Until you value yourself, you will not value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it. –M. Scott Peck
When I saw this quote it got me thinking about my own time and how I spend it. I am a time fiend, I schedule everything at work, including lunch breaks and bathroom breaks for myself. Yes, it’s a little OCD, but at the same time it helps me plan my day out and not get tagged for meetings where I would miss eating, or not be able to get the 10 minutes of sanity I need each day.
While doing research for this article, I found a lot of information. There are the old TM standbys like GTD, created by David Allen and First Things First by Steven Covey. There are a number of new sites and gadgets that are supposed to help people manage their time better, though I think over the years I have found that the easiest way to do this is to modify or create a system that works for you, and be consistent in your approach.
Here are my tips for making the workday smoother and managing time effectively. Take from it what you will and feel free to let me know what your system is.
The To Do List
My To Do list is kept in my work notebook and is always hand written. The reason for keeping it hand written is so that it’s portable, easily edited, and I enjoy crossing things off by hand. Each morning when I get into the office I look over the to do list from the previous day, check any outstanding items and add them to the current day’s list along with items that I gather from my email, meeting invites and monthly tasks. The to do list is not in order, it is just a list. There are no priorities set on the list, and I use it as a guide of what needs to get done during the day. It’s the first stepping stone for the rest of my day.
I tried using Remember The Milk and found it too tedious. Also when I am not at my desk, it’s pretty much useless. Not for me, but give it a try it works on Gmail, Twitter, and on the blackberry now… maybe I will give it a second chance.
Sorting/Organizing Email
I am a follower of Merlin Mann’s Inbox Zero philosophy. I get about 800+ emails per day, most of which are ticket receipts and automatic notifications for the systems my team monitors. Out of the masses of email I receive I have devised a system of sorting and processing them as they arrive. I do not check email every 5 seconds, and I try to set an example for my peers that if there is an emergency they should pick up a phone and call me or stop by. This way I am not just checking email all day like a drone. However upon arriving to my office in the morning, I do check and here is how I do it.
- MS Outlook Rules: My company uses MS Outlook, and I have created a system of rules to sort through the automatic notifications that I receive in order to put them into categories that I can manage. Items that are set with OK statuses are automatically deleted. I don’t need to know that things are OK. If things are ok, I don’t have work to do. The items I want to see are faults, failures and “check log” messages. So these are sent to a folder for errors and taken out of my inbox as they come in. I also have filters for mail messages that are for ticket items, requests and anything else that I need to look at in a group or separately.
- Hand Sorted Folders: I keep all current projects in their own folders and move mail there, unread until I am ready to get to them. I also keep folders for items I need to follow up on, and items I am waiting to hear back on. This way I know what to respond to and what I need to nag people about via telephone or in person. Items that I have no answer for go into a folder called “??”.
- The Archive: The archive is like purgatory for read/processed emails. Once an email is processed, it is dumped in the archive. There is no folder sorting in the archive, there is just an abyss of old emails. This may seem like a dumb idea at first, and believe me, I too was skeptical of this but it really does work. Let’s say I needed to find an email from two months ago, I can just search for it there using the Outlook find tool or my Google Desktop search. There are no folders to search through, they are all in one place.
- Processing Emails: Once everything is sorted through (I swear to you this takes just a few moments at the most this has taken me about 20 minutes at the most) I can start processing and answering emails. I try to get responses out in the order they came in and I try to respond to anything I have an answer for. Any email that I don’t have an answer for gets put on the to do list until I can get the information needed to process it. Emails that are not answered stay in the Inbox.
Once the list is made, and all of my emails from the night before have been sorted and processed I am ready to set up the priorities for the day. Priorities are set in order of when they are needed by, when they came down the pipe and in order of what meetings I am going to that day. If items require follow up or if I need to provide an update, I have the list with me and I put a star next to them for that meeting. Once I get answers or provide updates, I can cross the items off the list.
The Calendar:
While I keep my outlook calendar up to date with items meetings and goals that need to be accomplished, I also find it handy to keep a monthly printout so that I can add items and goals to it. I keep it on my desk as a handy reference for what’s due. While it does take time to keep both the outlook calendar and the print calender synced up, I think it’s worth it since again, I can jot a quick note into one of the date boxes when someone stops by, or if I am at a meeting.
Meetings: Meetings, to me, are the bane of the corporate existence. There are always good reasons to gather people together and talk, but when there are too many meetings, or recurring meetings on days when there are no updates, this can be a big time waster. My advice is think twice before accepting meetings. If you are not a major stakeholder, or if you do not have to be there to provide details, then do not accept. Meetings can be effective, but they can also be ineffective when there are too many with redundant information. If you already made your point heard, stay at your desk and use the hour to get work done. Good ettiquite is always helpful though. Send a notice to the meeting moderator and let them know you will not be there. Always make sure any updates you were supposed to provide have been handed in and are in the minutes of the previous meeting. If not, send a note to the moderator with the information that was provided previously. Congratulate yourself on winning back an hour and get back to work.
When in meetings, use your time wisely as well. I take my to do list and always go with a list of questions that I have for the particular meeting. I also like to take notes even when I am not called upon to do so. This helps me to pay attention to what is going on around me, as well as be prepared in case I am asked to post notes to the meeting.
The Notebook: This is my favorite tool. My notebook is usually a normal college ruled spiral one subject notebook, or a standard marble notebook. For each day I have one page for my to do list and several for meeting notes. Project notes are marked with post-it tabs or with paper clips. I like to use color, or alternate between black blue and red pens to show emphasis for items I need to put on the to do list. My calendar for the month is usually clipped to the front of the notebook, or stuck inside so that I have it with me. While I am picky about notebooks, I do go through about one every three months as so I do use the Moleskine method as it’s just too expensive. My favorite non-work notebooks right now are the Levenger Circa books. They are a little pricey as well for refills, but you can buy a hole punch for them and use regular paper or print your own templates.
In terms of organizing my day, that’s about it. Feel free to let me know what your time management tips are. Thanks for reading!
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2 Comments
Wednesday, May 7, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Really interesting ways of organizing.
When i cook i like to use a few timer for each separate dish so that i can relax and not keep checking every 3 minutes.
another thing time saver is to have a toss bowl. You toss in keys, wallet, stuff like that and everybody has their own.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008 at 11:08 am
Four Hour Work Week – Four Hour Work Week – Four Hour Work Week