3 Steps to Doing More with Less
Keep track of what burns up your time
Not managing your time means your time is out of your control. Many busy people never get anything done. For some, it is by design. They chose to look busy. They can not account for their results.
The busiest ones live by excuses. I have too much to do and not enough hours in the day. My back is acting up today. Excuses are for those who need them. Once in a while, you will work with someone who is so into their excuses, that they believe them. It is difficult to reform these individuals. Helping them get focused can improve productivity. The problem is, they soon find a roadblock. Multi-tasking is unimaginable as is working with focus. Convincing someone they can improve is a long shot once they seize the can’t mindset.
Step 1. Focus on deadlines
Shift attention from the urgent points on your list and focus on deadlines. If you have three projects due by close of business, work on them now. Get it done. This sense of urgency lessens your tendency to do everything else that distracts you.
Companies hire competitive people for this reason. They focus their energy on getting results. They can translate driving to the hoop or hitting it out of the park with results on hammering out the quarterly report before noon or updating the project plan. Deadlines create a sense of urgency.
Step 2. Timestamp your to-do list
Keep a top three on your desktop at all times. Make sure a do by time is assigned to each item. When one is completed push the next urgent item up a notch.
You should know which items on today’s to-do list are not urgent and not important
Keeping our hit list to three at a time reduces the likelihood of being overwhelmed by two pages of things to worry about. Over time you will be able to anticipate better. Your sense of accomplishment will grow your self- confidence. Taking a new task will look like one that you did three days ago. You will have an intuition about what the task needs to see completion.
Good results build on top of each other. Success grows step by step. At the close of business, you will have checked off the key tasks due that day. You should let that sense of satisfaction grow. Give it some space.
It is okay to take a break. Take a five-minute meditation rest every hour. Get up and move around every so often. Keep 2-pound dumbbells handy for long periods of concentration. Review your successes every so often. Limit distractions and focus on your deadlines.
Shift focus away from the most intriguing task or the easiest on the list. If something on your list is not urgent and is not important, say no.
Not everything you do is of equal importance. Doing this day by day will help you sort tasks. You will have said no to some and come to better understand the power of being focused on results.
Step 3. Keep track of what burns up your time
Ever feel like you get to the office at 8 and do not start work until 10:30? Waiting for coffee to brew, the copier to turn on, voice mail, email, associates dropping in to chat adds up. Keep all of that at arm’s length.
People who have shifted to working from home notice this right away.
By now, you should start to see how taking charge of your to-do list makes a difference.
You have more time to think of the creative and results-producing aspects of your job. You are not bogged down with minutiae. You are retraining yourself to look for high-value projects and increase quality as you go.
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Douglas Pilarski. Portland-based writer/journalist. Covering luxury goods, exotic cars, CJ-CX, horology, tech, lifestyle, & workplace issues.
Comments welcome! [email protected] Follow on Twitter — @dpatlarge
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