All Posts Tagged Tag: ‘time’
Weekly links 9th of May
A collection of posts and articles about productivity, time management, tools and technology.
- Five Best Time-Tracking via Lifehacker
- 10 Awesome Videos On Idea Execution & The Creative Process via The99percent
- Being More Productive via Harvard Business Review
- 10 Ways to Stop Multitasking & Be More Effective via PickTheBrain
- Why the 80/20 Rule Could Make You Less Productive via DragosRoua.com
If you have any interesting articles please share them in the comments section.
Not sure where to start
Photo by di_the_huntress
With the advent of Christmas holiday season and up coming New Year the is a growing pressure to have as much things done as possible and to avoid carrying things over to the next year. As result of this you might feel overwhelmed with too many projects and actions that need your attention at the same time. There are too many pressing deadlines and none isn’t clearly more important than the other. Being in this state can become overpowering and most likely can cause further stress.
With mountain of things coming in there is no easy way to start and all choices appear to be bad. To sort this all out you need clarity. Clarity to see all your commitments, clarity to see the priorities.
For some , simple tactics below, maybe counterintuitive. As the faster you start the further you can get comes to mind soonest. This is misleading for two reasons. First you may not be doing the right things and secondly you will not be able to properly pace yourself not knowing what the actual tasks are and how much time will they take.
There are couple of tips that are worth trying when your are overwhelmed:
Take a deep breath
Intense work uses a lot of energy. To generate more energy human body needs oxygen, a lot of it. Take three deep breaths. This will calm you down. Also it provides more oxygen and helps you think clearly. Once your head is fresh you can start looking at things, assessing priorities and building action plans.
Take a step back
As you work on projects you may become too involved in them. this potentially can block your ability to judge and make optimal decisions about what needs to get done. Take a qucik walk outside, maybe go to water cooler or fountain and drink some water. Don’t rush. Come back to your desk and look at your commitments with fresh eyes. See what stands out and make it your priority. Once it’s done find another thing and work on it.
Ask
Some of our tasks are delegated from the top. Your boss asked you to do a number of thing and as a result your have a myriad of conflicting priorities and deadlines. Although this maybe easier said than done ask your boss what’s bigger priority. Remember that his performance depends on your performance so it’s in his best interest to makes sure that your are spending your time on the right things. Also it’s better to ask, than feel sorry and put a lot of effort and energy in the wrong thing.
Try any of these techniques whenever you find yourself pushed to the limit without any break on the horizon. What usually happens is the situation looks terrible only from the distance. Up close once you get going it isn’t that bad at all.
If you have any favourite tips for dealing with overwhelm please share them in the comments section below.
Weekly links for 11th of December
A collection of posts and articles about productivity, time management, tools and technology.
If you have any interesting articles please share them in the comments section.
Steven Pressfield interview
Couple weeks ago I came across an interview series at Lateral Action Blog. At the time there were two interviews one with Jason Fried of 37 Signals and second with Steven Pressfield which really caught my attention.
Steven Pressfield is well known author of novels with background in WWII. He also writes about ancient strategies of waging war campaigns. In addition he is the author of “War of Art” which is one of the most popular books on dealing with creativity and resistance.
Below are quick notes form listening the audio:
Your fate is in your hands.
This sounds like an obvious thing but it’s easy to let it go. It’s easy to switch to a reactive mode where you let other people – parents, bosses, spouses - tell you what is that you need/should/ought to do. It may seem like a great option but have a think. Whose interest those people have in mind is it yours or theirs?
Be professional and approach life from the professional perspective.
There is something uplifting and encouraging when you look at yourself and world around you from the perspective of professional. Regardless of where you work and what you do keeping that attitude will always result in something positive.
Traits of Professionals (minute 20 -22)
I found this hugely insightful especially in the context of rejection. It’s not you that is being rejected it might be your offering or the person might have a bad day and say no to everybody. Separating the two gives you space, a buffer zone so you can keep sane even it things aren’t going where you wanted. Other important virtue is patience, in today’s world we expect to get instant gratification and results. Building business is not that straightforward you need to put real effort into your venture to succeed.
Power of one hour a day – devote one a day and build your success.
An old proverb says that 1000mile journey starts with one step. Sometimes it may be hard to see the progress but by putting that one hour a day over the time things will change and move in the direction you want. It’s very similar with “snowball effect” first it’s small and insignificant but over time it grows and makes difference. So putting that one hour a day may seem like nothing but over time it will yield results bigger than you thought.
Don’t need to neglect/quit that day job, just focus on what can do.
Often times pursuing our passions seems like we need to leave everything behind, quit day job etc. This may not be necessary or practical especially if you’re just starting. Simply focus on what can you do that brings you closer to your passion, spend that one hour a day doing that and see what happens.
Making important changes in life is like turning a battleship it’s slow and takes time.
Again with increasing speed of life we tend to expect the results now. We want instant gratification and if it’s not there we abandon the idea and look for some thing else. But important life changes take time and are often times slow, very slow. Although you may have impression that some people lives change in an instant just have a look closer, if you can talk to them see how it really was.
These notes are filtered through my views and interests. I picked up those things because seemed important to me. Yet I’m pretty sure you’ll find something interesting for yourself.
Please head to Lateral Action page to get the full interview there.
Time Blocking
This is the final post of what became a three part series about looking at your time, where it goes and what to do with it.
When it comes to working through your day there are generally two approaches. Free fall where you let the loudest, shiniest, most recent thing to take over your day. There is no structure and the only aim is to move through as many actions as possible.
On the other hand you could look at your day and give it a structure. Schedule some very specific time to work on some important projects. Perhaps these are not the most attractive things you could do, perhaps they are thing the you dread doing. Yet they need to get done and if you don’t have any one to delegate to you have to do it yourself.
Time Blocking what is it?
Time blocking is one of the classic techniques for making sure that your time goes where you want it. This is where rubber meet the road. You’ve looked where your time goes using time map. You’ve planned it using budget, now you need to execute it. Time blocking is exactly that, it helps you follow through on the decisions you’ve made.
It’s very simple to use. All you have to do is pick up a calendar, select an action/project you want to work on and set the time and put it in a calendar. The aim of this is to block any other activities and get focused on that one thing.
Benefits
- Direction – using time blocking you can add a shape you your day. You can make a choices about the tasks that are important to you and you can devote your time to them. Instead letting yourselt to freely flow through the day you can make sure some of it is used for the right things.
- Focus – is about getting fixed on one thing and giving it maximum of your attention. Blocking time precisely let’s you do that. It works two fold. You can focus on the task at hand and work through it. You can also focus on actions that allow you making progress in the direction of your goals and plans. Getting enough focus will help to limit impact of the distractions around you like, your colleagues wandering around, people talking over the phone, pinging email client, etc.
- Close off on overdue items – some items on your todo may seem to be more attractive that others and unfortunately that means the second group is always pushed back. Whether you want it or not those tasks still have to get done. What you can do is simply block some time for those type of menial tasks and have them off your list.
- Reminder – often times it’s easy to get caught up in spinning world of incoming email, co-workers asking favours. Day just whizzes through and you just can’t remember doing anything meaningful. Blocking time will work as a reminder of what you supposed to do. If you use electronic calendar you’ll get a pop up message or text from Google. This works even with paper planners. Next time you look at it you will notice that you ought to be doing something.
I recommend watching this video by Gina Trapani which is a great summary of how time blocking can be used during the day:
Time blocking is very simple but effective technique. Sometimes it might be very easy to over use it. Blocking out full day for different tasks is not the best idea. Although you need structure for your day you also need flexibility. Days are not linear there is always something different happening that you haven’t planned for.
If you liked this post please share your views. Do you block time for some tasks? Does it help? Do you get more done?