Spend Less Time at Work and Get More Done
February 7, 2010
Sounds too good to be true?
It really isn’t!
In fact, studies show that after a certain amount of hours at work each week, the average worker hits diminishing returns for their labor.
Here are a couple of reasons this is true.
Family drain.
Does your spouse or family complain that you work too much? This puts strain on you when you’re at work and limits your effectiveness. Cutting out five or more hours a week and spending it with your family will make them happier and that will make you happier too, enabling you to enjoy your work more and get more done.
A healthy home life helps ensure a happy work life.
Mental fatigue.
Remember the old saying, “All work and no play makes Johnny a dull boy”?
After a certain amount of time at work, your brain goes on auto-pilot and begins to work ineffectively. Taking some more time to relax and recreate will put you at a higher level of performance when you do go to the office.
Get some exercise, take up a hobby, but take some more time off. It will help your work become more effective!
Six Foundational Reasons for Managing Your Time
December 31, 2009
Most of us know how to manage our time. It is pretty simple really. What most of us miss are compelling reasons to manage our time. We know the “how” but miss the “why.” Here are six foundational reasons I have that motivate me to manage my time and myself properly.
It is a matter of stewardship. I view my life as not my own. I am merely a steward of it. I am given control over it for some 70 years and I should make wise decisions with it! This is a great sense of responsibility that compels me to manage my time.
It is a matter of personal fulfillment. When I get to the end of my life I want to be able to feel a sense of pride and satisfaction that I have lived well, helped others, and achieved much. This drives me to not waste time but to use it wisely.
It is a matter of providing for and being responsible to your friends and family. I owe some of my time - serious amounts - to my friends and family. If I let myself get out of control, they suffer the loss and that is something I do not want for them. I manage myself and my time so that I can give valuable portions of it to those who matter most.
The Myth of What We Manage
November 25, 2009
Perhaps it is merely semantics, but an underlying problem I find that people have as it relates to the success in their life lies in a proper understanding of what exactly it is that we manage. Think about it. We have time management (In fact I have a seminar on this very topic, some of which is excerpted below), and financial management, and relational management, weight management, career management, and many, many more.
The fact is though, that we don’t manage any of those things. What we do manage is ourselves, as they relate to those things. We don’t manage time. Time clicks by, second by second, whether we do anything or not. What we do is manage ourselves, and our activities, as the time passes. We make choices as to what we will do and be involved in. The problem as well as the solution lies not with time, but with us.
We don’t manage money. A pile of money will sit there forever if left alone. It won’t grow or shrink. What we manage is ourselves and the decisions we make in regard to how we will spend the money. Getting the idea?
Beyond Time Management ? Seven Ways to Leverage Your Time for Greater Results
October 20, 2009
Most of us have a to-do list ? some of us have a very long one! While a to-do list is a valuable tool to help us stay on track for the urgent tasks of the day (and while there are many ways to improve your production and use of this list), that isn’t the focus of this article.
This article isn’t about managing your time. It is about taking the limited time resources we have and determining how to leverage that time for greater results in our lives. When we use a lever we use specific, correct actions to create great results. That is what we all want to do with our time –find the activities that will create greater results — personal, professional, business, financial, or others in our lives.
To use this lever we have to go beyond our daily to-do list. This lever will require 30 or preferably 60 minutes of your time each day. Considering the returns (leverage) you will get on this investment, it will be time well spent.
Time Management: How To Get More Done
September 13, 2009
If you can regularly ask yourself “Am I regularly and consistently working on those items that will move me towards my clearly defined goals?” and honestly answer “Yes” then you are probably doing ok.
If not, here are a few time wasters to be aware of and some strategies for protecting your time (priorities).
MAIL: Don’t waste your time on junk mail (unless you are specifically looking for good marketing ideas to borrow) - if possible get someone else to go through your mail and sort out the junk and take care of the routine items.
If you do want to save the junk mail have it placed in a box or file that you can go through when you are brainstorming for new ideas. (This is commonly called a “Swipe File” by most writers - a resource to generate good ideas that you can swipe and adapt to your own use.)
MEETINGS: Scheduled and unscheduled meetings can be a terrible waste of time. Don’t allow people to just drop in on you without an appointment and a purpose. Avoid any scheduled meetings that you possibly can.
Avoid 7 Time and Life-Robbing Mistakes and See Your Productivity Soar
August 8, 2009
41 practical and quick ways to get on top of that mountain of work and free up time for the important things that really matter
By Dr Bill Robb, PhD, DEd
We are all required to do more and more with less and less. This is taking its toll on our productivity, our health and unfortunately on family life. This is a great pity because over 20 years of doing face-to-face time management workshops I’ve found that many of us are making easily avoidable mistakes that cost us dearly in time ? and money.
Time is all we have to achieve our dreams and to succeed. Time also is the key ingredient in enjoying our family and life. This report will help you overcome the tyranny of "too much to do and too little time to do it in". I’ve chosen the seven biggest mistakes and offered 41 ways for avoiding them.
I suggest reading about one mistake per day ? don’t rush. Think about the suggestions and figure out a way to apply them in your office or home. You’ll be pleasantly surprised if you apply just a few of the 41 suggestions. ALL SUCCESS!!
How to Find More Time in Your Day-Balancing Career and Family
July 2, 2009
Goal Planning-Achieving balance in a person’s life requires assessment of one’s goals and priorities. This translates into sitting down in a quiet atmosphere and taking just a few minutes to think about “What are my priorities in life? What could I never live without?” When one is clear about the things that are important to them in life, it is easier to determine which errands, assignments, and projects to take time out to complete or to dump or delegate. You will then be able to do the things you love to do. Thinking about goals is a crucial step in striking balance for our busy lives.
Delegate-A powerful tool that many people overlook or ignore is delegating. Everyone wants to grow and learn new skills. When given responsibility, most people are motivated to do a good job. Colleagues, students, children, whoever you delegate to, with your clear instruction and guidance you can trust that the job will be completed well. Mothers do not often realize that children of all ages are indeed capable of completing many tasks and often love doing them.
Procrastination. Id love to but…
May 29, 2009
When a good friend asked me to contribute a little something for her newsletter it seemed like a great idea. When I cleared the decks and sat down to write it seemed a great time to color-code my closet or whip up a crab casserole. As an enthusiastic writer, who has nevertheless had writing blocks which have lasted longer than some World Wars, this business of avoiding doing something that I really want to do has always mystified me.
As a Life Coach I learned that the classic coaching take on this was that I have an agenda other than actually writing and finishing a piece. I am avoiding doing something I think I want to do because I don’t really want to do it. This is often the explanation I give to my clients when they ‘fess up to not taking actions which are so clearly needed in their lives.
“What do you really want?” I ask them. “What would happen if you didn’t take the action?” And the biggie. “What is your expected outcome?”
Perfekt!
April 19, 2009
Are you obsessed with getting everything just right? Do you do everything yourself because no one else can do it as well as you can? Do you believe that everything you do has to be absolutely perfect? Although striving for excellence is a good thing to do, demanding perfection in everything you do is not.
Often, perfectionism is a way to delay taking action. If you keep finding problems to fix, you don’t have to do something you dread (such as making sales calls) or subject yourself or your product to the judgements of the marketplace.
Realize and accept that good enough is often good enough. There is a point of diminishing returns, where the time and effort you put in to “improving” something is not worth the cost. The cost is not just the cost of doing something over and over. It includes opportunity cost. Every day that you don’t have your product available for purchase, or every day you delay your new marketing program, is a day you are losing sales. And all of the time you put in doing something over and over again is time you could spend doing something more productive and more profitable.
What Would Save You Time?
March 13, 2009
We all get overwhelmed from time to time, and sometimes it seems as if 24 hours a day is just not enough to get everything accomplished that we would like. Let’s consider this a brainstorming session. Start creating a list of everyday tasks that, if you didn’t have to do them, would allow you to have more time in your day. For example, most of us have to do laundry on a regular basis. That takes time. What about making dinner? Commuting? The list goes on. These types of tasks are usually necessary and unavoidable. It would be fantastic if we could hire a housekeeper, a personal chef or a chauffeur to handle these things for us. More often than not however, we end up doing ourselves the things that need to be taken care of each day.
