151 quick ideas on time management.pdf

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Chapter title here

151Quick Ideas

to

Manage Your Time

By Robert E. Dittmer, APR

Pompton Plains, NJ

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151 Quick Ideas to ... fill in blank

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Copyright © 2006 by Robert E. Dittmer, APR

All rights reserved under the Pan-American and InternationalCopyright Conventions. This book may not be reproduced, in wholeor in part, in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical,including photocopying, recording, or by any information storageand retrieval system now known or hereafter invented, withoutwritten permission from the publisher, The Career Press.

151 QUICK IDEAS TO MANAGE YOUR TIME

EDITED BY JODI BRANDON

TYPESET BY GINA TALUCCICover design by The Visual Group

Printed in the U.S.A.

To order this title, please call toll-free 1-800-CAREER-1 (NJ andCanada: 201-848-0310) to order using VISA or MasterCard, or forfurther information on books from Career Press.

The Career Press, Inc., 220 West Parkway, Unit 12Pompton Plains, NJ 07444

www.careerpress.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Dittmer, Robert E., 1950-

151 quick ideas to manage your time / by Bob Dittmer

p. cm.

ISBN-13: 978-1-56414-899-5

ISBN-10: 1-56414-899-8

1. Time management. I. Title. II. One hundred fifty-one quick ideas

to manage your time.

HD69.T54D52 2006

650.1’1--dc22

2006016820

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Dedication

To all the people over the past 30-plus years who haveworked with me, shared with me, taught me, suffered with me,to cause me to learn these lessons and be able to share themwith others.

And, to Jerry Wilson, CSP. Client, mentor, friend, partner.You led the way, I merely follow.

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Contents

How to Use This Book 11Introduction: This Book Can Save You Time! 13

1. Getting Started Is the Toughest Step 152. Consider a Time Study 163. Assess Your Problem Areas 174. Establish Clear Goals for Your Job 185. Write Down Your Goals and Objectives 206. Set Clear Goals for Time Use 217. Set Daily and Weekly Objectives 228. Start Your Day the Night Before 239. Don’t Procrastinate 24

10. Pareto’s Principle: 80–20 2511. The ABCs of Prioritizing 2612. The A in ABC 2713. The B in ABC 2814. The C in ABC 3015. Write Down Tasks as You Receive Them 3116. Set Deadlines for Assignments 3217. Under-Commit and Over-Deliver 3318. Keep Score 3419. Make a To Do List 3520. Use the To Do List! 36

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21. Share the To Do List 3822. Update the To Do List 3923. Organize Your Workspace: General 4024. Organize Your Workspace: The Desktop 4125. Organize Your Workspace: Paper Files 4326. Organize Your Workspace: Folders 4427. Organize Your Workspace: Electronic Files 4528. Organize Your Workspace: Contacts 4629. Organize Your Workspace: Cull Your Files 4730. Handle Your Mail Efficiently 4831. Use a Suspense File 4932. Keep Only One Planner/Scheduler 5033. What to Keep—and What Not to Keep 5134. What to Do With Draft Documents 5335. Handle Business Cards 5436. Know Your Best Working Hours 5537. Make Critical Appointments at Your Best Times 5638. Group Similar Tasks 5739. Put Up a Fence 5840. Block Contingency Time Every Day 5941. Scheduling: A 5-Step Process 6042. Scheduling: Step 1 6143. Scheduling: Step 2 6244. Scheduling: Step 3 6345. Scheduling: Step 4 6446. Scheduling: Step 5 6447. Use an Electronic Calendar 6548. Make the Electronic Calendar Work 6649. Attend Outside Meetings 6750. Minimize Interruptions: Set Office Hours 68

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51. The Second-Greatest Time-Killer 7052. Handle Voice Mail 7153. Your Voice-Mail Message 7254. Use Voice Mail as a Call Screener 7355. Use Caller ID Effectively 7556. Handle Inbound Phone Calls 7657. Handle Outbound Phone Calls 7758. Keep Written Records of Phone Calls 7859. Speaking Is Faster Than Writing Memos 7960. Handle Your Paper Mail 8061. Handle Your E-mail: When 8162. Handle Your E-mail: Brevity 8363. Handle Your E-mail: Files 8464. Handle Your E-mail: Fight Spam 8565. E-mail: Discourage the Jokers 8666. E-mail: Organize Your Folders 8767. E-mail: Write Clear and Direct Subject Lines 8868. Copy and Paste Are Two of Your Best Friends 8969. Handle Office Visits 9070. Handle Paper Files 9171. Magazines: Cull and Kill 9272. Use a “Reading File” 9373. Create a Contact List 9474. Use a PDA 9575. Make It Really Save Time— 97

Not Use More Time76. Keep Software Current 9877. Keep Your E-Desktop Clean 9978. Establish a Clean Filing System 10079. Make Certain Your Computer 101

Is Operating as Speed

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80. Make Certain Your Internet Connection 102Is at Speed

81. Virus Protection: Not an Option 10382. More on PDAs 10483. That Cell Phone! 10584. Who Knows Your Cell Phone Number? 10685. Cell Phone: Set to Stun 10786. To BlueTooth or Not to BlueTooth 10887. Is Text Messaging for You? 10988. Get Your Own Printer! 11089. Get Computer Training to Get More Efficient 11190. The Third-Greatest Time-Killer 11391. They Can’t be Avoided— 114

But They CAN Be Efficient!92. Meeting Timing—When Is Best? 11593. Put a Time Limit on Meetings 11694. Have an Agenda for Meetings 11795. Use the Agenda—Time the Elements 11896. Distribute the Agenda in Advance 11997. Train Yourself on Conducting Meetings 12098. Train Participants and 121

Staff on Efficient Meetings99. Attend Only the Meetings You Must 122

100. The Greatest Time Killer 123101. Communicate Your Work Style 124102. Adjust to Your Boss 125103. Find a Mentor or Coach 127104. Control Interactions With Others 128105. The Geography of the Office 129106. Desk Placement 130107. Chair Placement 131

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108. Relationships to Windows 132109. Discourage “War Stories” 133110. Stand and Be Counted 135111. Learn to Say No 136112. Learn to Delegate: 137

Discover What Your Staff Can Handle113. Learn to Delegate: 138

Learn Where Others Can Handle Better114. Learn to Delegate: Train Your Staff to Handle 139115. Recognize That Procrastination Is a Habit— 140

Work to Break It116. Don’t Put It Off, Wimpy! 142117. If It’s on the To Do List, Do It 143118. Commit to the Job—or Delegate It 144119. “It’s Not My Job, Man!” 145120. Beat the Fear of the Unknown 146121. Overcome the Insecurity 147

of a Lack of Knowledge122. If You are Not Interested, Get Interested 148123. If You Don’t Like the Task, 149

Do It and It Will Go Away124. Schedule Travel Trips in Batches 150125. Use Travel Time to Learn 151126. Use Travel Time to Communicate 152127. Use Travel Time to Unwind 154128. Use Travel Time to Prepare 155129. Use Airplane Time to Catch Up 156130. Use Travel Time to Read 157131. Set Personal and Family Goals 158132. Make Certain You Leave Time 159

for Personal Goals

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133. Schedule Down Time During the Day 160134. Take Brief Breaks 161135. Don’t Overwork Yourself 162136. Schedule Medical and Dental Visits 163

Well in Advance137. Schedule Medical and Dental 164

Visits for Early Morning138. Grocery Trips: Buy Bulk 165139. Organize the Closet 166140. Don’t Make Special Trips—Combine Them 167141. Organize and Systematize 169

Your Morning Procedure142. Train the Family 170143. Reward Yourself 171144. Don’t Be a Perfectionist 172145. Home Communication: 173

Are You Over-Connected?146. TV Time Sucks Away From People Time 174147. Control Children’s Access to TV 175148. Control Children’s Access to the Internet 176149. Don’t Check Your Portfolio Every Day 177150. Schedule Vacations—and Take Them! 179151. Try to Live Close to Work 180

Index 183About the Author 189

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How to Use This Book

Every quick idea in this book has been selected to directlyor indirectly help you gain and retain customers, create relation-ships, and build a successful business.

Don’t try to implement all 151 ideas at once, because somewon’t be a good fit right now. Read through all 151 quick ideasand select only those that can really make a difference at themoment. Don’t worry, you’ll go back and review the othersperiodically.

Label your ideas…

Implement now.

Review again in 30 days.

Pass the idea along to _________.

Involve your staff in selecting and implementing these ideas,and don’t forget to give credit for their success! Invest in addi-tional copies of this book and distribute them among your staff.Get everyone involved in selecting and recommending variousquick ideas.

Revisit this book every 90 days. As your business changes,you will find new quick ideas that might suit you better nowthat competition is heating up.

Remember, all the ideas in this book have been proven inbusinesses across the United States and around the world. Theyhave worked for others and will work for you!

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Introduction:

Every quick idea in this book has been selected to directlyor indirectly help you save time and stress through better orga-nization, better time management, and better people management.

Don’t try to implement all 151 ideas, because some won’tbe exactly right for you. Read through all 151 quick ideas andselect only those that can really make a big difference in yourlife. Label your ideas:

Implement now.

Review again in 30 days (or 60 or 90 days).

Pass the idea along to __________________.

Sometimes, involving your staff in selecting and implement-ing some of these ideas will not only help you, but help them aswell. Invest in some additional copies of this book and distrib-ute them among your staff as required reading. Get everyoneinvolved in selecting and recommending quick ideas. If every-one uses his or her time better, your life will also be improved.

Revisit this book every few months. As your situationchanges and new work and tasks come your way, you will findquick ideas you bypassed today that will save you time tomorrow.

Remember: All 151 ideas in this book have been proven bypeople similar to you all across the United States and aroundthe world. They work! But you must implement and followthrough with each one you choose. Do that, and you will be

This Book Can Save You Time!

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151 Quick Ideas to Manage Your Time

rewarded with more time and less stress in your life. And isn’tthat why you bought this book in the first place?

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Just as people become addicted to drugs, food, cigarettes,and other such pastimes, people get addicted to the go-golifestyles we all seem to live these days. My neighbor withthree teenagers is constantly speaking proudly about her abilityto manage multiple schedules and tasks and get it all done.Unfortunately, in the next breath, she also complains about neverhaving enough time, about her day being totally fragmented tothe point she can never concentrate on anything fully, and aboutnever being able to spend “quality time” with her family.

It wasn’t until recentlythat she came to understand,unfortunately the hard way,that she needed to bettercontrol her time scheduleinstead of allowing it to con-trol her. You see, the stressfinally got to her and she be-came severely ill—the result,according to the doctor, ofbeing on the go too much. Ofcourse, not only did shesuffer the illness (she hasrecovered nicely, thankyou), but so too did herfamily suffer.

And it did not need tohappen!

1Getting Started Is the

Toughest Step

Decide to get startedevaluating YOUR lifestylebefore you too have togo through an event theway my neighbor did.Take a look at your dailyschedule and you’lldiscover not only howhectic it is, but alsoplaces where you cansave time and trouble.

Assignment

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She used this “event” to analyze her lifestyle and daily rou-tine and decided she needed to get a better handle on it. Shenow confesses to being a “reformed” time-a-holic (her words).But it was too dramatic of an event in her life to bring her tothis realization. Many of us cannot afford such a dramatic event.So just as an alcoholic does, it’s time to assess—or reassess—our priorities.

The first thing myneighbor did to change herlife was conduct a timestudy. No, she did not callit that, but that is what shedid. Once she was able,she started a logbook ofall of her daily activities.She recorded everythingshe did every day for twoweeks. All the details.

My neighbor used this illness as a warning and as a newbeginning. She evaluated her lifestyle and time managementand began anew managing her time better. She reports thather health is better and her time with her family has increased,and yet she still accomplishes everything that is important toher every day.

EpilogueEpilogueEpilogueEpilogueEpilogue

2Consider a Time Study

Assignment

Consider this simple timestudy technique. It’s not fancyand doesn’t require you tohave any assets you don’talready have. But you willlearn a great deal from it.

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Everything she did, including when she went to the rest room,and who stopped by when, and the gory details of every meetingand appointment.

She kept times on all of these so she could go back laterand find out what took what amount of time and, in manycases, because she kept excellent details, why it took thatmuch time.

After two weeks, she had enough data. She spent a fewhours making notes on what she learned as she reviewed herlogbook. This was her analysis. Not scientific, no, but very use-ful. She learned a lot about how she spent her time.

Now that you’ve conducted the time study, and are armedwith pages of information and notes, let’s see what you havelearned. Group your activities into logical groupings: adminis-trative duties, meetings, appointments, routine tasks, non-routine tasks, and so forth.

Now see what you can learn. Are you surprised at some ofthe time? Does it seem excessive? Take a look at your notesfor those areas. What can you learn about what causes the use

Quick Ideas 2 to 3

There are companies who require their employees to keeptime study records so the company as a whole can examinetime usage and make adjustments to its systems and proce-dures. If it works for them, this simple mechanism can workfor you.


3Assess Your Problem Areas

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of time? Are there thingsyou can control? Are thereareas you can makechanges that might reducethe amount of time youspend on that area?

What you will find areplaces where some simplechanges, many outlined in

this book, will make major differences in total time spent ontasks. You cannot fix anything until you know where to look.Now you do.

As you look at your job, one of the things you need tofigure out is what you expect of that job in light of your career.As we all now know, we will not spend our lives in any one job.Probably not even in one company. Perhaps not even in onecareer field! At least, that’s what the Department of Laborstatistics are currently telling us.

AssignmentFor every area you define

as a problem, start lookingfor ways to fix the problem.Sections of this book willhelp.

Everyone has places and activities that use more timethan they should. We just don’t know where they are or whatthey are. This process leads to solutions.


4Establish Clear Goals

for Your Job

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Quick Ideas 3 to 4

So what is it that you expect from this job? Set some goalsfor your own personal and professional growth. These goalsshould be made in light of your long-range aspirations. Thesegoals should logically help lead to the accomplishment of thoselong-range aspirations.

If your long-range goal is to be a senior officer of publicrelations and communications in a major company, then whatdo you need to accomplish to get there?

You need a degree in public relations.

You need professional association membership.

You need professional certification.

You need a graduate degree.

You will need progressive jobs in public relationsin a number of sectors over a 20-year period withincreasing responsibilities.

You may need an industry specialization.

With these goals in mind, what objectives should you setfor your current job? Look at that “progressive jobs” and“increasing responsibilities” stuff. Can you get that from thisjob? Then establish those as objectives. Do you need to startpreparing for professionalcertification? Then set anobjective and set asidetime.

You should establishclear objectives that youwant to accomplish forevery job you will everhold. Then work to accom-plish those objectives. Planyour job activities, and yourtime, accordingly.

AssignmentSet career and job goals.

Your own goals and objec-tives, not your boss’s or yourcompany’s. Then work toachieve those goals and ob-jectives within the context ofyour current job.

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It is not enough to just establish some career goals and jobobjectives. You need to write them down and refer to themroutinely. I went through this process many years ago at theurging of my then-boss. Ican’t thank him enough nowfor putting me through thatexercise.

But I wrote down thosegoals and objectives in clearlanguage and have referredto them routinely ever since.No, they have not stayedexactly the same. Some ofthe goals have been modi-fied, and, of course, I cre-ated new objectives forevery job I ever held.

If we don’t have goals and objectives, we simply wanderthrough life aimlessly. And aimless is likely to lead somewherewe don’t want to end up.


5Write Down Your Goals

and Objectives

AssignmentWrite down your career

and life goals and the objec-tives you have for your currentjob. Keep them somewhereyou can refer to on a routine,perhaps monthly, basis. Keepupdating them as you movefrom job to job.

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Quick Ideas 5 to 6

But because I wrote them down, I have a clear record 25years later of how I came to be on the road I am on today.Writing them down also gave me a life document to refer towhen faced with major career and life decisions, such as whento change jobs, or when to consider certain activities at certaintimes.

These written records I still have in the original notebook Ifirst used to create them. They are valuable life tools.

Armed with your life and career goals, and your job objec-tives, you can now begin to create some expectation of thetime you should spend on them. Look over your job objectivesand allocate time every week or month for achieving theseobjectives.

This also helps you make decisions about which additionalduties you might take on and which activities you take on afterwork, or in addition to your work.

Written records allow you to do some decision-makingabout your jobs and your career—sometimes even your life.And they help you know what you want from every job andwhat kind of time you should spend on those personalobjectives in each job.


6Set Clear Goals for Time Use

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For example, one of mygoals was to become in-volved in a professionalassociation of my peers. Acouple of jobs ago, I set ajob objective to do just that.And I established timeevery month to be involvedin that association. It helpedme orient my time both onthe job and after the job tomy long-range career goals.

A very useful device.

With these time allocations, establish some daily and weeklyobjectives that involve time working to achieve them. Yourweekly objectives might be quite modest, but, taken over weeksand months, they will add up and lead to achieving those jobobjectives and lead to meeting career goals.

Assignment

Using your job objec-tives for your current job,establish some time forachieving those objectives. Itmight be time during theworkday, or time after work,or time from both areas. Butestablish how you plan to useyour time to get these objec-tives accomplished.

Not only will this process help you achieve your life andcareer goals, but it will also help you orient yourself to the joband plan for the time you use on the job.


7Set Daily and Weekly Objectives

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Quick Ideas 6 to 8

The key point here isplanning to allocate time tospend on the key things inyour life. This can, and of-ten should, include personalgoals and objectives thatinvolve family. Don’t forgetyour obligations to them.

The best way to get off to a good start in the morning is todo it the night before!

Yes. Prepare for your day the night before by doing somesimple things that will help you begin your day efficiently andeffectively. It’s a simple thing to do.

Assignment

Establish some overalltime objectives each day andweek to spend on achievingyour job objectives. This willmake certain you will get tothose goals you set for yourlife and career.

Planning for your future and for your success is the nameof the game here. If you set aside time, you’ll get there. If youonly use time for these things as it comes available, you’ll findyourself out of time every time and you’ll never get there.


8Start Your Day the Night Before

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First, at the end of each day prior to leaving for home,review your schedule for the next day. Determine the major

activities and tasks you willbe accomplishing the nextday and do any preparationthat might be appropriate:retrieve the necessary files,send any coordinating mes-sages, read any materialsyou need to consume inpreparation.

The idea is to make allyour preparations for thenext day the night before.

Then, when you walk in you are ready to start, effectively,efficiently, and with no delays for preparation. Your prepara-tion is already done.

I’ll write more about this later in the book, but one of themost time-consuming and time-challenging problems manypeople face is procrastination.

Assignment

Start your day the nightbefore by making any prepa-rations you need to then.You’ll begin your day freshand prepared, not behind theschedule already.

This technique has the added advantage of preparingyou psychologically for the day and giving your day a greatstart.


9Don’t Procrastinate

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Quick Ideas 8 to 10

Procrastination is put-ting things off instead ofdoing them right away. It’swaiting until the last minuteto complete a task or projectbecause it isn’t exciting orisn’t interesting. Or perhapsit’s just a project that youarenot prepared for, don’tknow enough about, or isthreatening in some way.

Though not terribly damaging in the big picture of things,some studies have shown procrastination to cost a person twiceas much time as the task should take.

Start thinking about this now. Are you one of those people?Do you put things off until the last minute? If so, you are costingyourself lots of time, and managing your time badly.

Pareto’s Principle: 80–20Okay, so who’s this Pareto guy and why do we care?Vilfredo Pareto was an Italian economist. He observed

that, in any give endeavor, 80 percent of the rewards wereceive come from only 20 percent of the effort. He’s telling

Assignment

Do some self-analysis.Determine if you are a pro-crastinator. If so, stop. If youneed help, pay particularattention to Ideas 115–123of this book.

Procrastination is terribly costly in time and efficiency.It’s one of the most significant causes of lost time and overtime.


10

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us that only 20 percent ofthe work we do will lead usto most of the rewards inlife.

That’s pretty depressing!We will be rewarded foronly 20 percent of the workwe do? Well, not quite, butmost of our reward does

come from a very small percentage of our work. So what doesit mean to us? How do we use this information?

Knowing this allows us to prioritize our work appropriately.We will want to put the things that we believe will bring us theproper rewards—personal, professional, organizational—highon our priority list and everything else lower.

The first step in getting control of your time management isto prioritize your work. If we put the stuff that brings us rewardfirst, how do we organize this?

Assignment

As you think about priori-tizing your work, as you willin the next few ideas, remem-ber Pareto’s Principle.

Let’s face it: though it all needs to get done, the stuff thatwe are rewarded for should be the most important stuff we doand should get priority for our attention.


11The ABCs of Prioritizing

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Quick Ideas 10 to 12

It’s not brain surgery, but there is a simple system to help.The system just asks you to organize all your work into threecategories, from high to low priority. We’ll call them CategoryA, B, and C. A is high pri-ority, B is medium priority,and C is low priority.

Now go ahead and setup your prioritization sys-tem and do this routinely.The next few ideas willwalk you through what fitsin each category.

The priority items are the must do’s. These are things thatmeet some or all of the following criteria:

Not doing them will get you fired.

Doing them fit the 20-percent rule of Pareto’sPrinciple.

They are things that have a due date near today.

Assignment

Regularly prioritize yourtasks, especially when youmake up your To Do List.Use this ABC system.

Not everything is high priority. Not everything is reallyimportant. And not everything has to be done today. Thissystem allows you to organize effectively around the thingsthat are important.


12The A in ABC

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They are things that match your personal andprofessional goals or objectives.

They are assignedby the boss.

Your criteria might bedifferent, but there will becriteria that will dictate thatsome things need to bedone NOW. That is yourA List. Things that takepriority over everythingelse. Things that are impor-tant. Things that haveconsequences.

The B priorities are things that need to be done but are notnecessarily of major consequence or not due soon. Examineyour tasks and organize the B List. It should be a group of

Assignment

Prioritize your tasksand duties. Decide whichare A priority and put themat the top of your To DoList. Manage them closelyand get them done. Theyare important.

Use your To Do List to manage these items. Remember,if it’s on the A List, it’s important to someone important.That might be you or it might be your boss. It doesn’t matter.Just don’t make everything an A List item. Then the systemhas no value.


13The B in ABC

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tasks that need to get com-pleted but either are notimportant enough to getdone today or tomorrow, orsimply don’t need to getdone soon. Perhaps theydon’t need to get done untila week from now.

Put your B List on yourTo Do List below the A Listitems. But don’t think youcan forget about thesetasks. Many will simplymove up into the A List overtime as their due dates getcloser.

So as you have time,work on some B List itemsalong with the A List. That’s why they go on your To Do List inthe first place: to be managed and fit in when you can.

Assignment

Look at your remainingtasks after the A List isdetermined. Cull out thosethings that simply aren’t dueyet or have lesser conse-quences. They may not pro-vide the potential for rewardor there’s some other reasonwhy they are not as impor-tant as A List items, but theystill need to be accomplished.Get those B items on yourTo Do List.

Never forget that B List items still have to be done. Theyjust don’t necessarily need to be done today. But perhapstomorrow....


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14The C in ABC

Now to that C List. But first, a story.Earlier in my career I had a friend who used the ABC sys-

tem. He always put his A List in a basket on his desk to beworked on immediately. His B List items he had in another bas-ket below the A List basket. But his C List, now that was adifferent story. He put all his C List work in the bottom drawer ofhis desk. And he never brought it out unless someone asked

about it.You see, his C List was

comprised of items that sim-ply were not important tohim or anyone he caredabout. They often died in thebottom drawer. If someonecame in and asked himabout one of those items, hewould pull it out and it wouldbecome part of the B List.Otherwise, that was wherework went to die for him.

And that’s a prettygood way to look at your CList. It’s stuff that just isn’t

that important. Stuff that isn’t critical. Stuff that has no poten-tial for rewards. Stuff no one is likely to care about. We all getthat stuff. Put it in the C List and do it if you have time; ignoreit otherwise. If its status changes, you can always move it up tothe B List.

Assignment

Take those items thatare not important and putthem on the C List. Put themaway somewhere and re-view them occasionally tosee if any should move up.If you have extra time (ha!),go ahead and work on someof them. Otherwise, let themage as good wine does.

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15Write Down Tasks as You

Receive Them


Do remember to occasionally review your C List. Some-times projects and tasks have to be moved up for a variety ofreasons. Something that was unimportant today might sud-denly turn out to be important next week. Otherwise, in yourcrowded schedule, concentrate on the stuff that matters.


We often get instructions and tasks passed to us verbally.Though not always the best way to do this, it’s certainly themost common. Unfortunately, in the heat of the daily battle,sometimes these things can be forgotten.

It’s always a good policy to immediately make a note aboutany task given to you verbally. This begins your work recordfor the task or project andallows you to have a docu-ment to remind you of it.It should be written assoon as possible after it isgiven so the memory ofthe instructions is fresh andyou can capture all thedetail you were provided.

It should also immedi-ately go on your prioritizedTo Do List. Put it where it

Assignment

Write down verbal in-structions and new taskscommunicated verbally.This starts your record, getsit on to your To Do List, andallows you to track your taskto success.

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belongs, but get it on there. That way you will not forget it asyour review your To Do List every day.

All of your assignments and everything on your To Do Listshould have a deadline for completion. This deadline should beone you impose yourself and should be a day or so before theactual deadline.

Setting deadlines pro-vides you with a planningand organizing tool, andsetting deadlines earlyallows for problems orslippage in your workschedule while still allow-ing the work to get doneon time. So, if you are outsick a couple of days andone of your project’s dead-line is the day you return,

Capturing this information in writing saves you time laterin remembering the task late and having to scramble to get itdone. It also saves you with all the details so you don’t haveto waste time going back for information you were alreadyprovided.


16Set Deadlines for Assignments

Assignment

Assign deadlines forevery task and project.Make them one or two daysin advance of the actualdeadline to provide yourselfwith a buffer in case ofproblems.

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you don’t have to scramble to get it done, because you havebuilt in some buffer time between your deadline and the actualdeadline.

One of the pitfalls of allwork is the danger of over-committing yourself to work.Later I’ll write about theability to say NO, but this isa danger we all face con-stantly. You need to be ableto keep your commitments,both professional and per-sonal, at a level that allowsyou some ability to easilyadjust to changing conditionsand changing priorities.

This means that sometimes you have to say no to people. Itmeans that you might have to delegate some work. It meansthat you need to protect about 20 percent of your time to use to

I use this method routinely, and I find that my bacon hasbeen saved many times without burning the midnight oil byhaving deadlines and, more importantly, setting deadlinesearly.


17Under-Commit and Over-Deliver

Assignment

Fence part of every dayfor contingencies and forother unpredicted work. Itwill require you to be toughwith decision-making, andyou will have to develop theability to say no or say“later.”

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handle the many things that just come up and cannot be plannedfor. Yet you can plan for them if you keep yourself only 80percent committed.

Just as importantly, you need to give more than 100 per-cent on every task or project. That’s what leads both to jobsatisfaction as well as supervisor satisfaction. Don’t just do thejob—do it right, on time, and better than anyone else. That kindof behavior brings rewards.

We all keep score.Let’s admit it. Of course wedo. Keeping score is theAmerican way! And it’snot a bad thing to do on thejob as well.

But by keeping scoreon the job, I don’t mean youversus everyone else. Imean keep score againstthe To Do List—against all

Obviously you cannot say no to your boss. But you cansay no to someone who asks you to serve on a committee, orsomeone who asks you to help coach the office softball teamafter work. Protect 20 percent of your time and you’ll savetime later.


18Keep Score

Assignment

As you complete tasksand projects, check them offyour To Do List visibly. Usea special color to annotatetasks that are completed.The To Do List will start toresemble a score card andyou’ll get motivated by it.

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those tasks that you have to accomplish. On your To Do List,check them off boldly as you go. I use a red line to do that. Itstands out.

As I see things getting done by red lines appearing on my list,I am keeping score. I’m tracking my success. And I keep doingthat every day. It’s almost a personal reward system to see howI’m doing against the other team—that is, the items on the list. It’sactually quite motivating and keeps me on task and on target.

Managing your time means knowing what to do with yourtime. Although it seems an inconvenience, creating a To DoList is a great tool for making the most of the time available toyou. Once I started using a To Do List, I became much betterat managing my time—and I saved time as well!

A To Do List is simply that: a list of things that must bedone. The list keeps you aware of the tasks you need toaccomplish and provides you with a tool to manage those tasks.To make the best use of a To Do List, follow these simpleprocedures:

I’ve had others try this trick in other offices I’ve workedin. And although it doesn’t always work (because some peopleare simply not competitive), it works quite effectively for mostpeople. It keeps them on task and actually makes them moreefficient. And, yes, they save time.


19Make a To Do List

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1. List all tasks that have to be accomplished.2. Then order them by date of requirement (when

the task must be accomplished).3. Check off items that are completed.4. Update routinely (once a day should do).

The To Do List shouldbe your primary taskmanagement tool. Assuch, you should refer toit routinely. Use it. Man-age it. Update it as newtasks come in and as youcomplete old tasks.

Some software programs allow you to create and man-age Task Lists or To Do Lists. If you are comfortable usingthese programs, then do so. If not, just use a lined piece ofpaper. Remake it once a week or so.

I already said that, I know. But I didn’t tell you how. Here’smy story; steal any good ideas from it.

Assignment

Create a To Do List anduse it.

Using a To Do List will help you prioritize your work, bemore efficient, and save you time.


20Use the To Do List!

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Every evening before I go home I review my To Do List. Ireprioritize anything due the next day by moving it to the top ofthe list so I’ll see it first thing in the morning. I reprioritize any-thing else according to when it is due.

Every morning, I review my To Do List and set my day’swork accordingly. As new tasks come in that I am respon-sible for, I add them to the list in the right order of priority. As youcan imagine, those things due soon are at the top of the list, andthose due later are at the bottom.

This is not foolproof. Ioften will put somethingtoward the top that requiresa great deal of work so I getto it soon enough to have theproject done on time. In ad-dition, anything that is re-ally important to me or theorganization might end uphigher on the list than the duedate suggests.

As tasks are accomplished, I cross them off the list. At theend of the day I review and…well, you know.

Assignment

Start using your To DoList on a daily basis to man-age your workload and yourtime.

I have found that using a To Do List saves me time andmakes certain that I don’t have to “burn the midnight oil”because I forgot something.


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Because my To Do List is electronic, I share that with theother members of my work team and my boss. It helps whenthe boss is determining whois to take on new projectsor tasks to review others tosee what their workload is.My boss can quickly lookat my To Do List and seeif I can handle anotherproject or task.

Members of my workteam can do the same whenthey are looking to get helpon a project or pass onsome work. Everyoneknows what I’m working on and can adjust accordingly. If youdon’t use an electronic list everyone can see, simply post yoursoutside your door or cubicle.

Of course, if you don’t have much to do, expect some workto come your way!

21Share the To Do List

Assignment

Make your To Do Listavailable to others in youroffice, and especially to yourboss. This helps communicateyour workload to others sothey don’t gang up on you.

This will save you from project or task overload, hope-fully, and can also help communicate all the tasks you areworking on to your boss. Of course, to be useful, it has to beaccurate and up to date.


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The To Do List is worthless if it is not up to date—worth-less to you and worthless to others. If the list is out of date, youcan’t trust it to tell you where your priorities lay. As a result,you could easily spend time on a project or task at the expenseof something due very soon, then spend evening hours catchingup when you discover the error.

Also, you need to update the list as you go so that, as projectschange and deadlines get moved, you annotate that on your listand adjust the items on the priority list.

Of course, always check off items that have been accom-plished. It’s a great way to track what you have done on agiven day or during a given week.

Finally, make sure you add all new tasks and get them inthe priority list. When you start relying on this list, missing justone item can cause you no end of headaches later.

And if it’s up to date,your boss will see how youare managing time andwork, and may pass onnew work and tasks toothers—or relieve you ofsome of your workload ifyou appear to be over-loaded. When I did amanual To Do List (pen and paper) I always provided a copy tomy boss every Monday morning so he knew what I wasworking on.

22Update the To Do List

Assignment

Keep your To Do Listscrupulously up to date. Andprovide a copy to your boss.

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You’ve all seen those signs over people’s desks: “A clut-tered desk is a brilliant mind.” Well, maybe. But that’s similarto those signs in kitchensthat read: “Never eat foodcooked by a skinny chef.”Nonsense.

But usually a cluttereddesk means it’s managedby a cluttered mind, and amind that is not as produc-tive as it could be. Yourtime is often controlled byhow well you control yourenvironment.

23Organize Your Workspace: General

Assignment

Examine your workspace to determine if it isorganized to allow you towin the war. If not, reorga-nize. Follow some of thesimple ideas that follow.

At first my boss wasn’t sure why I was giving him the list.After about two weeks he found it so valuable that he startedrequiring it of everyone who worked for him. Keep your ToDo List scrupulously up to date. And provide a copy to yourboss.


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Your workspace is your castle! At least while you are atwork. And your castle should be organized in such a way as toallow you to be as productive and efficient as possible.

So think about how you work, and examine your office orcubicle. Is it orderly? Is it organized to allow you to work effi-ciently? Does it help you control the flow of work, or paper, orvisitors? If not, you need think about an office makeover.Makeovers are very popular now, so give it a go.

The first problem areaI usually find when I helppeople get organized is thedesktop. If I find piles ofpaper in no seeming orderall over the desktop, I knowI have my work cut out forme. Organizing is fairlysimple, but is also fairlypersonal. There is no one

24Organize Your Workspace: The Desktop

Assignment

Take a look at your desk-top organization. Is everythingstacked up haphazardly? Dis-organized? Spread out all overthe place? Get organized!Conduct a makeover of yourdesktop.

Organization leads to efficiency. Efficiency leads to savedtime. Save time by being efficient. Be efficient by being orga-nized. Start with your workspace.


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way or right answer. Only you can decide the best way toorganize your desktop.

However, there are some principles that you should consider.They are:

How does work come to you? By paper, by e-mail,or by mail? Is there a central location on yourdesk where such new assignments can live untilyou handle them? If not, create one. The tradi-tional “in basket” is still a useful tool today.

How do you manage the documents for a task orproject? Are then stacked up in a pile somewhere?Do you know where? Organizing these docu-ments, even notes from meetings, is important.The easiest way is the traditional manila folder.Put the folder in a file or in a wire rack on yourdesktop.

Where are your tools (pencils, pens, the telephone,the computer, office supplies, and so forth)? Ifthey are scattered about haphazardly, then orga-nize them. Have the computer where you canreach it easily. Put the phone at hand, not behindyou. Keep office supplies in a drawer somewhere,easy to reach but out of the way. Pens, pencils,and notepads should not be strewn about the desk,but in a drawer at easy reach.

Organization saves time. And time is what we are after.EpilogueEpilogueEpilogueEpilogueEpilogue

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Those who said the computer would lead us to the paperlessoffice were lying! There’s more paper than ever. So, what todo with all that paper.

All too often, it ends up in piles on the desk. This leads tolost time while you look for just the right document or file orreport. Not only do you waste your time, but you tend to wasteothers’ time as well as they wait for you on the phone or in theoffice.

Again, the best solutionis the traditional one: theubiquitous manila folder. Putall documents into a com-mon folder. Organize themin any way you want. Chro-nological works if you dateall your files. Or you mightwant to attach the projector task time line on the inside cover and organize the papersinside by content. Whatever works for you is the best way to do it.

25Organize Your Workspace:

Paper Files

Assignment

Organize your paperfiles. Use manila folders andestablish a system that worksfor you.

Getting all your paper into folders creates order fromchaos and productivity from waste, and will truly save youtime during each and every day.


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Okay, so what do you do with all those folders you’ve justmade? Stack them back on the desk? I think not! Create afiling system instead.

There are lots of books out there that tell you how to orga-nize your files. Ignore them all! Organize them any way you

want so long as you knowwhat the system is andwhere the files can befound. That’s all that matters.

My method is to keepactive folders for workingprojects on my desk on wireracks where I can easilyreach them. I store olderfiles in a filing cabinet. Mysystem for the filing cabi-

net? Simple: alphabetical. No muss, no fuss. Project name byalpha order. It’s easy even for someone else to find if I’m outof the office.

26Organize Your Workspace: Folders

Assignment

This system is simpleand easy to set up and use.Try it. You’ll find it, or some-thing similar to it, a real time-saver.

You will find yourself much more productive using afiling system. Nothing fancy, but any system has been demon-strated to save up to 15 minutes a day compared to thosewith no system.


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But the paper files arenot the only files we havetoday. All those computerrecords, reports, memos,e-mails, and so forth needto go somewhere too.

Again, set up folders forthem all and name the elec-tronic folders the same wayand with the same labels youused for paper folders.

I always find that it is helpful to keep current task andproject folders right on the desktop so I don’t have to searchfor them or take three or four clicks to reach them. Oneclick opens the folder and the list of documents.

Also remember to clearly label the various documents in thefolder so you can tell what is in the document. Nothing wastestime as much time as having to open three or four documentsuntil you find the right one just because your labels were sloppy.


Electronic Files

Assignment

Set up folders and filesfor your tasks and projects.Put the current ones on yourelectronic desktop for quickretrieval.

You’ll save an enormous amount of time doing this. OnceI got the handle on this system, I suspect I’ve saved about 15minutes a day over my old haphazard system. Again, remember:A little here and a little there, and you’ve saved a significantamount of time.


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You have to call people all the time. You send mail all thetime. You address memos and letters all the time. So you needa quick way to reach your contacts or their information.

The old system, one I grew up on, was to keep an addressbook. Yes, a paper address book with little colored tabs and

everything. And it workedfine. The only weakness wasthat it is a written record, notan electronic one.

Today I am much moreefficient because I keep allthat information in an elec-tronic database. I use acommon product, and thereare a number of very goodones out there, includingMicrosoft Outlook, ACT,and Goldmine to name justa few.

The advantage to all of these products is that they are elec-tronic. You can export information quickly from them into wordprocessing documents, onto labels, and into databases andspreadsheets. And you can look things up very quickly. Paperis slow compared to these electronic address books.

And, if you use a PDA (personal data assistant), you cansynchronize your data right to the PDA from your computerand have all that data at hand when you are out of the office.Now that’s time-saving efficiency.

28Organize Your Workspace: Contacts

Assignment

Establish your elec-tronic address book. Pick anapplication and use it. Onceyou spend the time to set itup initially, it will save youtime daily as you need thatinformation. Just rememberto keep it up to date.

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Sometimes they just get away from you. Those old filesbuild up fast. So fast you suddenly run out of room to storethem. What to do?

Get rid of them. I have a colleague who works at a con-sulting firm. The firm produces a lot of paper, including memos,research documents, draft reports, and so on. She indicatesthat they have one day each month where everyone in the firmgoes through their files and cleans them out. She says theyhave to be ruthless about it!

They keep anythingthat has long-term value:samples for future work, fi-nal reports, basic researchdocuments. But they tossanything that was used tocreate those final docu-ments: old memos (theirrule is older than three

The combination of the electronic address book and aPDA has been one of the most important time-saving tools ofthe past decade. You should take advantage, as many othershave.



Cull Your Files

Assignment

Don’t let your files over-whelm you. Cull and kill ona routine basis—perhapsonce a month or quarterly.

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years), personal notes of meetings and calls, the survey returnsfrom research or interview records from old interviews. Allthat goes.

Their goal is to keep from having to store anything in long-term storage, but retain anything that would be of lasting value.To protect their clients, everything is shredded.

Some people justwait all day for the mailand distribution to arrive.It’s the highlight of theirday. Unfortunately, theyoften end up anticipatingit, and when it arrives justhave to jump on it imme-diately no matter whatthey are doing.

Unfortunately, bothof these behaviors aretime-wasters.

Old records just make it hard to find the valuable stuff,and it takes your time to wade through it all. Don’t destroyrecords you are legally bound to keep, such as financial recordsand personnel records.


30Handle Your Mail Efficiently

Assignment

Mail and internal distri-bution usually happensaround the same time ortimes every day in most or-ganizations. Set your sched-ule to get it and handle it. Dothat around your otherprojects; don’t let this stuffinterrupt your thinking andworking processes.

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The best way to handle mail and internal distribution is tojust let it arrive when it arrives, and set a time to handle it.Don’t let it drive your schedule; you keep control. All too oftenI see people stop something important or interrupt a project toopen their mail and look at internal distribution.

This leads to lost time, as they then have their day frag-mented by that activity. They have to return to that project andget back into it before they are as effective as they were whenthey were engrossed in it. It costs time.

One time-killer, and one that causes late nights and muchworry, is forgetting a key deadline. Ever happen to you? Ofcourse. You discover at 3 o’clock in the afternoon that youhave forgotten to create a report to be used at a meeting thenext morning. What happens? You work late to get it done, andthat sets you back on other projects you’ll have to catch up onthe next day.

The way to keep this from happening is to establish a “sus-pense file.” This is a simple set of files numbered from 1 to 31.These represent the days of each month (yes, I know, not everymonth has 31 days, but…). Into each file folder (yep, those

Every time you let something or someone break into yourflow of work, you lose time. Don’t let this happen to you.


31Use a Suspense File

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pesky manila folders) putany document or a note ofan action that is due thenext day. For example, ifyou have a report due onFriday the 10th, in the filefolder for the 9th put a re-minder document or theoriginal task document.Then, each morning, checkyour suspense file.

This system keeps you from being surprised and helps youorganize your work time. Of course, if something is going totake longer to accomplish, put that item a few days earlier inthe file folder.

You absolutely need to have command of your schedule.And the only way to do that is to keep a calendar or schedulerfor all the activities you are involved in and are scheduled toparticipate in. Keep it as detailed as you can.

Assignment

Create a suspense filefor yourself and check itevery day. Remember thatit will not work for you un-less you use it regularly.

This one simple trick has reduced the amount of hours Ihave had to spend doing things at the last minute to a bareminimum. And as a consequence, it has saved many hours oflate nights.


32Keep Only One Planner/Scheduler

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There are a number of excellent computer applications thatwill help you with this, or you can simply create one with paperforms. This allows you to refer to it routinely to make certainyou are on time to meetings and appointments.

You can also use one of these to track your deadlines. Justadd them to the schedule each day as notes. Then your suspensefile and your scheduler bothhelp you stay on target toget everything done ontime.

A reminder, though:keep only one of these.Don’t try to have one inyour computer and anotherone in a small pocket cal-endar. Not only is this du-plication of effort, but it isalmost certain you will forget to update one or the other andwill miss something. You could, however, use a PDA.

Some people just can’t do without their “stuff.” Theiroffice/cubicle is just packed full of their stuff. Know anyone

Assignment

Create a daily planner/scheduler for yourself thatincludes all your tasks foreach day and any meetingsor appointments.

How does this save time? It keeps you from missing some-thing and having to take extra time to make up for it.


33What to Keep—and What Not to Keep

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like that? I have a friend who simply cannot throw anythingaway. As a result, his office is completely cluttered with all his“stuff.”

Ordinarily this would not be much of a problem, but whentoo much stuff accumulates, you begin to lose track of whereeverything is. It leads to sloppy filing, sloppy record-keeping,

and an inability to keep con-trol of your work environ-ment. So, when someonerequests something from myfriend, he has it—andknows he has it—he just hasto search for it every time.So it costs extra time.

Guard against this lossof time by getting rid of allthat “stuff.” If you don’tneed it, get rid of it. If youdo need it, put it in a routineplace you can find it easily.

If you “might” need it, store it away somewhere where youcan get at it when you need it, but somewhere that doesn’tclutter your work environment.

Assignment

Inventory your work-space. Organize. Get rid ofthat old stuff. Store the stuffyou use. Put everything elseyou just think you might needsomewhere out of the way.Keep your workspace clearand ready for action.

Don’t waste time trying to find things. Put everything inits right place and store away things that will cost you timeworking around later.


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We all have thosedocuments we write thatare drafts. We pass themaround for others to review;get their comments, redmarks, and corrections; andthen compile a f inaldocument for use.

What do we do with allthose drafts we now have? Most of us file them forever! Why?They are no good to anyone. So the answer is to pitch thatstuff!

Draft documents should be kept only as long as the finaldocument has not been used or approved. Once that happens,all those drafts should be shredded and disposed of. There isabsolutely no reason to keep that stuff around junking up files.

34What to Do With Draft Documents

Assignment

Start today with a newpolicy of disposing of draftdocuments. Shred themafter the final version is usedor approved.

There is only one reason to keep any draft documents:CYA. If you need that, keep them only until that need is gone.


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We all give them out, and we all get them all the time.Business cards from people we meet and do business with—ornot. I have stacks of them in my office. Every time I go some-where I tend to meet new people. And we always exchangebusiness cards.

It’s a useful convention in our society. But those businesscards can sure build up. There are a couple of ways to handleall those cards so they can be useful. Certainly just keepingthem in a desk drawer is not the right answer.

One way, perhaps thebest way, is to simply makea point of transferring thedata from the business cardto a contact database onceyou return to the office.That’s what I do routinely.Because I write notes on thebacks of the card—the

place I met the person, circumstances, personal observations—I also transfer that information to the database. Then I pitchthe card. It’s served its usefulness, and I don’t need a bunch ofcards hanging around cluttering my workspace.

Another way is to buy card notebooks. These are small-sized binders with inserts for business cards. Though not asuseful as a database, these offer a neat way to maintain thosecards, and their information, for future use.

Find a method of filing them that makes sense to you. Justdon’t let them pile up. Because when you need one, you willthen have to waste time searching for it.

35Handle Business Cards

Assignment

Pick a solution and useit. The best way is the data-base, especially a contactdatabase.

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Scheduling is important to creating an efficient workday.Scheduling, although considered restrictive by some, is the besttool in our arsenal to combat wasted and lost time.

One of the first things you need to understand about your-self, however, is your most effective working hours. We allhave them, and they tend to be different for everyone. I, forexample, am a morning person. I rise every day at 5 a.m. andam at work by 7 a.m. I am very efficient and task-oriented inthe morning hours. An analysis of my productivity showed methat I actually get 65 percent of my day’s work done in the firstfour to five hours of the day.

You might be different.You might be an eveningperson or an afternoon per-son. Whichever you are,plan your day accordingly.

If you are a morningperson, put your most impor-tant task early on yourschedule. If you are anafternoon person, put them

I’ve watched friends who simply toss their cards in a sidedesk drawer search through that drawer for the card fromsomeone they suddenly want to call or contact. What a wasteof time! A little organization goes a long way.


36Know Your Best Working Hours

Assignment

Be a little introspectiveand determine what your bestand most efficient workinghours are. Then scheduleyour most important workfor that time of day.

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in the afternoon. Know when you are at your most efficient,and use that knowledge in getting the most out of your day.

One of the things youwant to do with your bestworking times is scheduleimportant appointmentsand meetings when you areat your best and most effi-cient. If you are a morningperson, as I am, scheduleimportant meetings, ap-pointments, and office callsfor the morning. I find I’mmore efficient and use timebetter that way.

This doesn’t mean you ignore the rest of the day! It justmeans that you acknowledge when you are at your best andtake advantage of that. It simply makes the best use of yourtime.


37Make Critical Appointments at

Your Best Times

Assignment

Schedule meetings,appointments, and officecalls during your peakworking times, when youare at your best. Thoughthis is not always possible,focus on getting most ofthem in when you are mostefficient.

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I’m also sharper then and do better work during the morn-ings. Things don’t take as long and the outcomes are better.

Scheduling these events later in the day for me leads tolonger meetings and longer appointments because I’m not atmy sharpest. You’ll find the same thing happening to you.

So, once you know what your best working times, conductyour important meetings then. You’ll find you have shortermeetings with better outcomes when you schedule this way.

Once you are on a rollwith one kind of task, youare focused on the elementsand the type of work re-quired for that task. So, itonly makes sense that ifyou schedule similar taskstogether, you will be morefocused and less frag-mented. You’ll find that youcan be much more efficientif you group all your liketasks together at one time.

I timed meetings I called. Those that were held in theafternoon always went 15–20 minutes longer than those inthe morning—even if it was the same group on the sametopic! Strategic scheduling of meetings does save time.


38Group Similar Tasks

Assignment

Group similar tasks to-gether during the day orweek. You’ll be more effi-cient and use your time bet-ter. Your outcomes will alsobe better because you’ll befocused in your work.

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For example, I group all my administrative tasks togetherat one time of the day—sometimes one time each week. I hatedoing this stuff, so I group it all together so that when I do focuson it, I can get it done as quickly as possible.

I found that when I scattered these tasks throughout theday or week, I was not nearly as efficient with time. It tendedto fragment the day and cost time. With my way, I also get aseries of unpleasant tasks out of the way all at once.

When we fence ouryards, it is either to keepsomething in—a pet, forexample—or to keep some-thing out—such as some-one else’s pet. Or kids. Weneed to do this with ourwork schedule, too.

Once you know yourmost effective time of theday, put up a fence. Fencethe time to keep others out.

Once I discovered the efficiencies of doing administrativetasks all together, I looked at other tasks I could grouptogether for efficiency. I found four more areas I could dowith this. It has saved me significant time every week.


39Put Up a Fence

Assignment

When you plan yourday—as you must (see thenext few ideas on schedul-ing)—make certain youfence your most efficienttimes. Protect them andyou’ll be much more produc-tive and go home on time.

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The more you keep them out, the more you can concentrate onyour work during your most effective time of the day withoutgetting fragmented and interrupted.

How to do that? Some tricks: If you share electroniccalendars, block the time out. If you have a door, close it. Ifyou get interrupted, be polite but dismissive. Send them awaywith an appointment for later. Put your phone on DND (do notdisturb). Don’t check your e-mail (and stop the system frompopping up with that “you have mail” message!).

Stuff happens! We all know that. Almost every day thingsoccur that you have not planned for you yet must be dealt with.These unplanned activities can certainly eat away at a day,especially if you don’t plan for them.

What can happen? Your boss stops by with a new assign-ment and eats up a half hour. A client calls for a long chat abouta future project she wants you to work on—and eats up 45minutes. An employee has a personal problem and just needs

Fencing that time keeps you in and minimizes thedistractions and interruptions—and thus makes the best useof your time.


40Block Contingency Time

Every Day

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someone to listen andperhaps make somesuggestions—another 25minutes. One of your workteams experiences a delayin a project and you haveto step in to help make aseries of new decisions—40 minutes gone.

They happen and youcan’t stop them. So, planfor the unexpected.

Scheduling is a process. And there a lot of people out therewho can suggest a way to effectively schedule your daily work.Here’s one that is at least as good as anything else you willfind.

Assignment

Every day, set asidesome time for unplannedactivities. Only you knowhow much time to assignbased on your experience,but always plan for theunexpected.

I have a friend who did a detailed analysis of how muchtime during his day was spent on unplanned activities. He wasshocked. He was spending more than two hours a day onunplanned activities. Yet he had not scheduled any such time,so he was spending an extra two hours each evening catchingup. Now he plans for it.


41Scheduling:

A 5-Step Process

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Keep a schedule forevery workday. Conductyour planning for each daythe night before so you areready for each day whenyou arrive. The best tool isan electronic calendar, butyou can use a simple paper

calendar if you don’t use a computer. The main point is to planyour day. It doesn’t really matter what tool you use to do it.

This process has five easy steps, takes very little time, willsaves you time, and allows you to be more efficient.

The first step is toclearly identify the time youhave available. This meansknowing what meetings youhave to block out, what out-of-office events will takeplace that will keep youfrom working, and so on.

Assignment

Start tonight. Create awork schedule for tomorrowand stick to it.

Use this five-step process. It will save you time in thelong run and does not take a lot of time itself.


42Scheduling: Step1

Assignment

Identify your time avail-able. Block out things thatwill limit your productivework time, such as meetings.

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Remember, too, to account for those things in your personallife, such as the kids’ soccer match, or your daughter’s pianorecital that evening. These personal things will be identifiedduring your goal-planning session we discussed earlier in thebook, so don’t forget them.

Once all these things are identified, put this time in yourcalendar as available. Then move to Step 2.

Now that you know what time is available each day, deter-mine the priority tasks that must be accomplished that day foryou to be able to declare the day a success. Block time to

accomplish those tasks andlist those first on your day’sTo Do List.

Don’t forget the To DoList as a part of this pro-cess. The list must matchthe calendar.

Don’t discount this step in the process. You have timesyou are not available. Block them out so you can planeffectively.


43Scheduling: Step 2

Assignment

Identify your “must do”tasks and estimate the timerequired for them. Then blockthat time on your calendar.

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The third step is toplan for the regular house-keeping tasks you have toaccomplish every day orevery week. You knowthese things—those ad-ministrative tasks I wroteabout earlier, or that stan-dard report task that youhave to do every Friday. Often these will be recurring and youcan put them in your calendar quite quickly.

These tasks are the important ones that, if accomplished,make the day a success. Do this for every day and in the timealloted, and every day will be a success.



These things take time, but if you plan for them routinely,they will take the minimum time necessary and not be anafterthought that makes you stay a half hour late every day.


Assignment

Mark your calendar forthose housekeeping tasks andfunctions you know about sothey always get done on time.

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During Step 4 you block some of that contingency time wediscussed in Idea #40. Literally block time for such things. Theywill not happen when you schedule them, but you’ll be glad youaccounted for the time later when they do happen.

In using your schedule,you just move things aroundeach day to reflect reality.But if you don’t block thistime initially, it’s not thereto move around and youend up working late. Again.

You are almost there. And none of this should have takenvery much time at all.

Now plan for some time for you to work on personal andprofessional goals. This might be time for reading. Or time for


Assignment

Block some time nowfor contingencies andemergencies.

Only you know how much based on your experience, butalways put in some time every day for this. You’ll need it.



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some research. Or time fortaking an online course. Ortime for…well, you get mydrift. This is YOUR time toget better at being who youwant to be. It’s based onthose personal and profes-sional goals discussedearlier in this book.

How much time you have left for this kind of activity willdepend on what you have accomplished in the first four steps.If you have NO time left for this, make some adjustments toyour schedule. You should have at least a little time every dayof your life for these activities. And the only way to make thathappen is to build in some time in your schedule for them.

One way to maximize your schedule is to put it in an elec-tronic calendar. I’ve mentioned this before, but it bears repeatinghere. These applications are excellent tools when used correctly.They are flexible and allow a wonderful level of detail. They will

Assignment

Now, finally, completeyour schedule with somepersonal/professional timejust for you. No time left?Make some!

This is Step 5, but it is just as important as the others.Don’t forget this step, and don’t just write it off as not pos-sible today. Because you’ll do that tomorrow, too. And thenext day. And before you know it, you are planning no timefor yourself. Don’t let this happen.


47Use an Electronic Calendar

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accomplish everything Ihave talked about so far inscheduling.

They are neat, handy,clear, and extremely useful.They include MicrosoftOutlook and others that areall about equal. If you usea computer at your work-place, this is the way to go.

If you choose to use an electronic calendar, you need tounderstand how to make it work best for you in managing yourtime. Each is a little different, but they all have some capabili-ties that are the same.

First, make certain you update it every day. EVERY day.Remember that scheduling is a daily activity, but updating thecalendar is an almost hourly activity. Remember that contin-gency time? You will need to adjust that as it happens, not as

Assignment

Look into an electroniccalendar program for yourcomputer. Find one you likeand start using it to build yourdaily schedule.

These applications also come with other very useful toolsbesides a calendar, including an electronic To Do List and anaddress book. Both are extremely useful and can be linked toyour calendar.


48Make the Electronic Calendar Work

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you originally scheduled it. Contingencies rarely happen as youplan them.

Second, use the tool. Refer to it constantly. I keep mycalendar on my desktop as my primary screen when not work-ing on something else.

Third, use the special functions in these programs. Most willlet you have little pop-ups that come on the screen to remind you

of activities. You can set thetime for reminders—say, 15minutes before or 10 min-utes before. Use them;they help.

Fourth, synchronize toyour PDA routinely, if youuse a PDA (which I rec-ommend). Then you haveyour calendar with you allthe time.

We all have to attend outside meetings. It just goes withthe territory in the modern world of work. If you don’t, you arelucky!

Assignment

Use the calendar. Referto it, update it, and use itstools. Use that PDA as well,so long as you remember tosynchronize it with the com-puter calendar.

Electronic calendars and PDAs are extraordinarily usefulin organizing your time. Don’t ignore this technology. It’sreally useful.


49Attend Outside Meetings

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But those outsidemeetings take time. Notjust the meeting time itself,but also preparation timeand travel time. So they canbe very time-expensive.

Make the most ofthese meetings when you

have to attend. But also make certain that they are scheduledon your calendar, that you have scheduled travel time to get tothe meeting location and back, and that you have scheduledsome preparation time to get ready for the meeting.

Use the time while you are traveling to the meeting forother purposes. Refer to Ideas 124–130 for some good ideason how to use travel time efficiently.

Remember when you were in college and those profes-sors always limited meetings with them outside class time to asmall set of office hours? I do. And it always hacked me off

Assignment

Plan outside meetingscarefully. Plan the time for themeeting, the time to travel, andthe time to prepare.

Too many times I have watched friends and coworkershave to crisis manage their schedules because they forgot ameeting or forgot to plan travel time, or failed to build in timeto prepare for a meeting and ended up burning the midnightoil to get ready. Don’t let this happen to you.


50Minimize Interruptions:

Set Office Hours

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that they limited access to themselves. It was not until after Igraduated that I realized why they had to do that.

It was not that they didn’t like talking to students. It wasthat they all had a hundred students or more every semester intheir classes. If they just let them come by any old time, theywould never get any otherwork done (preparing forclasses, grading papers, andso forth). So they tried togroup all that into one setof times every semester.

They were controllingtheir time. And you need todo that as well. I do, now that I understand what they weredoing. I set specific hours very day for people who work in theoffice to come by and see me. Those times are posted on mydoor. (Yep, I’m lucky. I have a door.) I also get people used tothe idea. I also put these times in my schedule.

Now I control when my interruptions happen. And it’s attimes when I’m doing administrative or low-priority work sothe interruptions are not significant.


Assignment

Set office hours for in-ternal visits and coordination.Then publish those hours soeveryone knows about them.

This will not be foolproof. The boss won’t care aboutyour office hours. Others will ignore them or forget. But manywill honor them, and you will reduce your interruptions dur-ing more productive times.


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The second-greatest time-killer is communication—that is tosay, unnecessary, inefficient, time-consuming communication. Wespend too much time talking with others, writing memos to eachother, writing and sending e-mails to each other, leaving voice mailswith each other, and so on.

And chatting on the tele-phone is the single greatesttime-killer of them all. Weare not organized in our callsso we ramble all over thetopic using far too muchtime. Most people don’tthink through what they wantto talk about before theypick up the phone and punchthe speed dial. That leads tovery inefficient telephone conversations fraught with confusion,chaos, misunderstandings, and dropped responsibilities.

If you do nothing else from these next several ideas, thinkbefore you dial. Identify exactly what information you want toconvey or decision you need and jot it down in writing beforemaking that call. Stay on task and on topic, using your notes, andyou’ll find that you are much more efficient at using the telephone.

51The Second-Greatest Time-Killer

Assignment

When you make phonecalls to trade information, getsome information, or get adecision, write down whatyou are to accomplish on thecall first. Then follow yournotes.

You’ll find an enormous time savings using this method.If you time your calls, you’ll find you often save half the timeover previous such calls. You’ll also develop a reputation forefficiency by using this simple method.


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Voice mail is a wonderful invention. It’s a digital realm whereeveryone can leave a message as long or short as they wish, asdetailed as they wish, and on any subject they wish.

And that’s the problem. They do! You get messages abouteverything. For example:

“Hi, Steve, this is Frank Jones. Just wanted to check withyou about our meeting tomorrow. My calendar shows 10 a.m.in the second floor confer-ence room. Just check-ing.” Click.

Well, that was useful.It’s on you calendar, too.So what was the point?To make it worse, Frankhas a cubicle four downfrom yours!

How many times a day to you get these time-wasting voicemails? Individually they do not take much time to listen to, butcollectively over the course of a day, they can use 15–20minutes. What to do?

A few ideas:

Encourage people to come see you rather thanleave voice mails—especially office colleagues.

Be efficient (ruthless!) in deleting them when youhear the basic message.

Discourage long messages—encourage e-mail in-stead. (More on e-mail later.)

52Handle Voice Mail


Assignment

Tell people to e-mail youinstead of leaving voicemails. Use your DND func-tion to buy some concen-trated work time.

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Another tip: Most telephone systems have a “do not disturb”(DND) function that allows you to send all phone calls to voicemail. When you need concentrated time to get something done,set your phone on DND. You’ll pay for that later with a numberof voice mails, but it buys you an undisturbed time to get somework done.

Recording the right voice-mail message on your system isthe key to controlling what you get in return. Be encouraging,but limiting. All too often, this is what we hear:

“Hi, this is Steve. Sorry I missed your call. Leave me adetailed message, your name, and your phone number, and I’llget back to you as soon as I can.”

This message is license for someone to steal time from youin massive quantities. “A detailed message?” Why? They’lltake five minutes just telling you that they need to talk to youabout something and give you all the gory details you alreadyknow!

You can control your incoming messages by controlling whatyou ask people to do in your initial message. Try somethingsuch as this:

The next time Frank wants to leave you a silly voice-mailmessage, maybe he’ll just come down the hall and look inyour door.


53Your Voice-Mail Message

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“Hi, this is Steve. SorryI missed your call. Briefly tellme the subject of your call,your name, and your phonenumber, and I’ll get back toyou as soon as I can.”

Notice the differences?First is the key word:

briefly. It encourages amessage, but a short one.

The second is the word subject. It encourages not a long storywith all the gory details, but a simple idea of the topic the per-son wants to address. Using this message has cut my voice-mail message lengths in half! Yes, sometimes I still get peoplewho leave a long one, but most honor what they hear. It works!

When you want to get some uninterrupted work time in,use your voice mail to screen calls, especially if you don’t wantto use the “do not disturb” function for fear of missing some-thing important.

Assignment

Change your outgoingvoice-mail message to reflectsomething that resemblesmine. Be encouraging, butrequest brief messages withjust a subject.

You’ll find most of your messages will be shorter, moredirect, and succinct, and you’ll save another amount of timeyou can use for other things.


54Use Voice Mail as a Call-Screener


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Set your voice mail togo to your speaker (if youhave one) and keep work-ing when a call comes in.Listen to the caller to iden-tify if it is someone youshould break concentrationfor to answer, or just let himor her finish the messageand call him or her backlater.

This takes the ability to multitask a bit, as you keep work-ing and listen at the same time. But even if you stop for just aminute to listen, if you choose not to take the call, you are rightback to work on your project instead of involved in a long phoneconversation that takes you away form work and steals moretime from you.

This doesn’t work for everyone. Some don’t have phonesystems that will support this. Others can’t split their attentioneasily. But for those who can use this method, it’s another simpletime-saver that allows you to be more efficient and effective.

Assignment

Try this method for aweek. If you can becomecomfortable with it, keepgoing. If not, go back to yourregular mode. Perhaps the“do not disturb” function isbetter for you.

You can save as much as 10 minutes a day using thismethod. That may not sound as though it’s very much, but10 minutes a day, times five days a week is 50 minutes. That’salmost an hour a week saved!


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Here’s a real time-saver: caller ID. If yoursystem supports caller ID,use it. It will allow you tosave lots of time not an-swering calls.

It’s really simple. Pro-gram all the phone numbersof the people you commu-nicate with most into yourphone. Then, as calls comein, simply look to see who’scalling you. If it’s someoneyou can delay or put off untillater, let the call go to voicemail. If not, take the call.

Caller ID puts you in charge of your incoming calls andallows you to determine when you deal with them. Of course, itdoesn’t work for any call from a number not programmed intoyour system, but then you can make a determination about tak-ing that call or not.

55Use Caller ID Effectively

Although not everyone has this capability, when you do,Caller ID puts you in charge of the phone, not the phone incharge of you!


Program your phonewith all of the key people youcommunicate with on a regu-lar basis. Yes, this takes someinitial time, but it will allowyou great control later in de-termining which calls youtake immediately and whichyou let go to voice mail andlisten and respond to when it’sa better time for you.

Assignment


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One way to control your time better is handling yourincoming phone calls more efficiently.

Most of us want to be, and are, pleasant and nice people.Unfortunately, that costs us time on phone calls. Why? Becausewe spend too much time talking about things that are not rel-evant to the purpose of the call in the first place. Here’s justhalf of a conversation:

“Hey, Steve, how are you? How’s Sally? That’s good. Ihear you guys are planning a vacation next month. Where areyou going? Yeah, been there, wonderful place. You enjoy thatvacation. Yes, Fred’s off to college this fall. I just don’t know

what it’s going to be likewith him gone from thehouse….” And so on.Then, “So, anyway, thereason I called is….”

I listen to people com-plain about not havingenough time for their work,and then listen to theirphone calls, where they allspend far too much time onthis kind of chatter and toolittle time on the purpose ofthe call.

Control your naturaldesire to chat. Keep peoplewho call you focused on thepurpose of the call.

56Handle Inbound Phone Calls

Assignment

The next time someonecalls you and goes into oneof these personal updates,try this: “Frank, sorry to in-terrupt, but let’s catch up atlunch some day. I’m on ashort deadline right now ona project and need to getgoing on it. What can I dofor you?” Yes, it sounds alittle abrupt, but it gets thecaller back on track, and youback to work more quickly.

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Calls you make can suffer from the same problems: thepersonal chatter. Control your own personal chatter and you’llsave time.

But they can also suffer from a lack of organization. Here’san example:

“Hey, Frank, how are you? Say, I need to talk about thisconference coming up in March. Yeah, I think it’s the 22nd and23rd. Okay, let me make sure, hold on. (pause) Yes, 22nd and23rd. My question is, who makes the arrangements for themeeting rooms? Oh, I don’tknow. Let me see if I havethat information.” (pause)And it goes on this way formany minutes as you haveto look up information tohave the conversation.

These pauses to lookup information waste time.Be prepared for your callsby getting out all of yourinformation ahead of time,

Remember that, although this buys you time, you stillwant those relationships, so make a point of catching up withthe “chat” later over lunch.


57Handle Outbound Phone Calls

Assignment

The next time you needto make a coordinationphone call, get out all yourinformation in advance, re-view it, and make a coupleof quick notes on what youneed to accomplish duringthe call.


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organizing it, and knowing what you want to ask and what youexpect from the other party. Organization with a couple of noteswill save enormous amounts of time for both of you.

Keeping written records of your phone calls doesn’t soundas if it will save any time, does it? Yet it will. How many timeshave you had a telephone conversation one day and then a fewdays later no one can remember what was decided? Or worse,there is confusion or disagreement about what was decided.

All of this confusion and dis-agreement will cause agreat deal of time and per-sonal angst to overcomeand correct—more timethan just jotting down a fewnotes after every phone callto record what was decidedand/or what informationwas passed.

It really is quite simple.You will probably have a

You will be amazed at the time savings you get duringthese coordinating phone calls when you start them with someorganization. After all, you would do that for a personalmeeting—so why not a phone meeting?


58Keep Written Records of Phone Calls

Assignment

Keep a tablet or smallnotepad at hand for record-ing decisions and informationpassed during telephone con-versations. Write neatly andclearly, but brevity is alsoimportant. Then file it withthe project paperwork.

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file or a record of each project or task you are working on. Justcomplete your phone call, and write down on a piece of paper,perhaps just a memo pad, what was decided and what infor-mation was exchanged. Handwritten is fine.

Then just file it. It will be there when others in the call haveforgotten or remember the conversation differently. When theydo, you’ll have your written record of what actually occurred.You’ll save time and save trouble later.

Frank is a fairly typical office manager. He supervises about10 people and really knows his job. But he likes to send memos!Lots and lots of memos. In fact, Frank will send a memo to asingle person that is only two sentences long!

I once asked Frank why he did that. He said that he thoughtit was more appropriate and formal and that it was the rightway a manager should communicate with people. I suggestedthat he might be more effective if he had more personal con-versations. I also suggested that it took him twice as much timeto write memos to his employees as it did to just tell themverbally.

I can’t tell you how many times having a brief memo tomyself about what happened during a telephone conversationhas “saved my bacon” and saved me lots of time and trouble.It will save you the same.


59Speaking Is Faster Than Writing Memos


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He suggested that I was wrong about the time (he actuallysaid it a little more strongly than that!) and challenged me on it.

I bet him to track the timehe took during one weekto write memos to hisemployees—and thentrack the time it took tojust verbally tell them thesecond week. If it turnedout I was wrong and he

saved no time, I would buy him dinner at the best steak place intown. He took the bet.

Guess what? I didn’t have to buy that steak dinner! Heagreed he took about half the time to inform employees ver-bally than it took him to write the memos.

The mail comes into most organizations once or twice aday. And it gets delivered to you the same way. However, alltoo often, we feel as if, once that mail has arrived, we have tohandle it. Why? It just spent two or three days getting to us, soit can’t be too timely.

Assignment

Tell, don’t write. It alsoincreases your personal inter-actions with employees.

If you want a free steak dinner, don’t bet me on whattakes longer—writing or telling.


60Handle Your Paper Mail

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Yet we almost alwayswant to open and read themail as soon as it arrives,even if it breaks into some-thing else we are doing,causing disruption to ourwork and costing time.

Don’t let the timing ofthe mail delivery dictate yourlife and work habits. Whenit arrives let it sit there untilyou have time to deal withit. Better yet, create a rou-tine for handling the mail.You know when it comes inevery day, so just establisha time every day when youopen and read or process it.But it does NOT have to bewhen it arrives.

E-mail is a wonderful thing. It has provided a significanttool in our communication arsenal. But it can also be a hugetime-consumer!

Assignment

Leave the mail until theend of the day when all ofyour tasks for the day arecomplete—or as completeas you can make them forthat day. It’s a nice way toend the day, and, if there arethings that have to be takencare of in the mail, you canset aside scheduled time thenext day to handle them.That way, the mail doesn’tinterrupt your workday.

Don’t let the mail’s arrival disrupt and dictate your sched-ule. Take control of it—don’t let it control you.


61Handle Your E-mail: When


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We all tend to receive far too much e-mail. One way tocontrol the flow of e-mail is to control when you look at it. Moste-mail applications, including Microsoft Outlook, allow you tocontrol how often the program goes out and gets new e-mailmessages. It also allows you to set an alert to pop up on yourmonitor screen when newmessages arrive.

Control this interrup-tion, because it will inter-rupt you! The messagepops up over any applica-tion you are working in andwill distract you. There arethree things you can do:

1. Disable the message function so it does notinterrupt you.

2. Set the application to check for new e-mail at alonger frequency. Instead of every 15 minutes,set it for 30 minutes, or 45 minutes, or even more.

3. Deal with e-mails in batches, not just a few at atime.

Assignment

Adopt one or all of thesesuggestions. Use the Helpfunction in your applicationif you don’t know how to dothese things.

Although this will not save major chunks of time, reducingthe distractions could easily save you five to 10 minutes aday. Combined with a few other of these ideas, you could savea significant portion of your workday.


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Many of us write e-mail messages constantly all day long.One way to save time is to understand that e-mail is an infor-mal communication method. Long messages are not as effec-tive as short ones. And they take more time.

Write short, direct e-mail messages. They should notread the way letters or complete memos do. If they do, youshould be writing that kind of communication, not an e-mail.

Try to encourage otherswith whom you communi-cate to write succinctly aswell. It is significantly moreeffective and far moreefficient.

62Handle Your E-mail: Brevity

Assignment

Practice writing shortere-mail messages. Make anote and post it on your moni-tor to remind you that“shorter is better.”

As with most of these ideas, this one will not save massiveamounts of time. But combined with others about handlinge-mail, it could easily save you 30 minutes a day!



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I can’t tell you how many times I have consulted with peopleand discovered that their e-mail in-box has 900 or more mes-sages in it! They can’t findanything. Even when theysearch or sort, it’s a time-consuming process.

The best way to man-age e-mail messages thatyou need to keep for anyreason is to set up files forthem. All e-mail applica-tions allow you to do this.Determine your best filingsystem, perhaps by person,or by department, or by project or…you get the drift. Createfolders for them in your in-box and then, once you have read orresponded to one, simply drag it into the folder and drop it there.Then, when you need to find it again, it’s in the obvious folderand you’ll be able to find it quickly. You can do the same forsent messages if you want.

63Handle Your E-mail: Files

Assignment

Decide what filing system(labels) will work best foryou and then establish a setof files for your incoming(and perhaps sent) mes-sages. Establish it, and thenuse it routinely.

It takes a little extra time to set up, but once it’s estab-lished it is easy to use in this “drag and drop” world. You’ll bevery happy about having it the next time you have to find amessage someone sent you.


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Spam has become the bane of our electronic existencethese days. Far too much of our inbound e-mail is spam orspoof or other ways to get to us with marketing messages. For

some, up to half of theirmessages are junk mail.But there are ways to com-bat this nuisance.

First, make certainyour network administratorhas a system for screeningout known spam. Second,when you identify spam, tellyour e-mail application toidentify any further messagesfrom that e-mail address asspam and automatically put itin a spam or junk e-mailfolder.

Finally, make certainyou have an anti-virus application running on your computer.Most have spam protection and elimination functions you canuse to help eliminate such unwanted messages.

64Handle Your E-mail: Fight Spam

Assignment

If you don’t alreadyhave an anti-virus program(such as Norton or McAfee)running on your machine,add one or talk to your net-work administrator aboutadding it as soon as possible.Then always identify junkmail so your applications canscreen those message outroutinely.

You’ll spend a little time arranging all of these sugges-tions, but it will be worth it. You could save another five to10 minutes a day by not having to review and delete theunwanted e-mails you receive.



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You’ve all seen this. The friend or colleague who constantlysends you the “joke of the day” or some great cartoons, or thelatest urban legend story that usually turns out to be fiction.They are always enjoyable, but they also eat into the time avail-able for getting things done.

There was a point I was receiving five or 10 of these a dayfrom various friends and co-workers. And, of course, I alwayshad to read them. Fun, but it usually ate up 15–30 minutes

every day! I finally decideda little “tough love” wasneeded—for myself.

I simply e-mailed allmy friends and asked themnot to send these messagesto me. I asked them tosend anything appropriateto business or anything thatwas truly remarkable, butto stop sending them as a

daily routine. As an excuse, and to make it more friendly, I toldthem my network administrator had asked everyone to reducethe amount of message traffic on our e-mail server.

These messages stopped. Because I was polite and passedon the blame, I lost no friends or colleagues. And I saved abunch of time every day. And I still get the really good ones!

65E-mail: Discourage the Jokers

Assignment

Identify everyone whoroutinely sends you this kindof e-mail and ask them toreduce it to only the abso-lutely remarkable stuff. Thereally good stuff.

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After I set up folders for my in-box and sent files in Outlook(my e-mail application), I discovered I had quite a few. Runningthrough the list started to be time-consuming. Then I hit on theeasy solution: Simply put the most used files—the ones where Ireceive and send most messages—at the top of the list.

That made it quick andeasy to file most of mymessages via “drag anddrop.” Of course, I occa-sionally need to adjust thembased on which projectsare most current or active,but that is a relatively simplething to do.

I saved at least 15 minutes every workday with thismethod. That’s an hour and 15 minutes every week I gotback from a very small investment. You will, too.


66E-mail: Organize Your Folders

Assignment

Organize your folders sothat the most used are at thetop of your list and the leastused are at the bottom. Ad-just as things change.

Just this small action saves me a minute every time I checkmy e-mail. Because I do that about 10 times at day, I figureI’m saving about 10 minutes every day just with good fileorganization. You’ll do the same. A little here and a littlethere adds up!



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So what does writingclear subject lines have todo with saving time?

You’d be surprised howeffective a well-writtensubject line will shortenresponse times to your e-mails. And the quicker youget responses, the moreefficient you can be.

How many times doyou get e-mails with the subject: Widget (or other) Project?What’s in the e-mail? Does it require action? Is it just for infor-mation? Are you a primary recipient or just copied on it? Youdon’t know from such a general subject line.

Subject lines such as “Widget Project Decision Needed,”“New information on Widget Project,” and “Answer to yourWidget questions” are much more revealing and will get youquicker responses or actions when you need them. This helpskeep your actions from being quite so fragmented.

67E-mail: Write Clear and Direct

Subject Lines

Assignment

Concentrate on writingactive and clear subject linesto your e-mail messages.Encourage others to do soas well; you’ll all save timeand things that are importantwill move faster.

The basic time-saver here is quickness of responses thatallows you to be more efficient in your projects and tasks.More efficient = less time.


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Modern computers are wonderful. They have provided uswith many time-saving tools. One of the very best is also oneof the most simple: copy and paste. If you already did not know

this, you can copy text fromone document and paste itright into another. Okay,you knew that.

Did you know that youcan do that no matter whatprogram or application youare using? You can copydata or text from a spread-sheet program and paste itright into a word processingdocument.

You can also copy from Websites and your e-mails rightinto word processing documents. Don’t ever retype anythingyou have in electronic form anymore. Just copy and paste.

68Copy and Paste Are Two

of Your Best Friends

Assignment

Check the various pro-grams you use for instruc-tions (use Help) on how tocopy and paste. You mighteven want to discover thekeyboard shortcuts for copyand paste to make it evenfaster.

I love copy and paste. I don’t retype anything anymore.And I have learned it saves an enormous amount of time.However, remember not to copy and use copyrighted materi-als from a Website without the Website owner’s permission.A note of caution: always double-check your copied text forany missing punctuation you might have skipped.



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Frank comes into your office (okay, your cubicle!), sits downin your guest chair uninvited, and asks how you are doing. Hethen engages you in personal conversation about your daughter’sschool recital and his son’sbaseball game last night,repeats an office rumorabout one of the VPs, andthen, after five to 10 min-utes of banter, finally getsto the reason for his visit:the Widget Project.

He’s just killed 10 min-utes of your day. How manytimes does this happen in aweek? How much time do you lose with these encounters?

How do you keep this from happening? It’s so simple you’llkick yourself. Just stand up.

Yep, just stand up as soon as he comes in the office. See-ing you standing, he (and most people) will not choose to sitdown in your office. If he doesn’t sit down, he probably will notbe as comfortable and will skip the banter and get to the point.Savings: five to seven minutes every time it happens.

69Handle Office Visits

Assignment

Learn to stand up if youwant to shorten these un-scheduled office visits. Ifsome personal time is appro-priate to maintain the rela-tionship, then okay, but do soselectively.

Want to improve that? Instead of letting Frank talk first,stand up and you take charge of the conversation. “Hey, Frank.How are you?” (Don’t wait for an answer!) “What can I do foryou?” That will get him on topic right away.


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All that paperwork. Where does it all come from, anyway?Is it in stacks on your desk? Piles on the floor? Organized infiles in your desk? Can you easily find what you need quickly?I find that most people can’t. And they lose time and efficiencyfinding the things they need. Computers did NOT do awaywith paper.

The solution: Create an organization that works for you—your solution. Here’s mine, and one adopted by many:

I have three “racks” on my desk for file folders. One rackholds projects I’m working on now that are hot. One containsprojects that are long-term and that I work with occasionally.The third contains reference files for office information, clientinformation, and so forth.

Everything else is in my desk drawer or in a file cabinet ina hanging file system I organized to suit my needs (not someoffice manager’s system!). It’s pretty simple. The stuff on mydesk is current and things I’m working on. Supporting infor-mation goes in the desk drawer in hanging file folders markedwith the project name—nothing more. As folders on my deskget too big, I move docu-ments to the drawer. Thedesk files are lean andmean!

Everything else, and Imean everything, is in thecabinet organized the sameway: by project name. Toaid in organization I just usean alphabetical order.

70Handle Paper Files

Assignment

Create your own filingsystem that puts your imme-diate needs at hand, and yourless-immediate informationand documents in storage.


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You have to get them. Magazines. We all do. Keep up withthe industry; keep up with the market; keep up with the com-munity. But some—well, who knows why we get them.

A couple of years ago I did an inventory of all the maga-zines and professional publications I was getting. It was as-tounding! I was getting more than 25 different monthlypublications. Did I read all of them? Of course not. So why didI constantly junk up my office with these things?

We don’t have a waiting room the way physicians and den-tists do, so where do they go? Do you have something similar?Here’s what I did.

I went through each one carefully, including at least twoissues of each publication. I made some critical choices, sepa-

rating into three piles: onefor those I read consis-tently, one for those I foundI never read (the “kill”stack), and one for those Ioccasionally read some-thing from. I immediatelycancelled subscriptions tothose I never read.

You can keep just what you need right at hand for imme-diate retrieval quite easily if you are disciplined about it.


71Magazines: Cull and Kill

Assignment

Cull out those publica-tions you don’t need or readand “kill” them.

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For the other two categories, I kept them but monitored theoccasional stack. After a while, I ended up “killing” about half ofthose as well. That reduced my reading time significantly.

Once you have decided what to keep and what to get ridof, when do you read it? When do you read all that other officeinformation that comes in on a daily basis? If you try to consumeall that information as it comes in, you end up fragmenting yourday and losing time to inefficiency.

Instead, consider cre-ating a Reading File. Thisis a file folder full of read-ing material you want to getto, but don’t need to readright away: magazines,reports, administrativememos, and so forth. Youdecide. Let that file buildup for a few days, perhaps

As I thought about this, I suggested the idea to a numberof colleagues in other businesses. They all complained of thesame problem and applied my solution, and it has saved themtime.


72Use a “Reading File”

Assignment

Set up a Reading File foryourself and try this tech-nique. First try every fewdays and then try to extendthat to a week. Find outwhat works best for you.


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a week. Then carve out some dedicated time to run throughthat information.

Many I’ve talked to over the years say the best time to dothat is either early in the morning, once a week, at the end of aday (not Friday, though), or they take the file home on a week-night or weekend.

My own preference is a nice weekend read on the patiowith a cool one by my side!

Make your computer work more effectively for you byusing an application that allows you to create an electronic con-tact list. There are lots of them out there. If you use MicrosoftOffice, you probably have Outlook. It allows you not only tocreate a name/address/telephone list, but to add personal thingssuch as birthdays and e-mail addresses. You can use most ofthem as well to record contacts with the person.

This saves time finding things because it’s electronic, and italso lets you record phone calls, office visits, decisions made,and so on, so you have that information available every timeyou call or visit that person. This saves you having to look up all

You will save time here by concentrating this reading atone time rather that having it fragment your worktimethroughout the day or week.


73Create a Contact List

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that information in notes insome misplaced file foldersomewhere.

And because it’s digi-tal, you can update changesvery easily and quicklywithout fuss or muss.

I use one that allows me almost immediate access to phonenumbers of people I call. No looking anything up in some hand-written list or looking in directories. How much time do I save?Probably only a few minutes every day. Again, though, a minutehere and a minute there, and you’ve saved a lot of time.

You already know what a PDA is—a personal data assis-tant. But do you use one? Resisting that technology? Why?These things are great for having information right at your fin-gertips. They are small, easy to use, easy to keep up to date,and quite inexpensive these days.

What can it do for you?

Assignment

Create a digital contactlist you can keep current.

I also use it when I receive calls. When someone callsme, I immediately pull up his entry and can see the notes fromour last meeting, note his wife’s name, and the annotationabout his son’s aspiration to become a lawyer. It’s a greatrelationship tool.


74Use a PDA


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It will keep your cal-endar for you, and synchro-nize it with your computeras well, which is great fortimes out of the office.

It will maintain yourentire contact list as well(see Idea 73). Need tomake a phone call whileyou’re out of the office? Nosweat. Check your PDAfor Frank’s phone number.It’s synched from yourcomputer, too.

Do you use a task list?I hope so! PDAs canhandle those easily. And, ofcourse, if you want the real

gold standard of PDAs, get a mobile phone that is also a PDA.Not only do PDAs save you from having to manually keep

a calendar or, worse, a manual telephone listing, they are cur-rent as long as you synch with your computer.

Assignment

Get one! If you aretechnophobic, don’t worry.They really are quite simple.Then start using it. I haveused one for years and find itto be a great time-saver whenI am out of the office. I canmake calls when I’m out ofthe office quickly and easilywhile I’m driving (do so cau-tiously and safely!) and makeexcellent use of time that’sotherwise non-productive.

This small item can save lots of time on the road and outof the office by helping you use downtime efficiently.


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All these new technologies we are seeing are touted tosave us time in our lives. Unfortunately, not all of them actuallydo that. Some require such vast amounts of set-up expertisethat help is required. Others require constant maintenance. Yetothers, many others, never seem to live up to their promises ofsaving time.

I have a colleague who is a classic “early adopter.” If it’snew technology, he’ll buy it. He is always looking for that new“time-saving” device. Unfortunately, most of the time he is dis-appointed because, although they are always innovative andinteresting, they rarely really save him any time. But he is un-deterred and will jump atthe next device as soon asit’s available.

Beware of the “geeksbearing gifts” syndrome.The idea that all new tech-nology will save time andmoney is simply provingwrong. Some do. When theydo, adopt them. But waituntil they prove themselves.

75Make It Really Save Time—

Not Use More Time

Assignment

Resist the impulse to getthe newest and best. Waituntil they are mainstreamand have proven themselvesas true time-savers beforeyou take the leap.

Remember: The time you save WILL be your own. So letothers discover what works and does not work.



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One of the easiest and best ways to save time is to makesure your software is up to date. Using old software really cancost you time. If you have to convert to other file modes, areoperating with an outdated operating system on your computer,

or are using a version of anapplication two or three gen-erations old, you are prob-ably costing yourself time.

Most updates to appli-cations do two things: theyadd capabilities to the soft-ware, and they add speedand ease of use. It is thislast item you should be espe-cially interested in obtaining.As users continue to tell ap-plication developers whatthey want, it is ease of use

that is the most common. So, developers find ways to give theuser what he wants. Each new version is more capable, is mucheasier to use, and reduces the time it takes to accomplish themore common functions.

76Keep Software Current

Assignment

Examine the softwareyou use routinely to see if itis out of date. If you are us-ing old applications, investi-gate the new versions. Youwill generally find they in-clude new ways to automateroutine functions that willsave you time. Upgrade asnecessary.

Not every upgrade is valuable as a time-saver. But youcannot know until you investigate. Even if you only save a fewseconds on five routine actions, if they ARE routine, you dothem all the time. A few seconds multiplied by x times a daywill add up.


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Jack is a colleague who does much of his work on hiscomputer. He has a very large monitor—about 21 inches! WishI had one that large. But I am always astounded that Jack canactually find anything on his computer. His computer desktop,the electronic desktop where you can put icons for applicationsand routinely used files, is completely filled. Completely!

All 21 inches of his monitor are chock full of icons forfiles—mostly data files, not applications. Putting icons on thedesktop is for convenience and quick retrieval, not for commonstorage. But no, Jack has to have everything he works on, hasworked on, or, apparently, will ever work on, on his desktop.And he can’t find a thing! I’ve seen him try to find a file he hasjust been working on for two minutes before he can locate theright icon on the desktop. What a waste of time.

Keep your desktopclean. Put applicationicons and any files youare working on right nowon the desktop, and putany others in appropriatefile folders in My Docu-ments. Then you can findwhat you need quicklyand easily.

77Keep Your E-desktop Clean

Assignment

Look over your desktop.Clean off anything that junksit up and makes it difficult tofind what you need. Thenroutinely clean it off everyweek.

Don’t be like Jack. He must lose five or six minutes everyday just trying to find things that are right there in front of him!



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Keeping your computer files organized is just as importantas having organized paper files. If you want to find them fastand easily, you need a system. Computer files, whether on aPC or a Mac, reside in folders. And a logical hierarchy of fold-ers will make all the difference in ease and quickness of use.

The easiest way to do this is to create project folders. Theseare the main folders for major projects, tasks, clients, custom-ers, and so on. Into each of these you create individual folders

for activities for thatproject. For example: Ihave a project folder forthis book as I write it. I la-beled it with the bookname. Then I created afolder for business activi-ties with my publisher andagent, one for sections inthe book, and one for re-search. Inside each ofthose I have folders or filesthat fit those categories. Inthe research folder I have

sub-folders for various actions I have recorded or discoveredand used for this book. In the sections folder, I organize theideas into nine different folders representing themes of the book.And so on.

You should do something similar for your files to make themeasy to find and use.

78Establish a Clean Filing System

Assignment

Examine your currentfiling system—or lack ofone. Reorganize your files ina logical way so you can findthings quickly and easily.Maintain that system andyou’ll save time finding andopening your computer files.

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Computers are supposed to be fast, not slow and clunky. Ifyou have an old computer that runs slow, then it’s time for a new—and faster—computer. Today’s computers, even the inexpensiveones, are very fast. But we can junk them up and slow themdown. They then cost us time, not save us time.

The best way to make certain your computer is running asefficiently as possible is toroutinely run (on PCs) a“scandisk” function and a“defragmentation” func-tion. Scandisk will clean upold files such as temporaryfiles, and defrag will reor-ganize your hard disk drivefor optimum access to yourmost commonly used applications and files. If you can’t figureout how to run these applications (part of Windows), use the Helpfunction.

Macintosh computer users should use the Disk Utility inthe MAC OS and follow the links to First Aid and Repair Disk.Most Mac users also use an application called DiskWarrior tomanage the efficiency of their computers.

You can easily save five or six minutes a day with a good,logical filing system. That’s 25 minutes a week—more thanthree hours in a month.


79Make Certain Your Computer

Is Operating at Speed

Assignment

Create a monthly sched-ule to run scandisk anddefrag. These take a whileto run, so you may want todo this over a weekend orovernight.


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Create a monthly schedule to run “scandisk” and “defrag.”These take a while to run, so you may want to do this over aweekend or overnight.

We all operate on the Internet these days. Some could notimagine being without it! Yet it is less than 15 years old. But ithas become so important acommunication mechanismthat we really must get themost out of it today.

Internet connectionspeeds are extremely impor-tant—not just for e-mail andattachments, but for visitingWebsites for business pur-poses. Websites today aredesigned with the assumptionof reasonable access speeds.The old dial-up speeds of56K are simply insufficienttoday.

80Make Certain Your Internet

Connection Is at Speed

Assignment

Explore the best optionfor a broadband connectionfrom two primary choices:DSL and cable. If you al-ready have cable, that is thefastest and easiest. If not,your telephone companycan probably deliver a DSLconnection (slightly slower)at a reasonable cost.

After some months, hard drives become disorganized.Just running defrag will improve the access time for your filesand applications significantly.


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Make sure you’re not sitting watching your monitor asWebsites slowly load or e-mails with attachments to download.A high-speed (called broadband) connection is a must today.Take advantage of the serious reduction in cost for these con-nections and save time as your downloads flash onto the screenin almost no time.

There are plenty ofinsidious and nasty peopleout there waiting to corruptyour computer. Allowing avirus or worm into yourcomputer today can easilyput you out of business fordays. Talk about lost time!

So install an antivirusprogram immediately.There are two primarysources: Norton Antivirusand McAfee Antivirus.

You can lose a lot of time waiting for things to happen onthe Internet using a low-bandwidth (slow speed) connection.Save time with broadband.


81Virus Protection: Not an Option


Assignment

If you have anantivirus program running,good. Make certain thatyour subscription is up todate. If not, get a new onefast.

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They both are reasonably inexpensive for an annual subscrip-tion and will download the latest virus definitions so your com-puter remains constantly protected from worms and viruses.You can find them both on the Internet and can even downloadthem using e-commerce systems.

PDAs, or personal data assistants, are becoming almostindispensable in the business world today. These little numbersare highly portable and allow you to keep that task list you havealready developed, your address book, and your calendar inone very portable package.

They have becomequite inexpensive at the lowend, and extremely expen-sive at the high end, whereone can integrate the PDAwith cellular telephone andInternet access. Take yourpick, but even the inexpensiveones (I use the cheapestavailable and it is invaluable)allow you great flexibility to

It’s not a matter of if your computer will be attacked by avirus, but when. Operating a computer on the Internet withoutantivirus protection can be likened to driving a car withoutwearing a seatbelt.


82More on PDAs

Assignment

Look into PDAs. Re-search them, price them, andadopt one. Keep it synchedwith your computer on a rou-tine basis (key point here)and take it with you whenyou travel, even aroundtown.

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do things while out of the office. During that downtime whenyou are waiting for things to happen—on the road, waiting forthe car to be serviced, and so on—you can be doing things.

Probably the most useful item is the address book. I havemy complete address book from my computer with me at alltimes so I can look up addresses on the road, and make phonecalls by looking up phone numbers.

Okay, you gotta have one. Yes, you do. But does it ruleyour life? Cell phones are cheap (now) and extremely handy.They allow you to do thingsout of the office and makeit easy for people to con-tact you.

So watch what you dowith them. Use them, cer-tainly. Make calls while outof the office or on the wayto another location. Con-firm orders, coordinate ac-tions, set appointments, andso on. Cell phones allow

These things help you use time out of the office thatotherwise would be lost to inefficiency.


83That Cell Phone!

Assignment

If you don’t have one,get one. If it’s for businesspurposes, it can be used as abusiness expense with yourtaxes. Make use of it to allowgreater productivity duringtimes out of the office. Getmore from the time you haveavailable using a cell phone.


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you to maximize your time away from the office in ways wecould not do before.

But also don’t let the darn thing rule your life, either! Don’ttake a call just because the phone rings. All phone servicescome with voice mail today, so let that call go to voice mailrather that allow it to interrupt a meeting or conversation, orruin your concentration.

Do you give your cell phone number to everyone? If so,you are giving them license to steal time from you. They’ll callyou at all hours, at the most inconvenient times, when you canleast afford the time to take their calls.

A very good businesspractice is to limit thepeople to whom you giveyour cell phone number tothose who are most impor-tant. Don’t let just any-body call you. Controlwho has access to you viayour cell phone. That way,when the phone rings, you

Although a cell phone will save you time and make youmore efficient and reachable, it can also take over your life.Don’t let it.


84Who Knows Your Cell Phone Number?

Assignment

Review your contactswho have your cell phonenumber. Start limiting whoyou give that number to soyou control who calls you,not the other way around.

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know it’s someone important to you, not your local hardwarestore telling you an order has arrived.

Don’t put your cell phone number on business cards orother materials that everyone has access to. Make having yourcell phone number a privilege, not a right. Keep that numberfor people you want to hear from.

Star Trek brought us“Beam me up, Scotty” and“Set your phasers to stun.”It was a fun TV show withsome interesting lessons. Ofcourse, we all experiencetimes when we just wishScotty could beam us upand away from a difficultsituation.

But one of the bestways to control your time isto control when you answeryour cell phone. If you have

You can waste a lot of time on phone calls from peopleyou really did not need to hear from at times when you neededto concentrate on other tasks. You take control of that phone,don’t give up control to others.


85Cell Phone: Set to Stun

Assignment Set your cell phone tovibrate or “stun.” As ageneral rule, keep it thereunless you are in a situationwere a ring tone is needed.If you are busy, let inboundcalls go to your voice mailand ignore the vibration.Stay concentrated on thetask at hand.


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it set to a loud ring tone or music, it goes off and interruptswhat you are doing, and maybe others as well. The easyanswer is to set it to “stun” or vibrate. Phones that vibrateonly boether the recipient, and they are much easier toignore than a ring tone. This way, you can choose to answer ot not answerdepending on your current situation. If you are in the middleof an important meeting, you can ignore it. If you will beconcentrating on an important task, ignore it. If you are inthe waiting room for a physician’s appointment, answer it.When you ignore it, it goes to your voice mail and you cancheck that later—at a time much more convenient to you.

So what is BlueTooth? It’s a wireless protocol that allowselectronic equipment to communicate with each other. You see itevery day with those people walking around with earpieces in oneear and who seem to be talking to themselves. They are using aBlueTooth-enabled earpiece to link to their cell phone and canmake or answer calls without their phone (it’s on their belt) andhands-free.

Cell phones are wonderful and I’m a big fan. But I wantto be in charge of when I answer, not leaving that to mycallers. You can disrupt your day easily by answering everycall that comes in as it comes in, and disruption costs time.


86To BlueTooth or Not to BlueTooth

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BlueTooth-enabled cellphones are wonderful, andallow you to communicateclearly and efficiently withboth hands free to drive, useyour computer, take notes,and so forth. If you do a lotof this kind of work, then aBlueTooth-enabled phoneis for you. It can save youtime by allowing you morefreedom to do other thingswhile talking on the phone.

Instant text messaging is the communications tool of teen-agers today. They are on it all the time. But it can have excel-lent business applications as well. I use instant messaging withbusiness colleagues when I’m at my desk for extended peri-ods. It runs in the background and I only get a notice whensomeone on my buddy list sends me a message. We can have

Just remember that, although these devices are time-saving and handy, you need to be conscious of others aroundyou in your conversations.



87Is Text Messaging for You?

Assignment

If you do a lot of cell phonework, look into a BlueTooth-enabled phone. It may wellsave you time by allowing morefreedom in your calls. Andmany new cars are nowBlueTooth-enabled as well, soyou can run the phone throughyour car’s audio system hands-free (and thus safer).

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a quick and efficient con-versation electronicallyright there at the computer.And while he’s answering,I’m working.

This is a very efficientand time-saving communi-cation tool. Windows offersthis via Windows Messen-ger. AOL offers one, andothers do, too. Unfortu-nately, most are unique totheir system, but most are also free. Both parties (or more ifyou want) need to be using the same system. Some also offervideo messaging.

But if you are not technically minded or not good atmultitasking, this communication tool will take more time than itsaves. You decide.

Many of you are in cubicles or offices without a printer toprint your written work. I have been in that situation manytimes. At first, I thought, this makes sense. Why have hundredsof printers when we can all share one large one down the hall?

Assignment

Examine instant mes-saging to see if you can getsome efficiencies out of it.Try one or two different sys-tems and find out which isbest for you. Discuss withworking partners to ensurethey would use it.

We use this routinely both in my office as well as withbusiness partners out of the office. It is really a time-saver forsimple coordination and information-sharing tasks.


88Get Your Own Printer!

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Then I did a study of how much time I used walking backand forth to the printer to get printed materials. I examinedthis over a week’s time and discovered that I spent more than

half an hour just walkingdown the hall and back.This did not include the im-promptu conversationsthat occurred each time!

Then I looked into thecost of laser printers. Tomy surprise, I discoveredthat an inexpensive laserprinter can be had for less

than $100! For the cost of a $100 printer (yes, I ran out imme-diately and bought one) I can save two hours of productivework time every month.

If you really want to get the most out of that computerapplication, you have to learn more about it. Many of us areself-taught, and when we teach ourselves, we really learn onlythe basics. One computer trainer I talked with told me thatmost people know how to use less than 25 percent of the capa-bilities of any software they use!

Assignment

Do your own analysis.If you, too, find this kind ofresult, use the data to talkyour boss into an inexpen-sive laser printer.

Not only does this save real time, but it also keeps thefragmentation of the day down so I can continue to concen-trate on jobs, not wandering the halls. It’s a no-brainer!



89Get Computer Training to

Get More Efficient

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Many applicationshave many time-saving andwork-saving functions. Butmost of us don’t know theyexist, much less how to usethem. We can save time bygaining knowledge. Thequestion is whether to learnit ourselves or attend sometraining.

My vote is to get sometraining. Armed with someknowledge about a software, we can be functional—but notexpert. Yet if this software is important to us, we should knoweverything about it. Becoming expert will lead us to greater ca-pabilities and more efficiencies and, yes, time savings.

Assignment

Identify the one or twoprograms you use the mostin your work. Assess yourability with those programsand then attend some train-ing programs designed toenhance your abilities withthem.

You will save time in the long run. You’ll be moreefficient and more capable. You may learn enough to dosomething no one else in the office can do. It might leadto that next promotion.


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The third-greatest time-killer is meetings. That’s why weall hate them so much. You’ve been to meetings that couldhave lasted 15 minutes but went an hour because of disorgani-

zation, people showing uplate, lack of a coherentagenda, and many otherreasons.

So we avoid them, butcan’t get away from them.Meetings are absolutelynecessary in almost everybusiness or organization ofwhich I am aware. So do

we avoid them or try to make them efficient? Because theyare needed, let’s vow to make them more efficient and wasteas little time as possible.

90The Third-Greatest Time-Killer

Assignment

Vow now to be part ofthe solution, not part of theproblem, when it comes towasted time in meetings.

A recent research project conducted by the University ofIowa determined that as much as 50 percent of the timespent in meetings is wasted. We MUST fix this.



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The basic problem with meetings is that they are horriblyinefficient. That’s why they waste so much time. And thereare a number of things we can do to make them more efficient.

What does efficiency take? First it takes appropriate sched-uling, using agendas, advanced planning by all parties, and goodpersonal and small groupcommunication skills. Youcan help your organizationgain efficiency during meet-ings by properly preparingyourself and demonstratingthat preparation at all themeetings you attend.

If no agenda has beenprovided, ask for one.

If the time is not lim-ited by the agenda, ask for that at the beginning of the meeting.

Read some materials on how effective meetings should beconducted.

Lead your work team to more efficient meetings by mod-eling good meeting preparation and behavior. Communicate yourpreparation to others and they will begin to follow your lead.And your meetings will gradually become more efficient andwaste less and less time.

91They Can’t Be Avoided—

But They CAN Be Efficient!

Assignment

Set a goal to become abetter meeting participant—and more active participant.Use the ideas that follow toimprove your meeting skills.

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Selecting the right time for meetings is the first step in moreefficient meetings. If meetings take place during the busiesttime of the workday, we should not be surprised when peopledon’t show up, show up late, or show up unprepared. Theyhave been focused on other tasks.

What time is the best time for meetings? Well, that oftendepends on the organization, but there are some general rules.

It is generally accepted that the beginning of the day is agood time for meetings. Although this is counter-intuitive,

there are some excellentreasons. First, the day hasonly just begun and peopleare not yet involved in theirdaily routines or problems.Second, people are fresh inthe morning, more alert,and better able to absorbnew information or makedecisions. Third, this tim-ing allows for proper

The only way to begin to eat away at that 50 percentefficiency rate at meetings is to start with yourself. Others willfollow.


92Meeting Timing—When Is Best?

Assignment

If you schedule meet-ings, make them for earlymorning. If you don’t, try toinfluence those who do tobetter, more efficient timesof the day.


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preparation for the meeting, either the evening before or thatmorning just prior to the meeting.

Another good time is right after lunch. It is not as good asearly morning, but after lunch people generally are refreshedfrom their work break and ready for new tasks.

The worst time, according to most experts, is at the end ofthe day. People are tired, trying to close out their work for theday, and reluctant to get involved with something that might takethem over their departure time. They are most likely to remaindetached and uninvolved in late-day or end-of-day meetings.

Meetings should not beallowed to continue indefi-nitely. Meetings withouttime limits are license tosteal time from the partici-pants because they breedinefficiency. Unfortunately,most meetings don’t havea time limit attached for the

Simply changing the time of meetings has been demon-strated to improve meeting efficiency and the quality of groupoutputs.


93Put a Time Limit on Meetings

Assignment

Assign time limits tomeetings you set, and sug-gest time limits to meetingsyou attend.

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group to get its work done, so they tend to be inefficient andwaste time.

Every meeting should have a time limit. What that limit isdepends on how much work the group has to do and how longit could be reasonably expected to accomplish that workefficiently. Either the meeting organizer or the group itself shouldalways set a time limit for a meeting.

If you attend meetings that do not have a time limit, sug-gest that the group set one as the meeting starts. Or, suggestthat to the organizer in advance. If you organize meetings, tryto accurately assess how much time should reasonably be takento accomplish the tasks for the meeting and set a limit to allowthe group to work to a deadline. People are quite a bit moreefficient when working against an established deadline.

The greatest enemy of any meeting is the lack of an agenda.Of course, an agenda is simply a list of the topics or tasks thegroup is to accomplish during the meeting created in some logicalorder. Everyone has a copy and can focus on those specifictasks.

In meetings I have organized over the years, I have foundthat setting a time limit produces high productivity and effi-ciency, and allows the group to get work done in a reason-able time without wasting that time. Those meetings also takeless time than others I have attended without time limits.


94Have an Agenda for Meetings

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One of the distinct advantages of an agenda is that it keepsall participants on task and reduces time wasted from talkingabout things that are not on the agenda. One of the great time-wasters in meetings is side discussions/conversations aboutthings the group did not meet about. It usually involves only a

few people, and the remain-der of the group is simplywasting their time. Agen-das keep everyone on thetopic(s) of the meeting.

Insist on agendas foryour meetings. Explain thestrengths of an agenda to

the meeting leader or facilitator. If you set up meetings, makecertain you create an agenda and distribute it in advance. Al-low others to have input to the agenda in advance, but at themeeting stick to it.

One of the more advanced techniques for using an agendais to set time limits on the various elements of the agenda. Eachaction should have a fixed amount of time assigned to deal withthat item.

Assignment

Use or encourage theuse of agendas for everymeeting.

A University of Iowa study, amongst others, demonstratedthat using an agenda has been shown to decrease meetingtime by as much as 25 percent.


95Use the Agenda—Time the Elements

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This keeps everyonefocused and on task. And,it also keeps the group fromusing up its allotted timewithout coming to the endof the agenda and havingaction items that do not getdiscussed or addressed.This problem leads to much-delayed action or groupsgoing over their meetingtime to get everything done. Neither is a positive outcome.

Whoever develops the agenda should identify a time limitfor each item. The person running the meeting then has a re-sponsibility to keep discussion on track and on time.

This may sound as though I’m preaching to a choir that hasthe agenda message, but an agenda not delivered to participantsin advance can be thought of the same way as giving students atest before the teacher covers the material. If participants have

Assignment

Made sure that time lim-its are established for everyitem on the agenda. If youmake the agenda, you do it.If someone else makes upthe agenda, suggest it to himor her.

The worst outcome of a meeting is when no decision ismade on some items. Usually people are counting on thosedecisions. Assigning time limits on agenda items makes meet-ings efficient, limits wasted time, and gets all the work done.


96Distribute the Agenda in Advance

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the agenda at least a coupleof days in advance, theycan prepare for issues orinformation items on theagenda. This allows forthe maximization of timeusage and efficiency.

In addition, it alsoallows for much more pro-ductive and useful meetings.If you’ve been to meetingswhere the agenda was dis-

tributed for the first time at the beginning of the meeting, then youknow how unproductive and long those meetings can go.

Are you called upon to lead meetings on a regular basis? Ifso, know that leading small groups is a learned skill, not some-thing you just happen to be able to do because you can breatheair. And most university programs don’t provide you with theseskills.

If you lead small groups and group meetings, get sometraining on how to do so efficiently. There are lots of sources.

Assignment

Make sure all your meet-ings have an agenda that is dis-tributed at least two days priorto the meeting. When youdon’t organize the meeting,ask for an agenda in advance.Prompt the meeting owner toget something out early.

Again, the University of Iowa study strongly suggests thatdistributing the agendas for meetings two days in advancecan cut meeting times by as much as 25 percent.


97Train Yourself on Conducting Meetings

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Contact your HR office, your training office, or even yoursupervisor. If you run the show, look into programs conductedby the local chamber of commerce, local executive trainingprograms by managementtraining companies, or evenget some coaching from aretired executive.

Don’t try to do thesewithout the right skills. Alittle training on small groupdynamics goes a long waytowards greater efficiency—and better outcomes.

Okay, you’ve got some training, but your group membersalso need training. No one has provided them with an educa-tion on how to participate in efficient and effective small groupmeetings, either.

Assignment

Research how you canget some additional trainingor education on leading smallgroup meetings. Then takeadvantage of that training toincrease your skill set.

Remember: You weren’t born with these skills, and youprobably did not get them in school. They are learned skills,so get some learnin’, as my country cousin would say.


98Train Participants and Staff

on Efficient Meetings

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So either get somecoaching for your meetinggroup, or get trained your-self and provide that to yourgroup. The more they knowabout how to effectivelyparticipate in a small groupmeeting, the better thosemeetings will go, the fasterthey will go, and the betterthe group outcomes will be.

If you are like me, you get invited to a lot of meetings. I’mon a lot of organizational committees and get invited to at leastthree group meetings a week. Ouch. That’s a lot of time awayfrom my primary tasks!

I combat this time loss by reviewing the agendas in advanceand determining if I really need to be at that meeting. Some-times I discover that the group will be addressing topics I can’thelp them with. Sometimes they are not decision-making meet-ings, but just information-sharing meetings where I know therewill be a written record of the meeting later.

Assignment

Look into finding a coachor training opportunity, evena brief one, to allow yourmeeting groups or teams tolearn how to better participatein small group meetings.

Don’t be afraid to invest some time in saving some time.Get some coaching or training for your team.


99Attend Only the Meetings You Must

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In these cases, I sometimes choose not to attend. I’m cour-teous to the meeting organizer and let him or her know. I also

share with him or her anyinsights if I have any regard-ing any topics under discus-sion, but I save my time andstay on task.

Don’t be afraid to makesome critical judgmentsabout which meetings youattend. As you probably al-ready know, not all meetingsare needed or productive.You want to be there for themeaningful ones, but not useup your time on the others.

The single greatest killer of your time is other peoplestealing it!

That’s right. There are just too many opportunities for otherpeople to take time away from your day. Visitors, phone calls,meetings, e-mails, office calls—the myriad opportunities during

Assignment

Be judgmental abouteach meeting. Make a know-ing decision about atten-dance. Sometimes it’s basedon your workload, some-times on the topic or otheritems. But make criticaltime-saving decisions aboutwhat meetings you attend.

That hour-and-a-half you spend in a useless meeting mightjust be the time you come up with the next Big Idea.


100The Greatest Time-Killer

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any working day thatpeople have to interactwith you are all potentialtime-wasters.

Not all, of course, butall too many interactionsare unproductive and wasteyour time. People stealyour time from you. Andoften, you don’t even real-ize it. When you do, youdon’t know what you can do about it. You seem powerless tocontrol this loss of time.

But you can. You have to control your work environmentand time. Don’t let others steal time from you. The simplestway to do that is to control access to you.

Each of us has a particular style of work, a way that wefind most comfortable and most effective for ourselves. Somelike to concentrate the first couple of hours each day withoutinterruption; others like to control the late afternoon for con-centrated productive work; yet others are quite comfortablewith interruptions throughout the day.

Assignment

Decide to control accessto your time by takingcharge of the human inter-action opportunities othershave with you. Once you do,all the following ideas willwork for you.

Take charge of your time and reduce or eliminate thenumber-one killer of your time. You could save hours a week!


101Communicate Your Work Style

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The key is to decidewhat your best, most pro-ductive work schedule is,and then communicate thatto others. A model mightbe professors in college.Remember that they setfirm office hours they areavailable each week tomeet with students. Atother times they were sim-ply not available—doingresearch, grading papers,writing papers, and so on.

Decide your best system for productivity and then post anoffice schedule outside your door or cubicle. Use that communi-cation to help you control access to you, and thus your ownproductivity and time.

Let’s face it: the boss is in charge. He or she runs theshow. So it is counterproductive to try to mold the boss to yourwork style or schedule. The most efficient way to work withyour boss is to adjust to him or her.

Assignment

Determine your bestwork schedule on a dailybasis. Work in any meetingsyou must attend, and thencommunicate that to others.Sometimes the best way isto simply post a daily sched-ule outside your office.

You would be amazed at the time you can save by simplytaking charge of your time.


102Adjust to Your Boss

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Find out how he or shelikes to interact with peopleand adjust accordingly. Ihave had many bosses overthe years, with many differ-ent styles. I simply adjustedmy style to theirs. Somewant no interaction outsidemeetings. Fine. That gaveme great freedom to control my schedule. Some wanted todrop into my cubicle at any time with information or instruc-tions or questions. No problem. And there has been a widevariety in between.

I always accommodated the boss’s style. It’s easier andmore efficient to adjust to the boss than to fight a fight you willlose. If the boss likes information by memo, I write memos. Ifshe likes information in meetings only, fine, I wait until wehave a scheduled meeting. If he just wants everything com-municated by walking into his office and telling him, fine—Ido that.

Assignment

Discover the boss’swork style and adjust yoursto it. You’ll find once you doso, you will be more produc-tive and actually save time.

If you try to fit the boss into your work style, you will justbe less productive, waste time, and—in the end—lose. Theboss is the boss. Adjust.


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Most of us move through life learning as we go. And weoften learn the most from key people in our lives, both person-ally and professionally. My good friend Jerry Wilson, author ofthe first two books in this series, once told me that he learnedmost of what made him successful in life from one particularman he worked with on a regular basis for a number of years.Howard was his mentor.

One of the best things you can do to help organize your-self in the office is to find a mentor (or coach, if you wish touse that word). Look for someone who knows the business,knows how to operate successfully, and is willing to work withyou to help you be more productive, efficient, and effective.And use your time better.

Find someone who iswell respected, who youlike and can work withwell, and who is clearlysuccessful. This persondoes not necessarily needto work in your organiza-tion, but should be some-one you have ready accessto and can have a continu-ing relationship with. Thenlet him or her share thetools of success he or shehas learned over the years.

103Find a Mentor or Coach

Assignment

Find your own mentor.Take your time and find theright person, and then meetwith him or her routinely totalk about problems, chal-lenges, and so forth. He orshe can often show youways to use your time moreefficiently.

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It’s in the little daily interactions with others that your timeleaks away. Someone stops by the office to chat—five minuteslost; a colleague comes in unexpectedly to discuss a projectproblem—10 minutes lost; a subordinate drops by the office toask you for some guidance on a problem he is working on—10minutes lost; a friend from another department sticks his headin the door and asks about golf this Saturday—five minuteslost; and so on.

Individually, these interruptions don’t seem too costly. Butcollectively, they can really add up to a major portion of yourday. Just the few I mention in the previous paragraph added up

to 30 minutes. If it was just30 minutes a day, that’s 2.5hours a week you lose toothers.

You need to controlaccess to yourself to pre-vent some of this. Someaccess is necessary, butsome is not. For your subor-dinates, set standard office

Yes, wisdom often comes with age and experience.Borrow from that.


104Control Interactions With Others

Assignment

Control people’s accessto you and you will controlthe loss of time that seemsto leak away during the dayto others.

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hours when you can be reached. For others, consider closingyour door for long stretches to allow you to protect your time(if you have a door!). Sometimes just the organization of youroffice or cubicle can help.

Believe it or not, howyou organize your officecan help you control accessand control your time. Evenif you have a cubicle andnot a traditional office, howyou arrange and use yourworkspace can help. Hereare some tips:

Face your primaryworkspace away from the door. That way, peoplecoming by are not tempted to just “drop in.”

When you want some concentrated time, close yourdoor (if you have one) to discourage drop-ins.

Don’t be rude, don’t be unaccommodating, but do beprotective of your time. After all, it is YOUR time.


105The Geography of the Office

Assignment

Take a look at how youhave your office arranged.Using the tips here, make thechanges you can to reduce“drop-ins.”

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Don’t have a guest chair. With no chair guestsaren’t tempted to sit and take up more time evenwhen they do come by.

Post office hours outside your office or cubicle.

Place a desk between you and the door, as a barrier.

Leave your door half open—or half closed.

Never face towards the door or opening to yourcube. It encourages people.

Desks, and sometimes the modular furniture in cubicles,can be used as barriers to casual conversation—and wastedtime. I learned early on how to use my desk as a barrier. WhenI have been in situations where I actually had a desk, I alwaysplaced it between the door and me. It was a barrier to visitors.

In cubicles, I tried to arrange my workspace so that myback was to the entry. That way someone who wanted to

Just some simple changes to the geography of your officecan make a big difference in time saved by protecting youfrom those folks who just have to “drop by for a chat.”


106Desk Placement

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interrupt me had to dosomething more than juststop by. He or she had toknock or otherwise get myattention.

If you look busy, peopleare less likely to interruptyou. With your back to theentry, and looking busy, youwill discourage casualvisitors.

There are usually two or more chairs in workspaces. Ihave always had the desire to have my chair and one for guestsor visitors. I have found that both are potential weapons inprotecting my time.

I always make certain that my chair faces me away fromthe entry or door to the workspace. That way people have tophysically interrupt me to get my attention.

Assignment

Try to arrange your deskand workspace for maxi-mum protection. Move thedesk or rearrange your cu-bicle workspaces to put yourprimary work area in such away so that your back is tothe entry or door.

Think of your office or cubicle as your battleground. Anymilitary person will tell you that you want to arrange the battle-ground to your advantage.


107Chair Placement

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My guest chair used tobe an invitation to steal mytime. It was out in the openand inviting. Now, I put thatchair in an uninviting place.I have two guest chairs inmy current office, but bothare pushed right up againstmy desk and require that avisitor physically pull oneout to sit in one. People tendnot to do that uninvited.

Thus, I can control who stays by my personal invitation—orlack of one—to sit down.

In addition, I usually make sure it’s an uncomfortable chairthat people may sit in once, but are reluctant to the secondtime. I may lose the first battle, but I usually win the war!

If you are fortunate to have a window in your office orcubicle, good for you. But a window can both cause problemsand be an asset. First, the problem.

Assignment

Analyze your chairplacement and types ofchairs. Organize them toyour best advantage bykeeping your back to thedoor and having a hard-to-access guest chair that isuncomfortable.

None of this is being rude; it’s controlling your time. Ifsomeone comes in who really needs to talk with you, yousimply invite him or her to pull up a chair and chat.


108Relationships to Windows

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Windows can be a distracter. Trapped inside on a beautifulspring day so evident outside your window, it’s easy to look anddaydream, thinking about the coming weekend or what you’llBBQ tonight on the grill. You’ve just killed five minutes!

Instead, face your primary workspace adjacent to the win-dow. It’s still there for good, natural light, but is not so easilydistracting.

Now the asset. If youwant to discourage visitorsfrom sticking around, putyourself in front of a brightwindow with no shades.With the window behindyou, you will be difficult tosee in the office or cubicle and the light will be uncomfortablefor the visitor. Visitors tend to stay shorter periods when theyhave to squint to see you.

I have a colleague who tells wonderful “war stories.” Youknow the kind. They usually start with, “I remember when…”or “That reminds me of a time.…” His stories are very inter-esting, and he does a great job of telling them.

Assignment

If you have a window,congratulations. Use it to youradvantage, not disadvantage.

If you don’t have a window, sorry about that.EpilogueEpilogueEpilogueEpilogueEpilogue

109Discourage “War Stories”

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Unfortunately, hisshortest story tends to beat least 10 minutes, and longstories can go for 20, eas-ily!

So although I love hear-ing his war stories, I haveto discourage him. A coupleof war stories every dayand I’m out as much as 30

minutes a day! I can’t afford that kind of time loss. So, what doI do? I discourage them as soon as he starts.

I simply interrupt him as the story begins and tell him, notunkindly, that I am on a deadline to get a project or paper doneand really need to get on that. I then divert him with a questionabout that project.

Assignment

Divert or deflect thosewho want to drop in withtheir “war stories.” Catchthem early and you’ll save alot of time each week.

Remember not to be rude or impolite, and also make amental note to revisit the story with that person. I usually tryto remember to ask about that story at lunch or late in theday when I am not quite as busy. It maintains good relationswith my colleague.


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A few years ago I learned from a consultant a sure-firemethod to reduce office visits to a minimum amount of time.When people come into your office to have a conversation withyou, stand up immediately.

And stay standing theentire time without invitingthem to sit. What the con-sultant had discovered, andI can now validate, is thatpeople don’t generally stickaround if you are standingand don’t sit down. If yousit down, they perceive thatas an invitation to chat andthey stay longer. They’lleven begin to look aroundfor a chair.

So don’t let them do that to you if you want to minimizetheir impact on your time. When they come in, stand. Remainstanding and don’t invite them to sit. You’ll find they will getright to the point and leave expeditiously.

It works! Great time-saver.

110Stand and Be Counted

Assignment

Learn to stand and becounted (counting the min-utes every day you willsave). When visitors comein unexpectedly, stand andmake them stand. They willbe much more efficient withyour time.

If this sounds rude, sometimes it feels that way. But youdon’t have to make it rude or unpleasant. Just stand and don’tinvite them to sit unless you want to spend time with them.


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I have a friend who is now in the 12-step “just say no”program. Actually, it’s easier than that, yet harder. She, as doall too many of us, has trouble saying the word no. So whathappens? She ends up being the “go-to gal.” Everyone knowsshe will always say yes, and she does.

The result? She’s overworked and tired all the time, andsays she always seems to get work done right at the lastmoment of deadline.

I took her through an analysis of her tasks one day andwe discovered she was doing enough work to fill a 60-hourweek! And much of it had nothing to do with her job. So webegan a rehab program. She is required to say no at leastonce each day.

She now evaluates allthese requests for help andwork to make certain theyfit with her personal andprofessional goals. She’sbeginning to learn to say noto those that do not fit. Asa result, she recently toldme her workload has de-creased to about a 50-hours-a-week load. I told her tokeep working at it.

111Learn to Say No

Assignment

Learn to say no. Say noto the tasks that are reallynot yours to accomplish.Say no to those extra taskspeople ask you to take on.Say no to doing someoneelse’s work. Be strategic,but learn to say no.

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If you are a leader or manager, you will need to learn some-thing that all managers must—or be condemned to a life ofunnecessary toil: you must learn to delegate.

Few schools teach any-one how to do this, but it isa critical skill for managersand supervisors.

Delegating tasks andwork is the purview of super-visors and managers—that’s why they have thosetitles. But all too often, Ihave seen them incapableof doing that, and the resultis managers working far toomany hours and theiremployees having little to do.

Saying no is not limited to the workplace. All those extrathings people ask for, such as coaching the soccer team orserving on a committee at your homeowners association,should also be closely evaluated so that they match yourpersonal goals. Say no when they don’t.


112Learn to Delegate: Discover What

Your Staff Can Handle

Assignment

Learn which jobs areyours to do and which yourstaff can handle better andmore efficiently. Then as-sign those jobs to your staffand supervise them; don’t dothe work yourself.

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If you are in this situation, learn to discern what you needto do personally, and what you should be assigning to peoplewho work for you—your staff. This requires an accurate as-sessment of your people and their capabilities. Many will thankyou for giving them work and tasks. Those are the ones youwill value the most.

As a supervisor, if youare one, one of your pri-mary responsibilities is tomanage your people. Indoing so, you have to knowwhat each of them is bestat doing and where theirweaknesses are. So, whenwork comes in, you must be

As a young manager, one of the most difficult things for meto learn was to delegate work to others. But once I grasped thattask, my life became much more in line with my expectations.


113Learn to Delegate: Learn What

Others Can Handle Better

Assignment

Conduct a proper assess-ment of your team membersto determine who is best atwhat. Then boldly assigntasks and work accordingly.

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in a position to delegate that work to someone on your teamBEST suited to get that work done, and done well.

This requires a real awareness of the strengths and weak-nesses of your team, and then a willingness to delegate workassignments to them.

Don’t get into the old position of, “If I want the job doneright, I have to do it myself.” I have seen more overworkedmanagers with that philosophy, and they tend to burn them-selves out quickly.

Rely on the strengths of the members of your team andyou’ll save yourself time in the long run.

Of course, once you’ve done your assessment of your teammembers, you will find weaknesses. Don’t just assume that ifone member is weak at task A, that you should never assignthat kind of work to him or her. If you do, you will find yourselfdoing the work yourself occasionally because the others on

Don’t find yourself in the “do it myself” mode. You’llkill yourself doing it, and it will cost an enormous amount ofpersonal time.


114Learn to Delegate: Train Your

Staff to Handle

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your team are fully engaged in work and can’t take on anothertask. Then you end up with it and the under-trained employeegoes home on time while you put in yet more overtime.

Instead, once you are aware of weaknesses, work to over-come those in your team members. When a task comes in and

has a reasonable timedeadline, assign it to some-one on your team who hasnot done that work before.Have him or her work withyou or someone else tolearn how to accomplishthat work under supervi-sion. Train him or her. Itmay take a little extra time

for you to do so the first time, but it will pay off in time later asthat employee learns how to accomplish that task.

There are those who procrastinate and those who do not.If you are not a procrastinator, don’t read this section; it’s notfor you.

Assignment

Assess your team, iden-tify weaknesses, and thentrain your team members onweaknesses so you can assigntasks to them in the future.

Think of this as an investment. It takes an investment ofyour time initially, but it pays off in time back to you later asthey learn how to do the work.


115Recognize That Procrastination Is a

Habit—Work to Break It

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But if you are, then here are some ideas that will help you.First, decide if you procrastinate. As with any other addic-

tion, the first step is to admit you have a problem. Quite frankly,you all know who you are. It’s something we know in our-selves. So, if you are a procrastinator, you continually put offwork until the last minute possible. This costs you added stress,pressure, and time working late to get done what should havebeen done much earlier.

So the first step is to admit it to yourself by looking for thosesigns of putting things off until it’s almost too late. Then decideyou are going to do something about it. You are going to put thebrakes on this habit, this ten-dency to put things off.

Some of the ideas alreadypresented in this book willhelp you both to recognizeyour habit and to overcomeit. The following ideas aresome special thoughts onprocrastination and the timeit costs us.

Assignment

Realize that if you are aprocrastinator, it’s costingyou a lot of time and that thesooner you recognize thatthe sooner you can begin todeal with the problem.

Some studies of procrastination have shown that thosetasks that are delayed by procrastination can cost up to twiceas much time to accomplish as those that are not.


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Now that you realize that you have this problem, it’s timeto step up and solve it. And the first thing a procrastinator wantsto do is what? That’s right,put it off!

Don’t do that. You’vetaken the big step by ac-knowledging it’s a problem.Now start dealing with it;don’t put it off. Start solv-ing the problem. To help, theideas that follow will address some of the usual problems pro-crastinators have and provide you with strategies for dealingwith them.

116Don’t Put It Off, Wimpy!

Assignment

Do something aboutyour procrastination. Do ittoday. Do it now. Do it.

Recognizing it’s a problem will not fix the problem. Look,it’s different from a drug addiction or some other vice, but itIS stealing time from you and your family and causing unnec-essary stress. Deal with it.


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Elsewhere in this book I’ve written about To Do Lists. Ifyou don’t currently have one, make one. Nothing helps breakthe cycle of procrastination better that forcing yourself to liveby a prioritized To Do List.

If you use it right, and discipline yourself to follow the rulesof a To Do List, you have to work on projects and tasks in apriority order. So do that. Work down your list. When you cometo an item that you aretempted to put off until an-other time—no matter thereason—don’t. Follow therules of the To Do List anddo the task or project. That’sthe imposed discipline of thelist.

Use that list to providethe artificial structure anddiscipline to do every task,in order, on your list. If you do that, you’ll find that you don’tput things off. Tell yourself you are required to follow the listand have to do the task. Let the list be your taskmaster.

117If It’s on the To Do List, Do It

Assignment

Use a To Do List andmake it your taskmaster.Follow it to the letter, one taskat a time, until they are alldone. No skipping allowed!

Psychologists tell us that sometimes people who pro-crastinate just need some external discipline to get themmoving on a task. The To Do List can serve as that externalmotivation.


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When assigned a task or job, sometimes we just don’t havethe time to do it. For those who can, there are other options. Ifyou are a supervisor, you do have some options to delegate thework to someone else who works for you. This can lightenyour load and allow you more time, yet still gets the jobaccomplished.

However, any good supervisor has to realize that passingwork to others could easily overload them, so caution is appro-priate, and you will need a close awareness of the workloadsof your staff. One way to manage it is to spread the elementsof the job over a couple of people, perhaps including yourself.Then you just manage the job.

Remember, however,that delegating the workthat was assigned to youdoes not mean you also del-egate the responsibility forgetting the job done. Thatwas yours to begin with andremains yours even whenyou delegate the work toothers.

118Commit to the Job—or Delegate It

Assignment

When you receive workthat will overload you, andyou have the capability, del-egate part or all of the job toothers.

Remember, though, that you are still responsible for thatjob getting done, so make sure it’s still on your To Do List tocheck on. That’s what being a supervisor is all about.


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This has happened to all of us at one time or another: Theboss comes in and assigns a task clearly the purview of some-one else. And you’retempted to say, “But that’snot my job!” Think beforeyou do that.

Think about this situa-tion for a minute. The bossmay be assigning that taskto you because he trustsyou more than the personwho is supposed to be do-ing the job—a plus for you,and something you can use at your next job review. Or maybethe job really does belong to you or, if not, to no one and you justgot selected.

In any event, first find a motivation to do the job before youtry to get out of it. Trying to get out of it might be more damag-ing than just getting it done. What can motivate you? Perhapsit’s avoiding the negative of not doing the job. Perhaps it’s thatyour boss has asked YOU, not someone else. Perhaps it’s be-cause it’s a job you can do better that anyone else. There canbe lots of good reasons for taking on the task. Sometimes youmay just have to find your own reason.

In the final analysis, is it going to be more time-consumingto get out of the job than to just do the job yourself? Decide.

119“It’s Not My Job, Man!”

Assignment

Critically assess thesesituations before jumping toone decision or another.Sometimes doing an unwantedtask leads to other benefits.

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Sometimes we are afraid of some jobs or tasks. What arethe reasons?

Sometimes we are afraid of failing at a job that is new orrisky. But failing is not necessarily bad. We can learn fromfailure. And who says it’s going to be a failure anyway? If youchange the fear to a positive attitude that you CAN do the job,the fear recedes.

Sometimes we fear what will happen when we succeed. Ifyou think getting the job done well will then get you more such

jobs, you fear success.Again, this is a positive. Itmeans that you havecarved out a niche that theorganization sees of valueand you are the “go-to”person.

A friend found herself in a similar situation—that is,assigned a task outside her area. But after reflection, shewent forward and did a masterful job of it. That specific taskturned out to be a trial for her. She was being tested—andshe passed. It resulted in a promotion shortly thereafter.


120Beat the Fear of the Unknown

Assignment

Don’t allow your fears,whatever they might be, tokeep you from success.

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There are lots of other fears, but all of them can be de-feated by a positive attitude. Find a way to turn each of theseopportunities into a positive and then get the task done. Quitefrankly, I have never been in an organization that has punishedpeople for getting work done. So don’t be afraid, just do it.

You are uncertain about this job because you don’t haveany experience or not enough knowledge about the subject tofeel confident.

This is an easy fear to overcome. Go out and get theknowledge you need. Sometimes that just means talking to some-one who has done the work before. It might mean doing somereading up on the subject,or doing some research, orinterviewing a few peopleto become smarter aboutthe subject.

Although this all mighttake more time, it takes far

Remember that all the while you are agonizing over thisjob, you are using valuable time. Or losing valuable time. Orwasting valuable time.


121Overcome the Insecurity of a

Lack of Knowledge

Assignment

Take the job, and getsmart about it. Then get itdone. It’s that simple.

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less time than the time you will spend worrying about the joband dithering about it. You’ll just spin your wheels and go no-where, continuing to waste time.

Okay, sometimes the job just doesn’t excite you. You’renot really interest in it. It’s boring. It’s dull. It doesn’t appearimportant enough.

If you think this way,you’re in trouble. I havenews for you: there are lotsof jobs and tasks out therethat you will not have muchinterest in doing. Tough!They need doing anyway.

If you get assigned oneof those tasks that you arenot interested in—get inter-ested! Motivate yourself.

Never fear what you don’t know, because in the 21stcentury, we have ready access to all kinds of information andknowledge. You just need to go out and get it.


122If You Are Not Interested, Get Interested

Assignment

Don’t rationalize thistask away and let it just sitthere because you aren’tinterested in it. It’s similar tobad news: the older it gets,the smellier it gets.

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The tendency by procrastinators is to let these tasks just sitthere. So they sit there and get old—and then older—and thensomeone asks about the task. Then you get nervous. Then some-one asks again. And you worry about it all the time. Then yourboss comes in to ask how that task is coming. And what do yousay? You’re working on it. Of course, you’re not.

Don’t let this happen to you. Find some motivation and getthe work done. The motivation can even be negative motiva-tion. You’ll get in trouble if you don’t get it done. You won’t getpromoted if you don’t get it done.

Find a reason to get interested and quit procrastinating. Dothe work.

Here’s the easiest way to take care of this kind problem: ifyou really don’t like a task, or don’t want to do it, the fastestway to get rid of it is to get it done.

Yep, just do it and it will go away.

Interest is not required to get work done—just the moti-vation to make it happen. All the while you are letting it sitthere, you are worrying about it, thinking about it, andspending wasted time on it.


123If You Don’t Like the Task,Do It and It Will Go Away

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No more pain, no moreworry, no more anxiety. Allgone.

As they say at Nike:Just do it!

Travel can be one of the most wasteful users of time weknow. Unfortunately, we all have to do some of this. So it makessense to make the best use of travel time as we can.

If you are traveling by car, try to build a schedule whereyou can put a couple (or more) of trips together into one travelsegment. This minimizes your out-of-office time and makes for

more efficient use of yourtime.

For example, if youneed to visit with a client orcustomer, and stop by youraccountant’s office some-time that week, why not

Assignment

The faster you get itdone the sooner it will be outof the way and out of yourlife. Period.

Think of it as hitting your head against a wall: it feels sogood when you stop, and the pain stops with it.


124Schedule Travel Trips in Batches

Assignment

Look at batching yourtrips, both in and around townas well as long distance.

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schedule them back-to-back? That allows you to make the bestuse of time away from your office—one trip instead of two.Most people save lots of time on local travel by batching theirtrips.

Of course, if you have to go long distance or are flying, dothat same thing. Try to batch your visits into one trip instead ofmany small trips.

We all have those longer trips where there is lots of “deadtime” (time spent in airports, time on airplanes, time in hotels,and so forth). When this can’t be avoided, use the time wisely.One of the best uses of this kind of time is to learn new skills.

I always conduct business travel with my notebook com-puter. And I always make a point of setting out to master a newset of skills during the trip. Sometimes I decide it’s to learnmore about a computer application, and I use help screens ortutorials. Sometimes I take a CD with some training moduleson it to absorb.

I’ve tested this idea on more than one occasion. Makingjust two stops during one trip instead of making two trips, Isaved, on average, 45 minutes. Now that’s time-saving!


125Use Travel Time to Learn

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Other times I takereading materials that havebacked up over the pastcouple of weeks. Often,industry magazines back upon me so I take those ontrips to get up to speed.

My notebook has “wi-fi”capability, so I will also doresearch on my destination,my client or customer, thecity I’m traveling to, or anynumber of Internet thingsthat add to my knowledgeor abilities.

One of the easiest things to do while traveling is to talk topeople. The modern cellular telephone allows us to keep intouch wherever we are, so why not use this time to make somecontacts?

Assignment

Determine to use your“downtime” efficiently tolearn new skills or gainknowledge. If not via a note-book computer, take a pro-fessional book or magazineswith you. Be productive withthis time.

The ideas that traveling is too hard and that you can’t beproductive on the road are nonsense. You can and should beproductive, even if it’s just to improve your capabilities. Newcapabilities or skills will save you time later.


126Use Travel Time to Communicate

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As you sit in that airport lounge waiting for that delayedflight, touch base with your office, call a couple of clients orcustomers, or call a colleague and discuss the state of the in-dustry. Connect and make or maintain contacts with this down-time. Just remember to follow flight rules when on board anaircraft.

If you use a notebook computer with wi-fi capability, con-nect to the Internet and check and respond to e-mails so youare up to date when you return.

If you are driving, you can still do the same thing. Call theoffice, call your appointment to confirm—or to tell him you are

stuck behind an accidentand might be a little late—call appointments for thenext day to confirm. Thereare lots of people you coulduse this time to touch basewith while driving.

One note of cautionwhile driving: always use ahands-free device. Doingso is much safer than try-

ing to hold that phone to your ear, and allows you to drive withboth hands. There are all types available today, and many arevery inexpensive. I use one routinely that I got as a part of mylast cellular contract. It works great, I communicate betterusing it, and I probably drive better, too.

Assignment

While traveling, plansome communication on theway to and from. Again,make use of this time and itwill save you time later.

All this talking will save you time later when you have tomake the same calls from the office. You could be doing otherthings and get home on time that day.


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Sometimes you are traveling after a hard day’s or week’swork and face a stressful trip and more work at the other end.When this happens to me, I often resolve to relax and unwind

while traveling. I know, it’snot getting anything done,but it is helping me recoverfrom stress and allowingme to be better prepared,rested, and refreshed forthe coming event.

If you are traveling bycar, take a book tape or CDand listen to it while youdrive. Listen to your favor-

ite music or talk show. If you are traveling by air, take a goodnovel and immerse yourself in it for a few hours. Take a por-table CD player or an iPod or MP3 player and listen to music.

Relax, unwind, and refresh yourself so you will be betterprepared both physically and mentally for the next meeting orevent you are traveling to.

127Use Travel Time to Unwind

Assignment

When you are stressed,and time allows it, relax dur-ing travel time. Unwind andde-stress. Be better preparedfor your arrival event.

Though this does not save you time immediately, it willsave you time later as you arrive refreshed and better able tohandle what comes your way at the other end.


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One great use of travel time, which is most applicable toair travel, is preparation for the upcoming event or meeting you

are traveling to. Sitting inairports and on airplanes isvery conducive to readingand making notes.

I do this all the timewhen traveling. I knowthat I will have time whileI travel, so I put all my ad-vanced reading into afolder to review while I’mtraveling. That way I’m

using my office time efficiently, but I am also using my traveltime to my best advantage.

This also has the advantage of allowing that information tobe fresh for me when I arrive and need to use it.

128Use Travel Time to Prepare

Assignment

When using air travel,take all your preparationmaterials with you. Thenread them in the airport andon the plane.

This saves you time at the office and efficiently uses yourtravel time to your best advantage.


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If you fall behind on tasks as I often do, traveling usuallyprovides some uninterrupted time to get caught up on things.This is especially true for air travel where there is a lot of timejust sitting around.

When I get into these situations, I pack a couple of folderswith materials I want to read or work on, toss my notebookcomputer over my shoulder, and hit the road. While waiting inthe airport, or while sitting on the plane, I can break open the

files and read, write, takenotes—whatever. If I needto do work on the computer,I simply fire up the notebookand go to work.

This is a great use oftime that otherwise wouldbe unproductive.

129Use Airplane Time to Catch Up

Assignment

Determine to use traveltime to catch up, or even getahead, on work.

This technique will save you time by allowing you fairlyuninterrupted time to do work—either catching up or gettingahead.


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Remember all that reading you had to figure out when todo? Those trade magazines, internal reports, research reports,and so forth? Well, traveling is a great time to do all that read-ing. Not while you are driving the car, no, but when you are inan airport, on the plane, in the hotel, or in a taxi on the waysomewhere.

All of these opportuni-ties are times to get caughtup on your professionalreading.

Quite frankly, the besttimes I have for this kindof reading is when I’m onthe road.

130Use Travel Time to Read

Assignment

Take your “catch-upreading” with you when youtravel and use that time to getcaught up. Don’t just sit therelooking out the window.

You know you need to read all that stuff and will bebehind if you don’t, so take it with you and use your traveltime. Again, it saves you time later.


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Your personal life should be a part of your time planningand management as well as your professional life. After all, it isa major part of your day, week, and month.

As you decide what goals you want to set for your profes-sional life, don’t forget your personal life as well. Your long-range goals should include some personal goals as well—goals

such as when you want toretire; how many kids youwant and to what extentyou want to support themin college; and any goalsrelating to yourself, such ashome purchase, education,spouse education, and soforth.

Your objectives foreach year should also in-

clude personal objectives, such as spending time at home withfamily, or vacation time, or participating in your children’sactivities at home and at school. Include these so you can plantime to actually accomplish them.

131Set Personal and Family Goals

Assignment

When outlining yourlong-range goals and short-term objectives, always in-clude personal and familygoals and objectives so youcan plan for them.

If you don’t include this stuff, you’ll never get to do it.They have to be in your plan. Your financial advisor is goingto ask the same kinds of questions of you when it’s time totalk to one, so start now.


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Okay, good start. Youhave outlined long-rangegoals and short-term objec-tives that involve you andyour family. Now make cer-tain you include time everyday and every week andevery month to actuallyaccomplish those things.

The reason I recommend these be written down is so theycan be reviewed routinely and then acted upon. So, when youare looking over that work schedule for tomorrow and realizethat you have a child’s piano recital that evening, and you notethat one of your goals was to be involved in your children’slives—well, you know what you need to do. Get that recital onyour calendar for tomorrow!

If you don’t plan for these things to happen, they won’thappen. So include them in all your daily planning.

132Make Certain You Leave Time

for Personal Goals

Assignment

Every day ask yourselfthe question: “Am I includinganything today that helps meaccomplish my personal orfamily goals and objectives?”

Of course, you can’t always accommodate somethingevery day, but the process is to ask the question every dayso that you do, over time, get these things done.


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All of you A personality types out there, listen up! You willburn yourself out if you don’t relax a little. Studies have shownthat the more you work without breaks, the less effective andefficient you are. So learn from the research and plan for somedowntime during every day.

How? The first tactic is to leave the office and have lunchevery day away from your desk. Okay, you diehards, you canstill take your lunch in a brown bag, but go outside (in good

weather) and relax by thelake or outside of the office.Take a half hour and thinkabout something other thanwork.

Another way is toschedule some of that read-ing time every day. We’veaddressed how to handle allthat reading you have to do,but one way is to simply al-locate a half hour every day,perhaps in the afternoon, toget that reading taken care

of. It’s often relaxing and serves to de-stress you. You comeback to the work a little refreshed and ready for more.

Take a couple of breaks during the day.Go have a brief chat with a colleague for five minutes.Even a little time away from the “grindstone” will help you

come back refreshed and ready for more. And you’ll be moreeffective and more efficient because of it.

133Schedule Downtime During the Day

Assignment

Schedule downtimeevery day. It doesn’t haveto be a lot of time—indeedit should probably not be alot of time. But a littlebreak from the work goesa long way to refreshingyour mind.

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Another thing to do to refresh yourself is to take brief breaksthroughout the day. No, not those 20-minute smoke breaks oth-ers take. Another thing to do is take a five-minute break everycouple of hours.

Sometimes these just happen naturally, such as when youdrive 10 minutes to get to an appointment or walk to the nextbuilding on campus to meet someone.

But more often, youhave to make these oppor-tunities, or plan them.

What kind of breaks?How about a quick walk tothe soda machine for yourfavorite soda? Or a trip tothe coffee pot for anothercup of joe in the morning(my favorite)? Or go visita friend in another office for five minutes to talk about the kids.Or just sit at your desk and surf the net for your next vacationspot for five minutes. Or—well, you get the drift.

The research is quite clear: We are refreshed even withsmall breaks in the work schedule, and we are also moreefficient when we return to the tasks at hand.


134Take Brief Breaks

Assignment

Make yourself take briefbreaks throughout the day.Not long, perhaps five min-utes or so. Almost anythingnot specifically related toyour work will do.

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I have a friend who I expect to lose early in her life. Yep,she’s a classic workaholic. She spends 12–14 hours every dayat work, then invests another four hours at home or with familyactivities. That’s 16–18 hours she’s is engaged fully every day.

And none of this activity is for herself. She’s overworkingherself. To her credit, she knows this about herself and is workingto overcome this problem. But she is likely to burn herself outearly in life.

Don’t let this happen to you. In addition to burnout, studiesof employees who work those kinds of hours routinely indicatethat the last few hours are very unproductive. They also showthat’s when mistakes are made.

It’s because people aretired and not on their “AGame.”

Don’t let this happento you. Working an eight-to 10-hour day efficiently,using the techniques fromthis book, should be plentyto get the job done.

These breaks serve to refresh you and serve as greatmental transition devices to move to the next project.


135Don’t Overwork Yourself

Assignment

Target your workday toeight to 10 hours. Only worklonger by exception, not as arule. Stay on your A Game.

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Here’s a good time-saving tip. We all have tosee doctors and dentists onsome regular basis. As weget older, perhaps it’s moreoften. These activities canbe scheduled and shouldnever be left until the lastminute.

The problem with alltoo many people is that theywait until the last minute tomake that appointment.Then they are trying tosandwich in an appointment to an already-busy day and, by thetime they finally call, only a few appointment times areavailable.

It’s really hard to watch these people burn themselvesout. And also to know they will probably have to rework allthe tasks they handled during the last few hours of workingbecause they were not at their best.


136Schedule Medical and Dental

Visits Well in Advance

Assignment

Plan for doctor and den-tist appointments at least twoweeks in advance. Get themscheduled and on your calen-dar. Then they are fullyplanned events you canschedule around effectivelywithout fragmenting your day.

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This increases stress and complicates—and fragments—the workday.

So plan for these events well in advance and schedule whenit is most advantageous to you, not fit in between otheractivities.

A great trick with these appointments is to set them inadvance and for first thing in the morning. For example, myfamily doctor starts appointments at 7 a.m. I always schedulemyself for appointments with him for that time by scheduling inadvance.

That way, I’m first and not delayed, as many appointmentslater in the day can be, and I’m done and out of there and towork nearly on time. Mission accomplished, and no impact onmy work.

Sorry, but yes: you have to see the dentist at least acouple times a year. So plan ahead so it doesn’t screw upyour schedule and make the day even more difficult.


137Schedule Medical and Dental

Visits for Early Morning

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I schedule my dentistthe same way, although shedoesn’t start until 8 a.m.Still, I’m minimizing my timeaway from the office, and Imake certain that theseappointments don’t frag-ment my day by being in themiddle of the morning orafternoon.

In this quick shop culture, this idea may be a lead balloon.Nonetheless, I’ll try to make this point clear. Every time youbreak into your day for a simple, unplanned task, you fragmentyour day and cause inefficiency.

So, every time you have to run to the store for a carton ofmilk, or an ingredient for a baking project, you are fragmentingyour day’s work. Every time you have to run to the supplycloset for more paper for the printer, or try to find a new printercartridge, you are fragmenting your day.

Assignment

Schedule your medicaland dental appointments atthe beginning of the day orthe end of the day.

The key here is to keep from fragmenting your day withthese appointments. You don’t want to have to stop work, goto the appointment, and then start up work again.


138Grocery Trips: Buy Bulk

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When you buy grocer-ies, buy bulk. Get lots ofstuff. Stock the pantry.Don’t end up having tomake multiple trips to thestore every week just forone or two items. This justfragments all of your efforts.

The same is true atwork. Have your supplies on hand, not at the store or in thesupply room. When you start a project, have everything youneed at hand so you don’t have to stop and go get somethingor, worse, go buy something.

Sometimes the time we spend getting ready to do things athome costs us time it should not. One area for you to look isyour closet. Yep, the place where we hang and store clothes.If you are taking time finding the right clothing every morning,then you are likely wasting time. Yes, it might only be five min-utes, but five minutes times five days times four weeks addsup to 100 minutes a month. That’s more than an hour and ahalf each month you’ve wasted searching for your clothes.

Assignment

Buy bulk, and preparefor your projects. Don’t getinto a situation where youare constantly running outthe get something.

Fragmenting your work and life effort simply delays thingsand uses extra time. Save time by having it all there when youneed it.


139Organize the Closet

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Seemed silly at first,didn’t it? Not so silly now!An hour and a half is a sub-stantial amount of time.

So, get that closetorganized. Put your workclothes in one area. Yourplay stuff, gardening stuff, and you sports stuff go somewherespecial. Get it organized. Organize those shoes. Organize thosedrawers so your work stuff is easily at hand.

Too many times I watch people make special trips for oneor two items, or, I see them schedule appointments out of theoffice once a day. As with all such things, it just fragments theday more and makes you more inefficient.

Combine all your trips out of the office—and out of thehome—into one large trip or a couple of combined trips.

Assignment

Organize your closet. Beprepared to find what youneed quickly and efficiently.

It seems silly, but it will save you time every day, everyweek, every month.


140Don’t Make Special Trips—

Combine Them


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For example, I don’t run errands every day. All my errandsare done on Saturday morning. I group all the trips together intoone series of stops. By noon on Saturday I’m done. Everyerrand is run, everything is put away (yes, even groceries), andI’m on to other things.

Now, my neighbors—well, that’s different. Their car leavesthe garage every Saturday about 10 times. And they come back

with one or two things. Theyeven do this during theweek. They will comehome from work. Run anerrand. Eat dinner. Run anerrand.

What fragmentation!Combine these trips

into one large, efficient tripwhere you get it all done.Then you can move on to

other, perhaps more enjoyable, things. Maybe a softball gamefollowed by a BBQ. Now you’re talking!

Assignment

Group your errands intoone large trip. Not only willyou save time, but you’ll bemuch more efficient and geteverything done faster.

This takes planning. So plan these things and save some time.EpilogueEpilogueEpilogueEpilogueEpilogue

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For some people, every morning is an adventure. They areunorganized and chaotic. Everyone is rushing around with nosystem and getting in each other’s way. All this chaos and dis-order costs time. It is also quite stressful and a terrible way tostart your day.

Consider establishing a system, a routine, to your morningpreparations.

Scheduling people seems over-controlling, but in largefamilies it is necessary. My father grew up in a family of sixkids, all two years apart in age. Without a system, they wouldnever have gotten out the door in the morning. But it is evenimportant for small house-holds. There are only twopeople in my house, butwe have a simple systemof getting out the door inthe morning without get-ting in each other’s way.No chaos; it’s organized.

The system should be quite simple. Sometimes simply hav-ing people rise a few minutes apart and putting everyone into asequence that best uses the homes facilities is the easiest wayto do it. You can base that on who has to get out the door firstin the morning.

141Organize and SystemizeYour Morning Procedure

Assignment

Set up a system for yourmornings so you can effi-ciently get out the door.


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Yep, it takes training. Once your system is in place, it doesn’tjust happen—especially if there are children in the family. Just

telling them what to do isn’tenough for youngsters. Youneed to train them andsometimes supervise them.

Get them trained andused to a routine and it willall work smoothly. Yes, therewill be some occasionalwrinkles and changes. But

overall, you need a system that works, and people who workthe system.

Everyone’s system will be different, but having one isimportant. Not only does it efficiently get you started, but itdoes so without a lot of stress. Start your day refreshed, notstressed!


142Train the Family

Assignment

Walk everyone throughthe process. Make sure every-one knows his or her role andwhy you are doing it this way.

Get family members to understand that it is part of theirresponsibility to help the family get organized and goingevery morning.


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Sometimes the best rewards are not those that come fromothers, but those that we give to ourselves. When things go asplanned, when you gettasks and projects done ontime, reward yourself.

Here’s a story: WhenI was a smoker (reformedand fairly intolerant now!)I used to complete a taskor project and reward my-self with a cigarette. Thecigarette was my way ofsignaling accomplishment and obtaining reward. I could not havethe cigarette until the task was complete. Later, I changed thatto small candies. Later still, I changed that to a cup of coffee.And finally, I rewarded myself with a short break.

Those all worked for me. They kept me on task and werequite simple (yeah, the cigarettes were deadly, but…) toprovide.

Find a similar system for yourself. It keeps you efficient,keeps you on task, and uses time wisely. And the reward shouldbe something brief and easy to do.

143Reward Yourself

Assignment

Establish a simple rewardsystem for yourself to encour-age efficiency and good timeuse.

We all work for rewards of some kind: the reward of araise, or promotion, or seeing success. This little system justuses our natural human tendencies. And it works.



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Mrs. Smith, your 5th-grade teacher, is going to cringe whenI say this, but: not everything has to be perfect.

What? Tell me it ain’t so!Sorry, there are just some things that don’t have to be better

than just okay. Sometimes the minimum is just fine. Don’t try toget an A on every paper, so to speak.

Of course, only you can know what those things truly are,but, for example, personal notes from a meeting don’t have tobe typed up if only for yourself. Routine reports are often just

that: routine. So just getthem done. Don’t spendmore time on them thannecessary.

Save qual i ty t imeand quality work for thehigh-priority tasks andprojects where i t canmake a difference.

144Don’t Be a Perfectionist

Assignment

Do routine things rou-tinely. Don’t spend more timethan is necessary on thingsthat simply don’t require it.

Save time for the things that matter. On those things,don’t skimp. Give them your best work. On the routine stuff,just give ’em what is necessary.


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We all have a lot ofcommunication going on athome—sometimes toomuch. Let’s see what’s avail-able. First, of course, is thetelephone; and of courseeveryone has a cell phone.Then there is the TV—orTVs. How about computers?And the Internet connec-tions? Fast? Yep.

So how does all this communication impact your time? Itowns it! Think about your home and all the communicationdevices you have that can attract your time the way flypaperattracts flies. Sometimes all this communication leads to over-load. We spend so much time communicating that we don’t geteverything done.

Camped out watching baseball or football all weekend?What else did you get done?

Butt sore from surfing the Internet all weekend? What elsedid you get done?

Played video games and kicked butt all weekend? Whatelse did you get done?

145Home Communication:

Are You Over-Connected?

Assignment

Control the use of commu-nication and entertainmentactivities at home. Use someof that time to do some fam-ily activities, take care ofsome household chores, orwork on your “honey do” list.


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It’s fine to have all this stuff. And great relaxation. Butdon’t end up letting this communicating world control your lifeevery night or all weekend. Practice some self-control and getsome of that other stuff done, too.

Speaking of television…That thing will suck the life out of you! Get control now.

Just coming home and plopping down in front of the tube tovegetate is not living. It’s going brain dead. You get nothingaccomplished.

But wait, you say. Wewatch TV as a family. No,you don’t! You just happento sit in the same room to-gether, but the experiencesare individual. There’s littleinteraction, little discussion,and little, if any, brain matterbeing used, either.

Time is the thing that we run out of. Once it’s gone, itcannot be replaced. Use it wisely.


146TV Time Sucks Away From People Time

Assignment

Limit your time in frontof the tube. Watch what isappropriate and quality, andspend the rest of the time onfamily goals and objectives.

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Limit your time in front of the TV. Limit kids’ time, too. Dothings as a family. Go somewhere. Work on a family project. Inthe evening, get some work done on family goals and objec-tives; don’t leave them all for the weekend.

Use your time at home for something besides disappearinginto the television.

Children, too, waste alot of time in front of thattube. If research is correct,the average kid watchesnearly five hours of televi-sion a day. A day!

There simply is notenough quality program-ming on any given day tojustify five hours.

Television is an incredible time-waster. Most of what wewatch is garbage. We get little from it. Watch the good stuff,ignore the rest, and find something productive to do.


147Control Children’s Access to TV

Assignment

Offer some alternativesto television and encouragechildren to do things that aremore engaging or productive.


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Encourage your children to do things other than watchtelevision. (The Internet is not an alternative!) Encouragethem to play games, do homework, interact with other kids,get involved in community projects, or even read a book.

Don’t let their brains get wasted by television and lettheir time get wasted by this voracious monster.

By now you know thatdangers lurk on theInternet. Camping out onthe Net usually is entertain-ment, not learning. Perhapsjust as importantly, thereare lots of problems and

Research is beginning to demonstrate that there is a corre-lation between children’s time watching television and lowertest scores. And it’s a terrible waste of their precious time intheir formative years.


148Control Children’s Access

to the Internet

Assignment

Keep control of theInternet, and keep your kidssafe and spending their timewisely.

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dangers out there for children with unrestricted access tothe Internet.

You should control this access to supervise not onlythe content they view, but also the time they spend on theNet.

Some close friends with three boys put their computerwith Internet access in the family room. The rule was thatthe boys could get on the Internet only after their home-work was done, only for an hour, and a parent had to be inthe room.

I have a friend, Tom, who does his own investing. He hasan account with one of the online brokers and manages hisown portfolio. I think he’s pretty good at it.

Is this one going to save you time? Yes. If you have kidswho get addicted to the Internet and neglect their school-work, you’ll have to intervene. It’s better to keep that fromhappening.


149Don’t Check Your Portfolio Every Day


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He has only one problem: he’s doing it all the time. Atwork, he’s constantly checking stock prices. Over lunch,he’s doing research on his stocks or potential stock to buy.At home he spends at least an hour every night at this task.I’d bet he spends at leasttwo and a half hours aday at this.

It’s probably not anaddiction and not a majorproblem if he’s doing well(and I think he is). Theproblem is in the frag-menting of his time thisdoes every day.

I stick my head in thedoor of his office and he’s checking stock prices. He thengoes back to work and has to reorient himself on the task orproject he’s working on. It fragments his concentration andcosts him time.

To be successful at this, he doesn’t have to check everyfew minutes. A couple times each day will likely do just fine.

Tom kills a lot of time doing this. He would probablysave himself an hour a day if he just limited his reviews toonce each morning and once each afternoon.


Assignment

If you do your own invest-ing online, control your urgeto check on the investmentsevery 10 minutes and stayconcentrated on your tasks.

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Vacations are important. That’s why companies give youthat time. It’s time to relax, regenerate, rejuvenate, andreenergize yourself.

But too many people don’t take their vacation time and endup tired, and overwhelmed by work, and they never getrefreshed.

My friend and colleague Sally is one of those people.She mentioned the other day that she has so much vacationtime built up that she is losing it every year. Of course, Itook her to task about that.

Losing vacation time can be thought of as giving awaymoney! You get this time as part of your compensation. It’sthere for a reason. Your company wants you to take that

time so you can be re-freshed and a better em-ployee and member of theteam.

The more tired youget, the more inefficientyou get. Inefficiency costsyou time. Vacations let yourest up both physically andmentally.

150Schedule Vacations—and Take Them!

Assignment

Take those vacations.You’ll be more efficient whenyou return. Your family willappreciate it, too.


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Okay, not everyone can just up and move. If you are in asituation where you can, then consider moving closer to work.

Why? Some people in California are now commuting morethan an hour one way to get to their work. In Los Angeles thismay not be helped given the cost of housing people, but that’s

not true in all cities, and itmay not be in yours.

Many cities are seeinga resurgence of urban liv-ing. Apartments and con-dos are being builtespecially for people whodo have the capacity to

move to be closer to work. For people who’s children are grownand out of the house, this is a perfect solution.

People who don’t take vacations have been studied. Theytend to be more inefficient than most, be more tired thanmost, and burn out earlier on various jobs than most. Don’tlet this happen to you.


151Try to Live Close to Work

Assignment

If you are in a positionto do so, consider movingcloser to your workplace.

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If you save just 10 minutes on your morning commute bymoving closer to work, you will save 20 minutes a day, 100minutes a week, and 400 minutes a month. That’s more thansix and a half hours a month you would save!

Who wouldn’t like to have more than six extra hours amonth available for other things?



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Index

Index

AAAAAairplane time, use to

catch up, 156appointments, when to make

your, 56-57

BBBBBBlueTooth, 108-109boss, adjust to your, 125-126breaks, take brief, 160-162burnout, avoid, 162-163business cards, 50-54

ccccccalendar, electronic, 65-67caller ID, 75cell phone, 105-106

set to vibrate, 106-108

cell phone number, whoknows your, 106-107

chair placement, 131-132closet, organize your, 166-167communication as

time-killer, 70communication,

home, 172-174computer speed,

optimum, 101-102computer training, 110-112contact list, 96

create a, 94-95contacts, organizing your, 46-47contingency time, allowing

for, 59-60copy and paste, 89

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DDDDDdaily interactions, 128-130deadlines, setting, 32-33delegate, learn to, 136-140, 144desk placement, 130-131desktop, organizing your, 41-42do not disturb (DND)

function of phone, 72downtime, schedule, 160-163draft documents, 53

EEEEEe-desktop, keeping clean, 99electronic files, organizing

your, 45e-mail files, organizing, 84e-mail folders, organize your, 87e-mail messages, short, 83e-mail subject lines, 88e-mail, when to handle, 80-82

FFFFFfamily, train your, 170files,

culling your, 47-48handling paper, 90-92

filing system, establish aclean, 100-101

folders, organizing your, 44

GGGGGgoals,

personal, 159set personal and

family, 158

goals and objectives, writedown, 20-21

grocery trips, minimize, 165-166

IIIIIideas, label your, 13insecurity of lack of knowl

edge, 147-148Internet connection speed,

optimum, 102-103Internet, control children’s

access to the, 176-178interruptions, minimize, 68-69

JJJJJjob,

clear goals for your,18-20

long-range goal foryour, 19

jokers, discouraging, 85-87

LLLLLlifestyle, evaluating your, 15lifestyles, go-go, 15

MMMMMmagazines, handling, 92-93mail, handling efficiently, 48-50medical and dental visits,schedule, 163-165meeting agenda,

distribution of, 119-120elements of, 118-120

meetings,agenda for, 117-118

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Index

as inefficient, 114-115as third-greatest

time-killer, 113outside, 67-68selective attendance,

122-123time limit for, 116-117timing for, 115-116train staff for efficient,

121-122train to conduct,

120-121memos, sending, 79-80mentor or coach,

find a, 127-128morning routine, 169-170

NNNNNno, learn to say, 135-137

OOOOOobjectives, daily and weekly,

22-23office geography, 129-130office hours, set, 68-70office visits, handling, 90over-committing to work, 33-34

PPPPPpaper files, organizing your, 43paper mail, handling your, 80-81Pareto’s Principle, 25-26PDA, 65, 95-96

purchasing a, 104-105people as greatest time-killer,

123-125

perfectionist, don’t be a, 172personal data assistant, seePDAphone calls,

inbound, 76-78outbound, 76-78written records of,

78-79placement,

chair, 131-133desk, 130-132

planner, see schedulerplanning your day, 23-24printer, get your own, 110-112prioritizing, the ABCs of, 26-27priority items,

A, 27-28B, 28-29C, 30-31

problem areas, assess your, 17procrastinate, determine if

you, 24-25procrastination as a habit,

140-142procrastination, do something

about, 142

RRRRR“reading file,” using a, 92-94reward system, establish a, 171

SSSSSscheduler, keeping a, 50-51scheduling,

step 1, 61-62step 2, 62-63

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step 3, 63step 4, 64step 5, 64-65

scheduling as a process, 60-51scheduling your workday, 55-56score, keeping, 34-35software, keeping current, 98spam, fight against, 85speaking as time-saver, 79-80stock portfolio, 177-178“stuff,” doing without your,

50-52suspense file, 50-52

TTTTTtask,

dealing with a boring,148-149

doing an undesirable,149-151

task list, 96tasks,

fear of, 146-147grouping similar, 57-58writing down, 31-33

text messaging, 109-111time study, conduct a, 16-17time, amount spent on goals,

21-22time-a-holic, 16time-killer, second greatest, 70time-savers, true, 97times, protecting your mostefficient, 57-59

To Do List,creating a, 35-37sharing your, 38updating your, 39-40using a, 36-37

To Do List andprocrastination, 143

travel time,use to communicate,

152-153use to learn, 151-152use to prepare, 154use to read, 156use to unwind, 154

travel trips, scheduling, 150-151trips, combine errand, 167-168TV as time-waster, 174-175TV, control children’s access

to, 175-176

VVVVVvacations, schedule, 176-180virus protection, 103-104voice mail as call-screener,

73-74voice mail, handling, 71-72voice mail message, your, 72-73

WWWWW “war stories,” discourage,

133-134wi-fi notebook computer, 153windows, relationship to,

132-133

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Index

work style, communicateyour, 123-125

working hours, most effective, 55

workspace,how to arrange your,

129-130organizing your, 40-41

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Chapter title here

About the Author

Bob Dittmer has more than 25 years of experience in pub-lic relations, marketing, and higher education.

He currently serves as a faculty member in the School ofJournalism at Indiana University, Purdue University, Indianapolis,after more than 15 years as an adjunct faculty member withcolleges and universities around the country, in both graduateand undergraduate programs. He teaches public relationscourses, is responsible for managing the public relations se-quence, and serves as the marketing and retention officer forthe school.

He has served as the director of media relations for bothan American government organization with responsibilities forall of Europe, as well as for a major NATO organization withresponsibilities for public information management worldwide.Bob has more than 15 years experience in public relations andadvertising agencies, working on a wide variety of clients inboth business-to-business and business-to-consumer arenas. Heis also an author and literary agent.

With a B.A. from John Carroll University and an M.A. inCommunication from Marshall University, and accreditationfrom the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), he isalso dedicated to his profession. He was the 1998 President ofthe Hoosier (Indiana) Chapter, PRSA. He also served as 1999Chair of PRSA’s National Association Section and as Chair ofPRSA’s East Central District in 2001 (five states) and remainson the Board of Directors of the Hoosier Chapter. Bob was

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elected to membership in the Indianapolis Public RelationsSociety in 1998.

Bob has spent years experiencing and examining almostevery kind of time-waster you can imagine. Over the years hehas collected the ideas he and others have developed to solvethese time challenges. This has led to the book 151 QuickIdeas to Manage Your Time. He is currently at work editinganother of the 151 Quick Ideas books as well as co-writinganother book on writing.

Bob and his wife, Susan, live in Indianapolis.

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