Time Management in 15 Minutes or Less

"It's never too late to be who you might have been."
- George Elliot

Does your desk and workspace look as if a tornado has blown through and distributed the contents randomly over every surface?

In the chaos of today’s ever-changing business world, we need effective skills to help manage the sometimes overwhelming amount of projects we face day-to-day, while still maintaining our ability to lead teams and finish our own work agendas.

If you are like most people, the part of your office otherwise known as your work desk experiences frequent upheavals, with projects, reports, folders, data, and binders sprinkled with Post-It® notes so thick it looks like confetti. The key to resolving this mess and effectively managing multiple objectives lies in taking time to prioritize deadlines, writing to-do lists, and keeping your boss happy.

First, let’s create a simple plan to manage competing priorities.

Ask yourself the following four questions regarding the projects you are working on right now:

• What is important and urgent?
• What is important but not urgent?
• What is not important but urgent?
• What is not important and not urgent?

From here, build a basic list of which projects should come first, based on your above responses.

One critical thing to consider here: As you develop this list, make sure you are FIRST addressing the things your boss considers important. In the light of job security, this is an easy way to keep your boss happy and give yourself one less thing to worry about!

Second, let’s create a strategy to organize the day. Consider setting aside the first 20-30 minutes of every day to plan what needs to get done. Next, build two unscheduled, 30-minute periods into the day to deal with “surprises” and anything else your boss, co-workers, or job will throw at you. This amounts to about ten percent of a typical day, but it sure helps!

On a similar note, spend the last 15 minutes of every day going through the list you created for the day. If you did everything, great! If not, plan on moving the unfinished items to the top of the list for the next day. Leaving the office with even a rough plan of attack for the next day can be tremendously relieving.

Next, consider tackling two simple, five-minute tasks that you have been procrastinating on every day.

This will help you get through the “small things” that have been building up so much that they now seem overwhelming.

Finally, always keep in mind that planning your work is helpful only when you follow through with the agenda you have created.

At some point, we'll need to jump into the prioritized list of tasks we have created, and plough through it.

I like to point to a movie metaphor for the easiest way to do this: In the movie, "What About Bob?" Bob (played by Bill Murray) regularly experiences anxiety about doing anything at all, and his success finally comes from him taking “baby steps” with everything he does--from getting out of bed to going to the grocery store. We can use the same strategy every day! Simply take baby steps with each project until it is complete, and enjoy the satisfaction of getting it done.

If you need additional training or help with your time management, consider signing up for a SkillPath Seminar (www.skillpathseminars.com) for all of your training needs.

For tips to effectively train your people and streamline your organization, and for other solutions to your staffing challenges, visit www.traininginabox.com. Sign up for our free newsletter at www.quicktrainingsolutions.com to make your HR training and development life easier. Corey Nielsen designs and delivers innovative and effective training solutions for businesses through NTG, his business development and training company.

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