Time Management for Dummies

The Time Management Mind-Set

In This Chapter

* Achieving success with time management

* Pacing yourself

* Assessing your time management skills

With workloads that have become swollen by the downsizing fervor, we're all working harder than ever. We're coming into our offices earlier each morning. We're staying later in the evening. When was the last time you even took a 30-minute lunch? How many times a week do you skip lunch?

And though we're putting in all these extra hours, we aren't getting to our important projects, let alone the routine correspondence and the other miscellaneous things that have accumulated in piles on our desk, in our in-boxes, on the credenza, and on the floor. These things wait until Saturday, when we hope to have some uninterrupted time so that we can actually get something done.

So what are we doing during our eight-, ten-, or twelve-hour days? I haven't got the slightest idea, and I'll bet that you don't either. That's probably why you're reading this book at this very moment.

On the following pages, you'll learn some wonderful timesaving tips, techniques, ideas, and strategies that will help you get your work done quicker, faster, and better, and give you more time to spend with your family and friends.

Become More Productive, Efficient, and
Effective — Not Just Busy

In today's highly competitive business environment, working additional hours doesn't guarantee that your business will be more successful or that your career will prosper. The only way that you can be successful today is to become more productive, efficient, and effective, not just busy. When productivity increases, the quality of your work improves, you get things done on time, and best of all, you accomplish more tasks with less effort. The company makes money, and so do you.

You must remember that you're getting paid for your results, not the number of hours you work. We all have encountered coworkers who try to impress us by bragging about how many hours they put in. They wear their 70- or 80-hour work weeks as a badge of honor. They believe that the extra hours show dedication to company and career.

In many instances, though, the overtime is a smoke screen that covers up inefficiencies and poor work habits. If you analyze the quality of these people's work, the volume of work produced, and the timeliness for completing it, you'll quickly discover that people who consistently work overtime really aren't superstars. In fact, they're just barely getting by. They rarely get their work done on time, and the quality of that work is OK at best. Considering the number of hours they actually work, they're getting a very poor return on their investment.

You've Got to Pace Yourself

Many people don't realize that there's a big difference between working hard and working smart — between being busy and being productive. For most of us, a career will span 30 to 40 years. If you think of a career as if it were a marathon, you realize the necessity to pace yourself over the course of the race.

Sure, there are times when you need to pick up the pace, and then you need to slow down again to catch your breath. Your goal should be to use and conserve energy so that you don't burn out or become exhausted long before crossing the finish line.

The people who work 50, 60, or 70 hours per week are pacing themselves through a 100-yard sprint when they're really in a marathon. They're working as hard as they can, for as long as they can, in the hope of crossing the finish line before they collapse. They look at the completion of the next project or task as the finish line, and they look no further. As soon as they have another project to work on, they soon find themselves running another race.

Until recently, most employers didn't care how many hours it took for an employee to get a particular job done. Productivity and efficiency weren't that important because the extra costs could always be passed along to the customer.

That approach doesn't work any longer. The competition is just too fierce. As a result, corporate America's been forced to find ways to cut expenses, increase employee productivity, and improve the quality of their products or services. These goals cannot be achieved by asking employees to work longer and harder. Employees need to be taught to work more efficiently and effectively.

For one thing, working longer hours doesn't necessarily make an employee more productive. Every person has a limit, and there's a point of diminishing returns where additional hours of work don't result in a measurable increase in the quality or the quantity of the work produced. In fact, when a person's putting in too many hours, the probability of making a mistake dramatically increases.

History has shown that these kinds of mistakes can be very costly in time and in money both to the company and to the employee. Studies have also shown that working long hours leads to burnout, increased stress and tension on the job, and additional pressures at home. Today, people need to measure and balance the requirements at work with those of their personal and family life.

Testing Your Time Management Savvy

We're all looking for ways to do our work quicker, faster, and better. Now if you want to learn how to manage your time better, you've got to become aware of how you're spending your time during a typical business day. So before you dive into this book, I would like to ask you some questions:

1. How long does it take you to find important papers — like that report your boss wants in the next 60 seconds — that are buried in piles on the top of your desk? See Chapter 2 to learn how to transform a desk that looks like a toxic waste dump into one that resembles the flight deck of an aircraft carrier.

2. How many times have you been put in Voice Mail Jail? To get out of Voice Mail Jail, read Chapter 11.

3. Do you find yourself playing endless games of telephone tag with your most important clients? To quickly win the game, turn to Chapter 10.

4. Do you spend your day putting out fires while your important tasks just seem to fall through the cracks? See Chapter 6 for help.

5. Would you like to spend less time responding to your e-mail messages and more time doing your important work? If so, see Chapter 13.

6. Do you find that you don't get to your important tasks until the very last minute? Then check out Chapter 3 for tips on getting the most out of your Master List.

7. Would you like to get your appointment book, calendar, Rolodex file, and things-to-do list off your desk and inside your computer? Then read Chapter 5 to learn how you can use ACT! to take control of your day.

8. Would you like to do a better job of promoting your company and yourself? Then see Chapter 15.

9. Do you spend too many hours each week sitting in meetings that don't accomplish much and leave important issues unresolved? Then read Chapter 7 for help.

10. Would you like to have more time for yourself, your family, and your friends? If so, you should sit yourself down and read this book cover to cover. It's packed with so many timesaving tips, techniques, ideas, and strategies that you'll quickly find yourself doing better work and completing it on time, with less pressure and strain. The time that you once wasted during a normal business day will be used much more productively and efficiently. And as a result, you'll be spending less time at work and more time with your family and friends. Now that's being productive!

Chapter Two

Getting and Staying Organized

In This Chapter

* Getting organized

* Cleaning off your desk

* Filing your documents

* Organizing your reading material

* Staying organized

On the next few pages, I'm going to show you my fun and easy process for getting, and staying, organized. You should be able to organize your desk in about two hours time, so turn off the phone and close the door — if you're lucky enough to have one — so that you won't be interrupted, and don't forget to bring a dumpster. You'll find that at least 60 percent of the papers on your desk can be tossed, and when you start working on the drawers inside your desk, as well as your file drawers, you'll discover that at least 80 percent of those papers can go.

You Can Save Yourself an Hour
a Day By Getting Organized

You probably don't realize it, but most people waste almost an hour a day looking for papers that are lost on the top of their desks — 60 percent of which aren't needed anyway. So that's where I think we should start: with the top of the desk.

Let me describe a typical office:

* There are piles of paper everywhere — on the desk, the credenza, the chair, and the floor.

* Next to the phone there's a pile of pink phone slips.

* The lights on the phone itself are blinking so fast that one would think the phone's about to explode because of all of the new voice mail messages.

* On the wall there are so many sticky notes that they could be mistaken for a swarm of butterflies.

* Off in a corner there are piles of unread newspapers, magazines, and trade journals.

* Your computer is constantly announcing the arrival of a new e-mail message.

* Somewhere in all of this mess are a calendar, an appointment book, and a to-do list.

Sound familiar?

Well, you're going to get rid of all of those piles of paper on the desk. In just a few hours, you can take a desk that looks like a toxic waste dump — with piles of papers everywhere — and transform it into a desk that looks like the flight deck of an aircraft carrier. You'll throw away so much that your wastebasket (or recycling bin) will be filled to the brim, overflowing and spilling onto the floor. All that remains on the desktop will be a telephone and a pad of paper.

Your goal isn't to have a nice, neat, orderly desk. The desk is secondary. Your goal is to get organized so that you can convert time that's wasted during the course of a normal business day into time that can be used more efficiently and effectively.

With a neat, orderly desk, you'll improve your follow-up systems so that you can do a better job of staying on top of all of your unfinished work. And when you can spend your time working on the tasks that are important, instead of the things that keep you busy, the quality of your work improves, and you make more money. A clean desk is the place where it all begins. So let's get started.

Separating the Wheat from the Chaff
(Or Is It the Pigs from the Cows?)

The first step in getting organized is to separate the wheat from the chaff. So go through all of the papers on your desk, one piece at a time.

* If a paper is important, put it in a keeper pile for the time being.

* If a paper belongs to someone else, create a pile of things to give to your colleagues or coworkers.

* If you don't need a paper any longer, put it in the recycling bin or throw it away!

In the span of 20 to 30 minutes, you should be able to lighten your paper overload by more than half, and your wastebasket will soon be filled to the brim.

If you're finding it difficult to part with some of your files or other papers at this time, just take them off your desk and put them in one of the drawers in your filing cabinet. This way, you've got the best of both worlds. If you need the materials at some future time, you know where to find them, and if you find that you don't need them, then you can throw them out in six months.

Organize your keeper pile

Now go through your keeper pile one piece of paper at a time.

* If there's work to do, note it on your Master List, which is a things-to-do list that's written on a big piece of paper. (I'll be describing how you can use your Master List to take control of your workload and workday in Chapter 3.)

* If you no longer need that particular piece of paper, throw it away. If you do need it, put it in a properly labeled file folder and file it away.

* If a folder doesn't exist, create one. I'll talk about filing in a few moments.

File the important stuff

If you have papers or files you wish to keep but don't really need right now, file them away. There's no reason to leave them on the top of your desk any longer.

Sort through all those other piles
of paper in your office

Now that you've gone through everything on your desk, continue the same process by going through the plies that have accumulated on your credenza, floor, and everywhere else. If there's work to do, note it on your Master List. If you need to keep a document, file it away; and if you don't need it any longer, throw it away!

Don't reminisce or interrupt yourself

While you're going through these papers, your objective is to sift, sort, and catalog each and every one of them. Don't allow yourself to get sidetracked from the task at hand. When you come across a note for a phone call that you were supposed to have returned sometime last week, don't drop everything to make that call. Just note it on your Master List and keep going.

Or, when you find a memo that outlined a project you were supposed to be working on for the past few days but haven't yet begun, don't start now. And when you discover a copy of a letter that you recently sent to a client, customer, or prospect — that's been sitting on your desk for a month — just note on your Master List that you've got to make a phone call, and keep sifting and sorting.

These documents are the items of business that you're looking for. You're going through your piles, one piece of paper at a time, so that you can create a list of everything that you need to do!

While you're at It, Remove the Sticky
Notes from the Wall

Many of us use sticky notes in much the same way as we use our piles. They allow us to see what it is that we've got to do. When we need to remind ourselves that we've got something to do — like write a letter, work on a proposal, or return a telephone call — we jot down a brief note on this small piece of paper and stick it on the wall, computer, telephone, or anything else on which it may adhere. Isn't that the real reason we got computers?

The problem with this system is that many of us fail to notice, or do anything about, the notes that we've written. The next few paragraphs outline a better way to take down notes.

Write everything down — on big
pieces of paper

The habit of jotting down a thought on a piece of paper is a very efficient way of remembering that you've got something to do. Putting things down on paper frees you from having to try to remember what those things are. Now you can use your wonderful brain power for something that is considerably more important.

But when you write notes to yourself on small pieces of paper and then stick them on the wall, you begin to create problems. After you post more than a few of them, you tend to stop paying attention to any of them, and none of them appears to be of much importance. As a result, you ignore the note and forget the task. Even though you see these notes throughout the day, day after day, simply seeing the note doesn't provide you with the necessary motivation to do the task. So the notes remain attached to the wall, the work remains undone, and everything begins to back up.

When there's work to do, such as making a phone call, writing a letter, or following up on something, note it on your Master List instead of a sticky note. A single piece of letter-sized paper, with about 25 lines, can hold the information of 25 sticky notes.

Don't forget to file your notes

The practice of taking detailed notes — especially of your telephone conversations and meetings — is a very good one. But when you don't place your notes inside a file folder along with all the other material on a specific subject or topic, there's the possibility that when you've got to make a business decision, you may not remember that you have this information.

So when you take notes, place the paper in the appropriate file so that you can find it when you need it, and if there's work to do, note it on your Master List.

Always date your papers. Every time you write something on a piece of paper, you should always put a date on it. This way you can see where things fell chronologically. Records of phone conversations and meetings become useless when you can't remember when they took place.

(Continues...)