Getting Things Done

Removing the Weight From Your Schedule

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Having excellent time management skills requires a feeling of control. As soon as the feeling of control goes away, your stress level increases and you become far less productive. That’s why it’s sometimes better to devote time to the task that’s weighing on you the most, even if it isn’t necessarily the most important thing you have to do at the moment.

For example, I had a big presentation coming up that, for whatever reason, was weighing on me. I found that while I was trying to work on more immediate and pressing things, this presentation was all I could think about.

I’d been having extremely productive workdays, but I didn’t feel productive. I may have been accomplishing important things, but the one thing that was stressing me was still looming.

Even though it wasn’t my most pressing deadline, I needed to devote a little time to this presentation or I was going to continue feeling stressed and not in control of my day.

I finally just dedicated a few hours to sketching out ideas. Seeing my thoughts down on paper gave me so much more confidence in my ability to finish this project. Pretty soon, I had a solid outline of what I planned to talk about, and my stress level had significantly decreased.

My presentation was far from finished, but I now felt I had a handle on it and had a clear mind to devote to other more pressing tasks.

Do you have a looming task that is stressing you out? Carve out a little time to get started now, even if the deadline is far away. Otherwise, the pressure of this impending task will just continue to build and start to interfere with your ability to focus on other things. The best way to remove the stressful weight of a task from your shoulders is to just do it.

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Finishing Unwanted Tasks

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This week, I had a presentation to prepare for my PhD program that definitely tested my time management. Completing this presentation was both the most important and least appealing thing on my “Choose-To List.” As you know, that is a common and dangerous situation. What do you do when the task you least want to do is the task you most need to do?

Stop Substituting

When faced with a task we don’t want to do, our first inclination is to just do something else instead. I caught myself doing that yesterday. I didn’t want to work on my presentation, so instead I did some grading, cleaned my house, worked on some different homework, and went grocery shopping. All of those things also needed to be completed, however, none were as important as my presentation. I substituted tasks I should be doing with tasks I’d rather be doing. That’s why at the end of the day, I didn’t feel as productive as I could have.

Make it Enjoyable

Sometimes we need to go out of our way to make a dreaded task more enjoyable. You all know about my love of Starbucks. I went out and bought myself a Salted Caramel Mocha Frappuccino to sip while I’m working on my presentation. Nothing seems quite as terrible when you have a delicious cup of happiness next to you!

Visualize

The single best way I know to motivate myself to do something it to visualize it being completed. In this case, I visualized myself crawling into bed at night and thinking, “Wow, I don’t have to worry about the presentation anymore! It’s all finished.” It’s not going to become any more appealing to work on, so I might as well just finish it now and be done with it. Half the stress of finishing work comes from worrying about finishing it. I was going to worry about my presentation until it was done. The sooner I finish it, the sooner I can stop worrying about it and my stress level decreases.

This week, take charge of your unwanted tasks.  Visualize them being finished, do everything you can to make them more enjoyable and stop substituting them with other, less important things. Your productivity will thank you.

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Photo Credit: Naypong

 

How to Tackle Huge Projects

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In The Time Diet, I frequently say how important it is to break up your “meat” tasks and set small goals for yourself to stay motivated with your time management. Yesterday, I stumbled across an example of exactly why this is true. In keeping with The Time Diet analogy, I appropriately found this example on a restaurant menu.

On Friday night, my husband and I went out to dinner. I saw “sliders” on the menu and thought that little mini hamburgers sounded delicious.

“No,” I thought to myself. “It’s way too easy to eat too many of those!” One hamburger has about the same meat as two sliders, but nobody eats just two sliders! They are so little, you end up eating more meat than you realize.

Then it dawned on me. The same is true for time management!

When we have a huge “meat” project looming, it can be overwhelming. (We’ll call this the “hamburger”). However, if you break up that same work into smaller projects and spread it out over time, you won’t feel like you’re working as hard. You’ve essentially turned your big “hamburger” into “sliders.” You’re completing the same amount of work, but instead of tackling it all at once, you’re nibbling at it.

How to Break up Work

When you are dividing your work into smaller parts, remember to do the following.

 1) Plan in advance
It is important to divide your big project into smaller chunks as soon as possible. The longer it stays in your head as one huge task, the more you’ll begin to dread it.

2) Construct a timeline
Write in your calendar when you plan to complete each chunk of work so you’ll have it done by the deadline.

 3) Stick to your timeline
Creating a timeline for your work doesn’t do any good if you don’t hold yourself accountable to the checkpoints you set for yourself.

Good luck with your Time Diets this week!

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Technorati Keywords Time Management, Efficiency,

Photo Credit: Grant Cochrane

Surviving My Facebook Break

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For the past week, I decided to take a break from Facebook for the sake of my time management. I’m not against the social networking site at all. In fact, I think it is extremely important to have little distractions like this that allow us to zone out for a few minutes and give our brains a rest. However, my Facebook usage was getting out of hand and starting to affect my productivity. I decided that we needed a break in our relationship. Here is how my week went:

Day 1: Realized that no Facebook meant I would have to wait to post the pictures of the wedding I went to last weekend. Received upset email from my sister-in-law that I wasn’t posting pictures (she couldn’t be at the wedding.) This was going to be harder than I thought.

Day 2: Felt antsy and almost snuck a peak at my phone over breakfast. Instead, nosed around on the Internet and found some awesome SEO articles to peruse and then went to Starbucks for a work session. Productivity increase of at least 300%.

Day 3: Husband tells me that he saw on Facebook that my sister’s boyfriend got into a bicycle accident. Realized that Facebook is one of my major sources of news. Made a brief and supervised exception to my Facebook fast to look at the picture of him smiling in his hospital bed donning a bike helmet. Husband quickly shoos me off his account and tells me to stick to my rule as I vow to call my sister first thing in the morning and discuss with her proper ways of sharing breaking news with family members.

Day 4: Worked on the syllabus for the class I’m teaching in the fall. Felt the temptation to click over to my browser and scroll through Facebook land. Resisted the temptation and went for a walk around the block to get the mail instead. Felt re-energized and finished 45 more minutes of work. Win.

Day 5: Wanted very badly to tell everyone how well my productive week was going in a Facebook status update. Briefly contemplated the hypocrisy that would entail. Met new friends in person and realized that Facebook has replaced email as my go-to digital address book. Social networking sites do have useful purposes other than wasting time.

Day 6: Found myself going on Twitter a lot more in place of Facebook. Wondered if this was somehow cheating because Twitter is also a social networking site. Realized that it wasn’t cheating because everything I do on Twitter is to build my business. I don’t use a personal Twitter account.

Day 7: First day I could honestly say I didn’t miss Facebook. While working on a paper for grad school I didn’t once click over to my browser. Finished my work much more quickly and rewarded myself with a Happy Hour with friends. Annoying Facebook habit= broken.

So what did I learn through all of this? Facebook, as well other Time Killers, has a time and a place. Time Killers are like the cookies of your Time Diet. They are fine to have once in a while, but you shouldn’t eat them for breakfast. I am now confident that I can use Facebook as a way to keep in touch with people, share pictures and send messages without letting it interfere with my work and productivity.

Final Score: Emily: 1 Facebook: 0

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