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Friday, August 26, 2011
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Time Management
I was going to look up "The Last Lecture" given by Randy Pausch, but it didn't download correctly, and kept freezing up, so I settled for one he did on time management, instead. Funny how things happen so we hear and see the things we need to hear and see the most. If you have time (haha), I mean if you make time, this is a great lecture. For those who will ignore it, or think it's not worthwhile to watch, I wrote down a lot of the points that seemed to make the most sense for my life right now, or the points that were just...awesome.
The end (not the means) of maximizing time is maximizing fun.
Being successful doesn’t make you manage your time well. Managing your time well makes you successful.
If you’re going to run with people who are faster than you, you are going to have to find a way to master the skills that you do have.
What will happen if I don’t do this item on my ‘to do’ list?
If you do the right things adequately, that’s much more important than doing the wrong things beautifully.
(Lou Holtz - 100 Things - look it up!)
80% of the revenue is going to come from 20% of your clients. Where is the value? Shove the other stuff off the boat.
Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment. Experience is one of those things you can’t fake.
If you can dream it you can do it. -Walt Disney
If you refuse to allow yourself to dream it, I know you won’t do it.
Disneyland built in 366 days. When Walt Disney was asked how they did it in 366 days, he answered ‘we used every one of them’.
Failing to plan is planning to fail.
Plan for the day, the week, the semester.
You can’t change the plan unless you have it. Refusing to make a plan because you know it will change is just a paralysis of ‘I don’t have any marching orders’. Have a plan, knowing it will change, but have it so you have the basis to start with.
Do the ugliest thing first. If you have to eat a frog, don’t spend a lot of time looking at it first. If you have to eat three of them, don’t eat the smallest one first.
Due Soon Not Due Soon
Important
Not
Important
#1 - Important Due Soon
#4 - Not Important - Not Due Soon
#2 - Not Due Soon - Important
#3 - Due Soon - Not Important
We often mix up #2 and #3
If you get it done in #2, it won’t have a chance to make it to #1
Touch each piece of paper once. True for e-mail, too. Your inbox is not your ‘To Do’ list. You will sleep better if your inbox is empty.
A good filing system is essential (an alphabetical place for papers to go).
Use two monitors (or spaces on your mac).
Need some system for a calendar. Using up too much of your brain to keep track of a schedule and deadlines.
A speaker phone is the best thing you can buy to eliminate stress.
Recommends standing during business calls to keep them short. Group your phone calls, and call them right before lunch or the end of the day. The other person will have something else they would rather be doing, so they will get off the phone quicker.
Rides his bike around the neighborhood and talks on the phone with a headset.
Kleenex and Thank You cards are essential in an office. Paper recycling bin can save you sometimes, too, and post-it notes. Pictures of things you should be doing instead are a great reminder of what's important.
Make your office comfortable for you, and optionally comfortable for others so they won’t want to stay long.
You do not find time, you make it.
Learn to say ‘no’.
Find your creative time and defend it ruthlessly.
Find your dead time and schedule the things where you don’t need to be at your best.
Interruptions take 6-9 minutes with a 4-5 minute recovery. 5 interruptions blows a whole hour.
Turn phone calls into e-mail. Don’t have the ‘ding’ when an e-mail comes in, schedule time to look at it. Only look at it during that time.
“I only have 5 minutes”. If you want to give them more time you can, but you can tell them at 5 minutes that you told them at the beginning that you only had 5 minutes and send them on their way.
Time journals - monitor yourself and update it throughout the day - 15 minute intervals to keep track of where your time is going. You will be surprised at what you find.
Identify the gaps where you are most likely to waste time. Gaps in between classes is a great example. Make a ‘fake class’. You go into the library, and do not hang out with friends.
What am I doing that doesn’t need to be done? What can I delegate to someone else? What can I do more efficiently? How am I wasting other people’s time?
You manage your time better at work so you can leave on time and spend time with the people you love and things you enjoy. “I worked fewer hours when I got married, but got more done”.
Focus on the things that matter, and letting go of the things that don’t. (Pregnant woman with a cigarette in her hand complaining about the effect of construction noise on her unborn child.)
It’s not always about efficiency. Sometimes it’s about effectiveness and best overall outcome.
Doing things at the last minute is really expensive.
Make up a fake deadline if something is not due for a long time.
Identify why you are not enthusiastic (afraid of failure, needing to ask someone for something, fear of rejection, not understanding the task.) Sometimes all you have to do is ask.
Do not treat delegation as dumping (giving someone a task you do not have time for or want to do, and then micromanage it). You grant them authority with responsibility. Give them the resources and budget, etc. to get it done, the whole package. Do the ugliest job yourself. Treat your people well. Staff and secretaries are your lifeline.
Give someone a specific thing to do, a specific date and time, and consequences for not getting it done. Challenge people. Delegate until they complain (not necessarily complain, but give them ample things to do). Get it in writing. Send a short e-mail to follow up and clarify or overview expectations.
Give people objectives not procedures. Tell them what to do, not how to do it.
Reinforcement. Praise and thank someone when they do something well.
Take people’s phones in a meeting. No sense in being in a meeting with people who are half there. Have an agenda. One minute minutes - what decisions were made and who has what responsibility - e-mail out to the meeting attendees directly after the meeting.
Only use technology that’s worth it. Technology has to be something that makes your life better. Technology can change the work flow, the way you’re doing things, to make it more efficient.
E-mail - don’t ever delete any of it. Do not send an e-mail to 5 people asking for something to be done. Send it to somebody who can do it, with a specific time, and copy their boss on the e-mail (or have some kind of consequence if the task is not completed). If a person has not responded in 48 hours, it’s okay to send another one. Chances are after 48 hours, they are not planning on responding.
It’s not a vacation if you’re reading e-mail.
Kill your television. Average American watches 28 hours of television a week.
Eat, sleep, and exercise. If you get sleep deprived or stagnate, everything suffers.
Never break a promise, but renegotiate if need be. Call ahead of time to explain that you’re struggling and ask for an extension. No problem if they can’t negotiate. Stick to the promise.
If you don’t have time to do it right, you don’t have time to do it wrong.
Most things are pass/fail. It’s okay for some things to be good enough.
Get a planner - Make a to do list in priority order (day, week, month) - Time journal - 30 days from today revisit talk and ask ‘What have I changed?’
Time is all we have. You may find one day you have less than you think.
The end (not the means) of maximizing time is maximizing fun.
Being successful doesn’t make you manage your time well. Managing your time well makes you successful.
If you’re going to run with people who are faster than you, you are going to have to find a way to master the skills that you do have.
What will happen if I don’t do this item on my ‘to do’ list?
If you do the right things adequately, that’s much more important than doing the wrong things beautifully.
(Lou Holtz - 100 Things - look it up!)
80% of the revenue is going to come from 20% of your clients. Where is the value? Shove the other stuff off the boat.
Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment. Experience is one of those things you can’t fake.
If you can dream it you can do it. -Walt Disney
If you refuse to allow yourself to dream it, I know you won’t do it.
Disneyland built in 366 days. When Walt Disney was asked how they did it in 366 days, he answered ‘we used every one of them’.
Failing to plan is planning to fail.
Plan for the day, the week, the semester.
You can’t change the plan unless you have it. Refusing to make a plan because you know it will change is just a paralysis of ‘I don’t have any marching orders’. Have a plan, knowing it will change, but have it so you have the basis to start with.
Do the ugliest thing first. If you have to eat a frog, don’t spend a lot of time looking at it first. If you have to eat three of them, don’t eat the smallest one first.
Due Soon Not Due Soon
Important
Not
Important
#1 - Important Due Soon
#4 - Not Important - Not Due Soon
#2 - Not Due Soon - Important
#3 - Due Soon - Not Important
We often mix up #2 and #3
If you get it done in #2, it won’t have a chance to make it to #1
Touch each piece of paper once. True for e-mail, too. Your inbox is not your ‘To Do’ list. You will sleep better if your inbox is empty.
A good filing system is essential (an alphabetical place for papers to go).
Use two monitors (or spaces on your mac).
Need some system for a calendar. Using up too much of your brain to keep track of a schedule and deadlines.
A speaker phone is the best thing you can buy to eliminate stress.
Recommends standing during business calls to keep them short. Group your phone calls, and call them right before lunch or the end of the day. The other person will have something else they would rather be doing, so they will get off the phone quicker.
Rides his bike around the neighborhood and talks on the phone with a headset.
Kleenex and Thank You cards are essential in an office. Paper recycling bin can save you sometimes, too, and post-it notes. Pictures of things you should be doing instead are a great reminder of what's important.
Make your office comfortable for you, and optionally comfortable for others so they won’t want to stay long.
You do not find time, you make it.
Learn to say ‘no’.
Find your creative time and defend it ruthlessly.
Find your dead time and schedule the things where you don’t need to be at your best.
Interruptions take 6-9 minutes with a 4-5 minute recovery. 5 interruptions blows a whole hour.
Turn phone calls into e-mail. Don’t have the ‘ding’ when an e-mail comes in, schedule time to look at it. Only look at it during that time.
“I only have 5 minutes”. If you want to give them more time you can, but you can tell them at 5 minutes that you told them at the beginning that you only had 5 minutes and send them on their way.
Time journals - monitor yourself and update it throughout the day - 15 minute intervals to keep track of where your time is going. You will be surprised at what you find.
Identify the gaps where you are most likely to waste time. Gaps in between classes is a great example. Make a ‘fake class’. You go into the library, and do not hang out with friends.
What am I doing that doesn’t need to be done? What can I delegate to someone else? What can I do more efficiently? How am I wasting other people’s time?
You manage your time better at work so you can leave on time and spend time with the people you love and things you enjoy. “I worked fewer hours when I got married, but got more done”.
Focus on the things that matter, and letting go of the things that don’t. (Pregnant woman with a cigarette in her hand complaining about the effect of construction noise on her unborn child.)
It’s not always about efficiency. Sometimes it’s about effectiveness and best overall outcome.
Doing things at the last minute is really expensive.
Make up a fake deadline if something is not due for a long time.
Identify why you are not enthusiastic (afraid of failure, needing to ask someone for something, fear of rejection, not understanding the task.) Sometimes all you have to do is ask.
Do not treat delegation as dumping (giving someone a task you do not have time for or want to do, and then micromanage it). You grant them authority with responsibility. Give them the resources and budget, etc. to get it done, the whole package. Do the ugliest job yourself. Treat your people well. Staff and secretaries are your lifeline.
Give someone a specific thing to do, a specific date and time, and consequences for not getting it done. Challenge people. Delegate until they complain (not necessarily complain, but give them ample things to do). Get it in writing. Send a short e-mail to follow up and clarify or overview expectations.
Give people objectives not procedures. Tell them what to do, not how to do it.
Reinforcement. Praise and thank someone when they do something well.
Take people’s phones in a meeting. No sense in being in a meeting with people who are half there. Have an agenda. One minute minutes - what decisions were made and who has what responsibility - e-mail out to the meeting attendees directly after the meeting.
Only use technology that’s worth it. Technology has to be something that makes your life better. Technology can change the work flow, the way you’re doing things, to make it more efficient.
E-mail - don’t ever delete any of it. Do not send an e-mail to 5 people asking for something to be done. Send it to somebody who can do it, with a specific time, and copy their boss on the e-mail (or have some kind of consequence if the task is not completed). If a person has not responded in 48 hours, it’s okay to send another one. Chances are after 48 hours, they are not planning on responding.
It’s not a vacation if you’re reading e-mail.
Kill your television. Average American watches 28 hours of television a week.
Eat, sleep, and exercise. If you get sleep deprived or stagnate, everything suffers.
Never break a promise, but renegotiate if need be. Call ahead of time to explain that you’re struggling and ask for an extension. No problem if they can’t negotiate. Stick to the promise.
If you don’t have time to do it right, you don’t have time to do it wrong.
Most things are pass/fail. It’s okay for some things to be good enough.
Get a planner - Make a to do list in priority order (day, week, month) - Time journal - 30 days from today revisit talk and ask ‘What have I changed?’
Time is all we have. You may find one day you have less than you think.
Sunday, August 07, 2011
Friday, August 05, 2011
Aide-mémoire
"I just want to say to everyone like me who chose slightly more complicated paths, the roads less traveled, the ones with lots of roadblocks and long stretches of anguish, I just want to say that the most important thing is to always be moving toward your desire. Just do the things that make you smile and you’ll always end up somewhere. Even if that place is not anywhere you’d imagined you’d be at the start."
This is an excerpt from a blog by my new friend Garance Dore'
You should get to know her.....
This is an excerpt from a blog by my new friend Garance Dore'
You should get to know her.....
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