Setting Priorities for Managing Your Time

One of the hardest parts of time management is learning how to set priorities. Sometimes it can feel like every last thing you need to do is an emergency. But the truth is, there are ways to organize your time and manage the tasks that you need to do so that you get them finished right when they need to be done without feeling overwhelmed or rushed.

Thankfully Stephen Covey’s time management grid is here to save us from ourselves. It looks like this:

 

 Use the grid to help create your daily to-do list by prioritizing the importance and urgency of each item you have to pick from. It can be as simple as doing the purple things first, then the green, next pink, and finally the light green items. But, if you do it this way you might miss out on something important you can learn from the time management grid.

Eliminate Urgency from Your Life

By focusing on green you can eventually lessen the purple items on your list. By learning to say no to others you can virtually eliminate the pink things, too. Finally, by getting your schedule under control the light green will eliminate itself because you won’t feel the need to procrastinate anymore.

Learn to Say No

As children we are taught to not say no. Unfortunately, this transfers over to adulthood in a bad way, especially for females. If you determine something is in the pink or light green area, you can use that to determine whether or not you should say no. If it’s something that your client wants that takes five minutes, but it’s not that important, you can do it. If it’s something you just like to do, you can always do it after you’ve done three purple or green tasks.

Assess Your Time Expenditures Now

Now that you have Dr. Covey’s time management chart, you can go back and re-evaluate the things you are currently doing each day to find out what color they are. Knowing their color will help you label each thing that you do throughout the days, weeks and months ahead so that you can prioritize them.

Finally, when you are assessing any task, make sure you label it, then ask yourself if it fits in with your core values and goals. If it does, it’s going to be in either the purple square or the green square. If it doesn’t, it’s probably in one of the other squares. As you learn to use this system it will start becoming more automatic so that you can say yes or no faster and put your time management on auto drive.

Less Clutter = Less Stress ^SM     in your home, your business and your life

Organizational Consulting Services

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Managing Your Emails So They Do Not Get the Best of Your Time

Email is great, and saves a lot of time. You no longer have to wait three or more days for someone to get a message from you. You can use it to be more organized, set tasks, and more. But, email can also get out of control and suck up a lot of time if you’re not organized.

* Use Rules, Filters, Labels and Folders – Remember that simple is better than complicated so don’t go too crazy with these, but do create labels and/or rules and filter to help you organize your mail better.

* Read Emails and Act Immediately – When you open an email, take care of it immediately. Read it, then act. If it requires nothing, delete it; if it has something interesting you want to note, use a note-taking program to save it. If it has a task, copy and paste into your to-do list and calendar.

* Set Specific Times for Checking Your Email – Don’t keep your email notifications on all day long so that you’re constantly dealing with email. Instead, choose specific times during the day to check email, at the very least first thing in the morning, after lunch, and about an hour before the close of business. Let your people know your schedule.

* Create Separate Email Addresses – The great thing about email addresses is in most cases you’re not limited to how many you can have. Don’t go nuts, but do create a separate email for unimportant information such as business that requires an email sign-up to view information, or non-relevant newsletters. Separate customer service addresses are good too.

* Be Free with the Delete Key – It’s tempting to save all those cool newsletters with great points and things to learn, but the truth is, you’re not likely to ever read them again. Use your note-taking tool to keep the most important points, and then delete.

* Create a Swipe File or Hot Keys with Automatic Replies – If you find yourself saying the same things over and over again, which is not uncommon, create a swipe file or hot keys that enable you to answer those questions again and again. Another way is to create a FAQ on your website and link to that specific answer.

* Keep Email Replies Short and Simple – You don’t want to write really long emails to anyone. If you do, people will get confused and not really understand your answer. At the most an email answer should be about three or four paragraphs. If you include bullet points it will be easier for the recipient to act on.

* Copy Tasks to Your Calendar Immediately – Use your calendar to its fullest advantage by copying and pasting anything with a date in it to your calendar immediately. If it’s a task, copy and paste to your project management system too in order to stay on track with your activities.

A final idea is to outsource anything to do with customer service to someone else. That way you don’t even need to deal with it. Using these tips and tricks can help you manage your emails so that they don’t take up too much of your time and effort. Taming the email monster will pay off in many ways and give you back more time each day to use on more important tasks.

Less Clutter = Less Stress ^SM     in your home, your business and your life

Organizational Consulting Services

http://www.organizationalconsultingservices.com

Learn to Say No: Increase the Power of How You Spend Your Time

One of the very best ways to manage your time is to learn to say no. Saying no is a great way to control how you spend your time and take your power back. Most of us don’t know how to say no because our parents taught us very well not to say no. Many two-year-olds love saying no, but they are quickly taught that the word no is very unacceptable. But, it’s time to take back the power of no and earn more time in your day for doing what you really want to do.

* You’ll Reduce Your Stress – One of the worst things about overscheduling your time is the stress that it will cause. Learning to say no will automatically reduce your stress, even if the first few times you say no will be a little stressful. The freedom you experience will soon overshadow the fear of saying no.

* You’ll Be Perceived as More Professional – No one person can do everything. If you already have something scheduled and can’t do something, it is to be expected of a professional person. You don’t even have to provide a reason; just say that your calendar is full.

* You’ll Improve at Tasks You Really to Want to Do – If you’re not spending time doing stuff you hate doing, you’ll get to spend more time doing things you want to do. That means you’ll get more practice and become better at the things you already like doing.

* You Get to Spend Time Doing What You Want to Do – No one wants to spend time doing things they dislike doing, but they tend to say yes due to the lessons their mom taught them. If you really want to spend more time writing or helping your clients solve their problems, say no to doing things you don’t want to do and recommend someone else.

                                                      

* People Will Respect You More – Even really good people lose respect for those who act like doormats. You probably don’t want to appear as a doormat; you’re just trying to be helpful. But even nice people will take advantage of those who say yes all the time. That’s why you’ll notice it’s always the same three people doing all the work in any group. The yes people.

* Saying No Gives You the Opportunity to Say Yes – This may sound counter-intuitive but it’s true. If you learn to say no to things that don’t advance your business or life in any measurable way, you’ll have more time to say yes to things that do.

* You Won’t Bite Off More Than You Can Chew - People who say yes to everything tend to do most things half way. They don’t mean to, but they get too much on their plate and end up not being able to do the tasks they agreed to do to the best of their ability. If you say no, you can avoid this embarrassment.

* Pause, Breathe Deeply, Check Your Calendar – In order to say no without a problem, when someone asks you to do something, even if it’s something you know immediately that you do want to do, make it a practice to take a pause, take a breath, and check your calendar. The act of calendar checking can give you time to give some thought to whether or not you want to say yes or no.

Saying no can truly give you back enough time to create the life that you really want to live. If you’re feeling hurried and overwhelmed take the time to practice saying no. By saying no you’ll take control of your schedule and feel like you get more time in your day.

Less Clutter = Less Stress ^SM     in your home, your business and your life

Organizational Consulting Services

http://www.organizationalconsultingservices.com