Time Management

I have been reading book after book on making money online and there has been a popular refrain on time management. There are only so many things you can do in a day and if you are working a full time job, you will have even less time to spend on your online business. Those entrepreneurs who can afford the dot com lifestyle are usually very successful in time management. At my full time job, we receive weekly training (usually about 30-45 minutes). This week's training was on time management. It's a popular topic no matter what your job or lifestyle and for a very good reason. The more you manage your time, the more time you have to spend on the things you want to do.

Did you know for every fifteen minutes you spend during an eight hour workday is slightly over three percent of your workday? It is. Every hour is worth 12.5% of an eight hour workday. Can you afford to lose even 3% of your workday to distractions? What can you get done in fifteen minutes?

It amazes me the number of people that even though they are "working" are unable to meet reasonable goals in an allotted time. There are many ways to schedule your time so that you work both efficiently and effectively. My favorite time management book is Julie Morgenstern's "Time Management from the Inside Out". In this book, she uses the anagram SPACE to denote the steps to time management.

Sort - Categorizing the tasks and estimating how long each task will take.

Purge - Getting rid of unnecessary tasks.

Assign - This is the when. When is the task going to be done? How important is this task? Is there a deadline?

Containerize - Keeping tasks in the time allotted for them

Equalize - Monitor yourself and make adjustments

SORT: What does your to do list have on it? How long will each task take? Once you have answered those questions, you can start to organize your tasks. A lot of people I know find it hardest to get started. They see the task before them and are overwhelmed by the sheer amount of work. Break each large task down into parts. Say for instance, you need to write a tutorial on making a chainmail bracelet but have no idea where to start. Well, start with an outline. An outline gives you a breakdown of sections to write and then breaks each section down by paragraphs. This way you know the topic of each paragraph and you can go from one to the next without having to think about what that paragraph is covering. Use that same principle on any task. Outline what needs to be done and break it down by each step and then figure out how long it will take to do each step.

PURGE: Are there any tasks on your list that don't really need to be done OR that you don't need to do yourself? Tim Ferris' "Four Hour Work Week" goes in depth on outsourcing as much of your life as possible. How much more work would you get done if you didn't have to do everything yourself? Even mundane things like cleaning the house take up time that could be better spent on something you love (unless you love cleaning). Can you afford to have a cleaning service come in once a week (or even once a month) and take care of some of your chores? What tasks are really yours and what tasks are things that others have "convinced" you to do? At my full time job, I have a client list that has to be called on schedules. We also have clients call in to give or receive information about their accounts. If that client doesn't leave a message for their specialist, then they are transferred into a queue and talk to the next available specialist. Our rule is if you cannot complete the task by the end of the phone call, then you should take notes about the situation for their assigned specialist. They are not your client and each client is assigned a specialist for just this reason.

The last purge I want to talk about is "Just Say No". Sometimes people will come to you with projects or tasks that are just not necessary for you to do. If you have time or you know that you need to be on the good side of that person (like for a raise), then check your schedule and see if there is an opening. If you are too busy or it is just not something you can do, then say no. Say it politely and even give a reason if necessary, but say no. Each supervisor has to have a one on one with their specialist. My last one on one was originally scheduled during a time where I had a large call volume. It was easy to go back to my supervisor and say no, I cannot meet you at 2:00 PM, my schedule is full. What if we meet at 3:00 PM? He certainly didn't have a problem with the reschedule.

ASSIGN - What need to be done immediately? What can wait? You need to prioritize your tasks and then assign a time for each task to be done. You know as a blogger that you need to do a number of things each day to keep up with your blog plus a number of weekly or monthly maintenance items. You need to network, write or find articles, rework your template, advertising, track subscriptions and a ton of other items. Plan each day accordingly. You know it takes you two hours to write an article. You need to spend an hour on social networks. Each week you need to rotate you ad placements, both the ads on your blog and the ads for your blog. Each month or quarter, you need to change the template of your blog to freshen its look. Use a schedule to keep track of when things need to be done. Is your goal to write one post a day or three a week? Schedule yourself two hours each time you need to write an article. Do you need to spend an hour on social networks? Schedule yourself an hour a day to reach out to your network. Does your blog need a fresh look? Schedule yourself a day to work on it or maybe four hours on two days. Once you have assigned your tasks a time to be done, stick to it.

I know it takes me one hour to write a short article (500-700 words), but like this articles I sometime write longer articles. A 1500 word article can take me two to two and a half hours to write. Now, I don't always write a 1500 word article, but I schedule myself at least two hours to write an article. If I don't need all the time, then I will jump another assigned task ahead. Eventually, I will have a block of time to work on a project I wouldn't have normally had time to do, because at this point I am getting things done early.

CONTAINERIZE: Julie Morgenstern in "Time Management from the Inside Out" writes that there are three ways that you can containerize: 1. Minimize interruptions and their impact, 2. Conquer procrastination and chronic lateness, and 3. Overcome perfectionism. There are many things in the day that keep us from doing out assigned tasks. Stay on task is an important skill needed in time management. Tim Ferris' in "The Four Hour Work Week" writes about how he only answers emails twice a week and has a personal assistant that sorts his email before he ever sees it. One of the things Tim suggests is to eliminate the pop-up that lets you know you have new email and then check your email at regular intervals, once in the morning and once in the afternoon or whatever works with your schedule. This eliminates the email distraction. Find other solutions to distractions. One of my co-workers has a DND cone that she places on the top of the bin in her cubicle. When that "Do Not Disturb" cone is up, everyone knows she has fallen behind on her work and cannot afford the distraction of her co-workers. Find your solution to the distractions in your life.

Conquering procrastination is a skill we all need to learn. Know yourself and how you work. Don't let yourself get away with putting things off now that you have a scheduled time to do them. There are several reasons that people procrastinate that have nothing to do with distraction in the usual sense.

First is indecisiveness. If you can't make up your mind about what needs to be done on this task, how are you going to get the task done? Easy, make an arbitrary choice. If it doesn't work, then try something else. If my choices are colored coded and there isn't an outstanding reason to choose one or the other, then I will choose the color I like best. (Don't make one of the ideas in pink - it wouldn't get chosen. I hate pink.) When there are several good or great choices, choose one because of its name or the way the logo looks or because it has the shorter step. The important thing is to make a choice.

Second is not being ready. This one should never be a problem, since one of your tasks should be setting up your project, but if for some reason, you are missing information or you are waiting on someone else, switch your time around. Your schedule is not set in stone. It is your schedule. Take ownership and make decisions on when things are going to happen.

Third is feeling overwhelmed. This is another one that for the most part, should be taken care of in the sort stage. If you still feel overwhelmed after breaking the task down once, don't hesitate to break it down even more. My best friend is working on writing a novel. By the time she is finished, it should be over 500 pages long. That is a lot of pages and a lot of writing. This project had to be broken down into parts, she used a timeline and then each part had to be broken down into chapters. After she got it broken down into chapters, she still felt overwhelmed, so she then broke it down into scenes. From scenes, it could even be broken down into character part or paragraphs, depending on what was happening. Once you get it broken down, put away the parts you aren't working on and only concentrate on the immediate task. Once you have finished several sections, you will look back and wonder why you felt like it was overwhelming.

Fourth is hating the task. This is my biggest problem. If it is a task I really dislike or even downright hate, I will let it sit forever! I am that way about laundry. I hate to do laundry and if it was up to me, I wouldn't do laundry until I was out of clothes and didn't have any more money to buy new ones. My best friend (and roommate) can't cook. She is lethal in the kitchen. We have traded services. She does all my laundry and I do all the cooking. It works out in both of our favors and I don't have to do laundry and my clothes are clean. This is where team work, outsourcing and delegating come in. If you hate doing something, trade with someone, pay someone or order someone to do it for you, depending on the options open to you. What happens if you can't do any of those things? Remember, the quicker you get it done, the quicker you can move on to other things!

Overcoming perfection is a hard thing to conquer. I am definitely still working on that one. I know that I can run the spell check after I finish this article, but every time I see that I have made an error, I have to find out what I did wrong and change it. While that doesn't take that long for an article of this size, let's take my best friend's book. In the year and a half that she has been writing her novel, she has probably written enough pages to be able to have finish three books, but since she censors herself as she goes along, her book is only half done. If she (and I) could learn to let go and do an edit after the task is complete, then more could be gotten done. One way to fix this is to schedule a edit of your task. Set yourself up a time to do quality control and continue on your appointed task.

EQUALIZE: I mentioned before that your schedule is not set in stone. Let yourself make changes and go with the flow. If for some reason, you just cannot get going on a certain task, change it to another task. You can switch your tasks around to make sure you are working on something that is going to get done during your allotted time. Equalize also means that you need to spread out your tasks and schedule some non-work related time. At work, we have a quiet room and if we are feeling overwhelmed and need a break; we can take a time out in the quiet room for a few minutes. Taking fifteen minutes to go outside and get some fresh air or to lie down and take a break could be the difference between doing something once and correctly or making mistakes when you are tired and having to do the task over and over again. Also, keep in mind that we think better if we have enough sleep, plus enough food to eat. Keep a healthy snack and a drink at your desk for long tasks. This will keep you thinking about your task and not your hungry stomach.

When you complete a task or make a goal, celebrate! Take time out to enjoy your accomplishments! After the initial training period at my job, there are continuing levels of training to complete. At the end of certain levels, you receive a raise. With the first check after the raise, I always take myself out and buy myself something I have been wanting as a reward. Now, while you may not want to buy yourself something for every completed task, at least find something with which to celebrate. Once this article is complete, I am going to get up and do a happy dance as this article is a lot longer than I was planning. However you celebrate, make it something you will enjoy.

Time management is a way of keeping yourself and your tasks in check. Having the extra time with your family or just being able to leave work on time is sometimes the best reward for having great time management skills.