helps us be more productive. For instance, if you had the to think about how to brush your
teeth every time, that would be counterproductive. So your brain creates a habit making it easy for
you. But you need to be concerned when your brain is trying to stop you from doing something new
that's positive, like work on a new task that will help you advance in your career. Learn to ignore the
emotion you feel just before beginning a task. Instead, remember how you felt when you scheduled
the task. Most often we feel good about the idea of completing something when we first schedule a
time to complete it. There's a sense of satisfaction that just comes from putting it on the calendar.
Remember that moment. Also, imagine how you'll feel after completing it. See yourself at the end
feeling triumphant. Imagine the relief and sense of accomplishment you'll feel after the work is over.
By ignoring the emotion you feel just before beginning a task and focusing on the positive emotions
associated with scheduling and completing it, you can trick your brain to overcome negative
procrastination.
Use your calendar to stop procrastination
- Your calendar can be a helpful tool in fighting negative procrastination. I had a client once who
said, "If it weren't for the last minute, "I'd never get anything done." That's procrastination in a
nutshell. Instead, we want to flip that around and say, "If it weren't for the first minute, "we'd never
get anything done." I call this pre-crastination. Pre-crastination is when you focus on just the starting
minute of activity. Think about some big project that you need to do, like creating a training program
for a new employee. That's a big, messy, hard project. Instead of getting bogged down in the
negative emotions associated with that task, we can ask: What's the first minute of activity to
accomplish that thing? Typically, the first minute will be something very simple like opening a file on
a computer. Because there's no emotion tied to that, it's easy to do. So, when scheduling time to
work on a task, no matter how long it may take to complete, schedule a note in the subject of the
appointment that says, "1st: open the file on the computer." You can also use the description or
notes section of an appointment to answer the why question, as in, "Why am I doing this?" This
gives your mind a justification for the effort required. So, using that example of creating a training
program, the reason why might be that it's going to save you lots of time in the future. Put that in
the notes. Use the calendar to describe the first minute of activity and the reason why you're
performing a task. This will make it easier for you to move past the emotion of negative
procrastination.
Use positive procrastination
- When training leaders to be productive, I encourage people not to stop procrastinating but to get
better at it, to use it in a positive way. What is positive procrastination? Take a moment to open your
calendar. Look at the activities you've scheduled for yourself, not meetings with other people, just
you by yourself working on a project of some kind. How many of those activities are scheduled more
than 90 days into the future? In my experience, most people aren't scheduling personal tasks that
far in advance. Most have a short-term perspective and look at only what can be done in the next
week or two weeks. This is the opposite of positive procrastination. This results in a calendar that's
crammed full of too much short-term activity. It creates a feeling that you'll never have enough time.
This will leave you feeling overwhelmed in an interrupting-heavy world when unexpected things can
and do occur. Positive procrastination is about creating more open space in your calendar by
thinking long-term. It frees up time and gives you more room to be prepared for emergencies and
interruptions. When scheduling time to work on a project, get in the habit of asking yourself: When
is the latest I can reasonably get this done? Whatever your answer is, back up about 5% and then set
your completion date for then. So, if something is due six months from now, schedule the
completion date not at the very end of those six months, but maybe back about 10 days. Then,
schedule time between now and that date to complete the project. This gives you enough time to
get it done with a little breathing room in case something goes wrong. Procrastination can be a
positive, provided you plan properly.
Commit to your calendar
- The calendar is perhaps the most powerful tool when it comes to time management. The question
is, are you committed to using it? Consider these principles to increase your calendar commitment.
First, have it with you and ready to use at a moment's notice. This isn't a challenge if your calendar is
on your smartphone. Just make sure you've got it synced up with your desktop and that you're in the
habit of using it throughout the day. Second, use it for everything you intend to do. Well, pretty
much everything. Anytime something needs to get done, put it in the calendar. This includes not just
meetings with other people but meetings with ourselves as well. This includes scheduling vacations
or downtime that lasts 20 minutes or more. Put it in the calendar. Get in the mindset that the
calendar represents your reality. Third, when you schedule something, commit to it. When you've
put something in the calendar, you're essentially entering into a contract with yourself. Many people
will keep every appointment with others yet struggle when it comes to appointments with
themselves. Only schedule time for activities that you fully intend to honor. And the fourth tip: when
you're not committed, use a perhaps list instead of your calendar. A perhaps list is a running list of
wonderful ideas that you haven't really committed to yet. Instead of filling your calendar with these
things, have an appointment to review the perhaps list once a month or once a quarter. Then, during
that time, if your commitment has changed, you can schedule time for it in your calendar. Respect
your calendar and you'll find greater control of your time.
What to say instead of ASAP
- Recently, I found myself using the very word I've cautioned others against using many times. I
noticed something was wrong on my website, so I reached out to my project manager, John. John's
reliable, and I knew he could help. I was in a hurry, and I made my mistake when I typed John, I need
you to fix this ASAP. As soon as I hit send, it was like the needle scratching across the grooves of an
LP record. ASAP is a word, really an acronym, that means nothing and everything at the same time,
especially from a time management perspective. It isn't clear communication. Consider this. When
you say you need something as soon as possible, what does that really mean, in an hour, by the end
of the day, the end of the week, after I complete the other project you delegated to me or right
now? There are many ways in which a coworker can interpret your words. So choose them a bit
more carefully. Instead of hitting this vague panic button when an urgent matter pops up, reframe
things. Use clear communication. In most cases, a task simply needs a deadline and isn't an
emergency. Even if the deadline is very soon, such as the end of the day, saying so is easier to
understand and helps the people around you understand how to plan their day, and if something
truly is an emergency, make it clear that it should be worked on immediately. This clearly conveys
what you need from your coworkers. Let's end ASAP ASAP.
Set voicemail expectations
- If I call your voicemail, what will I hear? Most people have a voicemail message like this. "Hi, you've
reached the voicemail of Dave. "Leave a message and I'll get back to you "as soon as possible." What
does as soon as possible mean? Well, whatever it means to the person who's leaving the message.
Most people have some variation of an expectation for now. If you don't respond to that voicemail
in the next five minutes, they send you an email. And if you don't respond to that email, they send
you a text message, and on, and on, which creates a lot of switches of attention in your day. We
want to transition out of the culture of now to the culture of when. The culture of when establishes
an expectation in the other person's mind that is reasonable. How do we do that with voicemail?
First, consider how often you should check your voicemail for work. What is reasonable? Once per
day? Twice per day? Every hour on the hour? Create a schedule in your calendar that you know you
can stick with. Then create a corresponding voicemail message. Let's imagine that I'm going to check
my voicemail three times per day, at the beginning, at noon, and at the end of the day at four. I
would then create a voicemail expectation that says something like this. "Hi, you've reached the
voicemail of Dave Crenshaw. "I check my messages at noon and at 4:00 p.m. "If you call me after
4:30, "I'll return your call the next day." By establishing clear expectations, you can help both
yourself and others move from the stressful culture of now to the productive culture of when.
Set email expectations
- How do you let others know about when you'll respond to their emails? How do you manage their
expectations? I don't recommend having an always on auto responder for every single email that
let's people know when they can expect a reply. That's not reasonable, and would create more
interruptions. Instead, begin with getting together with coworkers, and having a conversation.
What's the communication culture that we're going to establish at this organization, this company?
How often should we expect each other to respond to email? Create a written guideline about what
people can expect in your company communication culture. This creates an understanding that it's
impossible to reply to every single email immediately. But perhaps, we could reasonably respond
within one business day, or four business hours, or something like that. You could have similar
conversations with your best customers about what their expectations are as well. If customers
expect a more immediate response, then you may want to have a system where someone is
designated as the email-replier during certain hours of the day, similar to a receptionist. Now, what
if you go on an extended trip? In this case, you would want to setup an auto responder that
establishes an expectation. For example, right now I'm filming this course, and I have an auto
responder that says, I'll be unavailable for a few days, and people should, in most cases, expect a
response after I'm done. Clear expectations can reduce interruptions and increase productivity.
How to use an inbox
- [Narrator] The physical inbox is a place where everything that is unprocessed in your day should go.
Papers, cords, your hat, whatever it is, if it's out of place or unprocessed, it belongs in the inbox. In
my course, Time Management Fundamentals, I explain the concept of processing. Unprocessed
simply means unresolved. You don't know one of these three things. What you're going to do with it,
when you're going to do it, or where it belongs. Any physical item with one or more of those
questions unanswered, should be in your inbox. Also, let your coworkers know where your inbox is.
Sometimes people get confused about where to leave paperwork and other physical items for you,
so they put it on your desk, on your chair, or other random locations. This habit creates more
gathering points for you to deal with. Instead, let them know that the inbox is in place, and that's
where anything they have for you should go. Then at least once per week, it's your job to bring that
inbox to zero. This means completely empty, or fully processed. To do that, you're going to need to
have a recurring schedule in your calendar, with enough time to decide what, when, and where, for
every item it contains. In the beginning, it will take some experimentation, to find out how much
time you need. Continue practicing, and you will find a rhythm that works for you. And you'll
become more efficient at using this simple productivity tool.
How to use an outbox
- Is the idea of a physical outbox a mystery to you? I know it was to me until I became more
productive. If you're aware I was, let me help demystify it for you. The outbox is the place where you
temporarily put thing that belong to someone else, especially people you work with on a regular
basis. I recommend having one outbox for each of the key people that you work with in your day. So,
first consider with whom do you regularly communicate? To whom do you regularly give paperwork
or other physical things? You'll want to create an outbox for each of them. For instance, I might
create an outbox for my team members, John and Michelle and Victoria. Also, I work from a home
office and even have an outbox for my wife, and she has one for me. Why do this? Because an
outbox reduces interruptions when you're processing your inbox. Without an outbox, I might feel
the need to get up from my desk and take paperwork to someone else's work area over and over.
This would cause me and my coworkers to lose focus. Instead, the outbox allows me to queue up all
those files in a clearly designated space or home. Then, when I'm done with all my inbox processing,
I get up, take the outboxes, and put the contents into someone else's inbox. Then, during their
processing time, they repeat the same system for physical items they need to give to me. The outbox
is a simple tool, and, when used effectively, can enhance your productivity and help your team stay
more focused.
Dealing with distracting coworkers
- Do you have a coworker who has a gift for interrupting you? Perhaps they're a wonderful human
being yet they also create a lot of distractions. Here are some tips to regain focus. First, look at
yourself. Often people unwillingly create the very behavior that they don't want others to do. If
you're interrupting others with questions, others are more likely to interrupt you. If you have the
tendency to gossip, coworkers may seek you out for these conversations. Ask, is there something
about my behavior that's encouraging distraction? Next, consider using headphones, playing
personal music or white noise to create a boundary space. This can reduce the distraction of a
random talk around the office. Also, people often hesitate to interrupt others if they see them
wearing headphones. Similarly, you might have a conversation with coworkers about expectations
and ground rules about when or when not to interrupt others. Creating boundaries can reduce
unnecessary distraction. Finally, get in the habit of asking someone for a meeting. This relates to the
concept I teach around a closed door open calendar policy. Rather than leaving yourself open to
interruption at any time, leave pockets in your calendar open for people to schedule time to talk.
Then if someone interrupts you, ask I'm really focused on what I'm working on right now, could we
have a meeting about this in a couple of hours? Put it in your own words. The idea is you're asking
the other person to consider if the interruption is truly urgent. The more you use this question, the
less you'll experience unnecessary interruptions. While these tips don't cover every possible
distraction, they're a starting point to reclaim some of your time and attention.
How to stop ignoring recurring reminder
- Do you have a recurring reminder that pops up on your phone or computer but you keep ignoring
it? Something helpful like write in your journal, or drink more water, or watch another video course.
Reminders like these serve a powerful purpose. So how can you reclaim that power if you've fallen
into the habit of ignoring them? First when a reminder pops up that you've been ignoring check your
motivation. Is this task still meaningful to you? Sometimes we make commitments in a moment of
excitement and then loose that motivation later. If you're not motivated anymore ask why. Ask if
you're willing to give it another try, and if so recommit. But if you're not committed it's okay to
remove the reminder. What you don't want is to feel guilty about not doing something you're not
committed to. Or to get in the habit of ignoring your calendar. Next, if you're still committed then
reevaluate the kind of reminder that you're receiving. Did you just create a task reminder when a
calendar appointment would have been better? Sometimes we don't follow through, because we're
not giving ourselves enough time to follow through. Remember if a task takes 15 minutes or more it
belongs on the calendar. Also consider using different sound effects for recurring reminders. This
may help you better pay attention when they occur. And last, consider the frequency. Maybe you
need to be reminded less often. Maybe you need to create a structure that feels random. For
example, rather than a weekly reminder on Tuesday you do it every four days, or every five days.
Recurring reminders can help you grow and take action. Just be sure to use them in a productive
way.

Time Management Tips

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Welcome

• Power tips for sending email

- Establishing a consistent one-to-one meeting schedule is a critical tool to improving time

• Set voicemail and email expectations

How to deal with feeling overwhelmed

Make the most of an inbox and outbox

Remove the "busy" tag

How to respond to quick questions

Follow through on your commitments

Fight negative procrastination

Ergonomics' impact on productivity

Replace to-do lists with a schedule

Establish boundaries in open workspaces

Manage digital interruptions

Craft a visually productive workspace

Make the most of meetings

Participate wisely in social media

Follow up on delegated items

Overcome opportunity addiction

Make sound your productivity ally

Embrace the power of doing nothing

Implement a closed door, open calendar policy

Become tech savvy

The two most important hours of your day

Make investments to gain time

Maximize your energy each day

Focus on the person

Use your email archive effectively

Stay engaged in video meetings

Embrace harmless distractions

Find focus in an interruption-heavy environment

How to check email and still stay focused

Manage time before and after vacations

Handling tasks that take too long

Using quarterly planning for maximum benefit

Clearing your mind with note-taking apps

Overcoming analysis paralysis

Protecting your processing time

Time management for moms and dads

Efficiently setting appointments with others

Creating your digital-free zone

Prioritizing your work to free up time

Understanding virtual assistants

Regaining focus with reminders

Getting the most from learning opportunities

Power tips for frequent travelers

Staying engaged in conference calls

Building transition time into your day

Increasing follow-through by making yourself accountable

Time management for students

Handling the inefficiency of others

Time management for managers and leaders

Making the most of extra time

Making the most of extra time

When work and personal matters collide

Time management for assistants and gatekeepers

Avoiding less valuable activities

Ending meetings with action

Establishing a productive daily routine

Time management for working in teams

Setting achievable expectations

Tips for bill-by-the-hour professionals

Helping others improve their time management