1. Managing
Time, PRIORITIES and Ourselves
Joan Falkenberg Getman
NERCOMP
Northeast Regional Computing Program
March 9, 2009
URGENT
2. Topics
• Current time management
• Workflow
• Lists and plans
• Priorities
• Streamlining work
• Delegation
• eMail
• Barriers: distractions & interruptions
• Procrastination
• Stress management
• Creative and productive
3. Objectives
• Become aware of how you spend time.
• Introduce time management approaches.
• Explore personal barriers and “bad habits”
• Redefine procrastination.
• Identify approaches, tips and tools you might
want to try.
4. How do you want to spend your time?
Where have all the hours gone?
5. Preferences
• What does your ideal work environment…
Look like? Sound like?
• How does that compare with your real work
space?
• What is your most productive time of day?
7. Taking inventory & Making decisions
Workflow is part of time management
1.Collect
2.Process
3.Organize
4.Review
5.Do
“Getting Things Done”
David Allen (2001)
8. Collect
• Get your stuff together, so you can process it.
• Open items that need decisions.
• Physical and virtual stuff.
What do you use to collect?
9. Process
How often do you process your stuff?
• What is it?
• How important is it?
• Does it require you to do something?
Yes or No?
10. Process
If NO, make another decision:
• Trash it?
• Maybe someday – review it again?
• Reference material? File it.
If YES, then what is the next step?
• Do it now (small)
• Do it later.
• Delegate.
12. Organize
After you make the decision: move the items to
containers…
Project list (to be broken down into next steps)
Project plan
Calendar: “hard landscape” – actions & deadlines
Reminders – next steps (actions that take <2 minutes)
Reminders – waiting for (delegated items)
Reminders- do it later (reminder on calendar)
13. Organize
Non action items go:
Trash!
Tickler file or list!
Archive/storage/files – as simple as possible.
Review the Parking lot list: ideas, someday stuff
14. Review
Make it a HABIT to review your lists – choose a
consistent approach and schedule to do this.
System won’t work otherwise…
15. Do
What you choose to do will be based on:
• Hard deadlines (calendar)
• Priorities
What is optimal to do? - Given resources,
available time and your energy.
17. Lists are reminders
Different levels of lists
Goals: long term, mid-term and near.
Items to do.
Projects: subtasks and specific timelines.
Responsibilities: Outreach, research, evaluation.
Waiting for list…
Someday, maybe – often these are ideas.
23. What’s at the top of the list?
• Who sets our priorities?
• If everything is urgent and important –
prioritization and negotiation maybe
necessary.
• Where in the quadrant do “life” priorities fit?
24. Doing the work
• Review calendar – a chronological list of hard
deadlines.
• Review prioritized lists: now, soon, all else
• Choose what you want to get done and when.
25. Streamlining:
How you do the work
• Use templates and repositories.
• Personalize your web interface
• Consider digital? or paper?
• Leverage web-based collaboration tools.
• Develop routines.
• Specific checklists…travel, faculty event, etc.
• Try ‘Timeboxing’
26. Timeboxing
Either, we can work as hard as we can until
it is “done” or we can fix the amount of time
we have available and do the “best” we can.
27. TImeboxing
15 Timeboxing tip:
1. Make a Dent in Big Tasks
2. Get rid of mosquito tasks
3. Overcome procrastination
4. Conquer perfectionism
5. Sharpen focus
6. Increase efficiency
7. Boost motivation
8. “Fuzzy goals” spend limited time
9. Kick off creative exploration
10.Raise time awareness
11.Create a work rhythm: hard/easy or work 50/rest 10
28. Timeboxing
1. Get meaningful work done first
2. Balance your life: time blocks for exercise, fun and friends
3. Plug time sinks
4. Rewards
Litemind: Exploring ways to use our minds efficiently
33. Controlling email
• Convert email into actions, filed information
• Careful filtering and ruthless deleting
• Finding the important ones
• Turn off the alert – no autochecking!
• Use templates for routine messages
• Scheduled reading and email “dashes”
See 43 Folders: Inbox Zero
34. Merlin Mann: 43 folders Inbox Zero
Breaking it down: email work is actually comprised of a few distinct but
related tasks, how often do you realistically need to do each of these
things?
1. Checking for/being notified of any new email — even dumb stuff
2. Scanning your new messages for items needing time-critical input from
you
3. Quickly responding to the time-critical items
4. Processing “the pile” into actions, calendar events, and messages in need
of a short response only
5. Responding to new and non-critical messages that have accumulated
6. Performing occasional meta-work like mailbox refactoring, rules
tweaking, etc.
35. 43 folders: email dash
A straw man schedule: provisionally decided on the least email focus you can
possibly tolerate, and try experimenting with a schedule along these lines:
1. New email check + scanning + super-fast responses: 2 minutes every 20 minutes
2. Non-critical responses: 10 minutes or 5 emails every 90 minutes
3. Processing “the pile”: 2 minutes every hour + 15 minutes at the end of the day
4. Metawork: 15 minutes twice a week
5. Further culling, responding, and clearing “the pile”: Through the day, as available,
in 5-8 minute dashes
And apart from that? Email is off. Closed. Quit. You’re doing other things.
Can you do it?
Merlin Mann, 43folders.com
37. intermission
Reality Check!
What is a habit?
b. an acquired mode of behavior that has become
nearly or completely involuntary
How long does it take to develop a new habit?
21 days!
Go slow, focus on one change at a time.
38. Focus and Flow
“Flow” is a mental state of deep concentration. It typically
takes about 15 minutes of uninterrupted study to get into a
state of “flow”, and the constant interruptions and
distractions of a typical office environment will force you out
of “flow” and make productivity impossible to achieve.
39. Ahem…Interruptions
"Cathy, could I talk with you for a minute? I'm
having a real problem with ...." You glance at
your watch and think of the report that's due
in an hour.
What do you do?
40. Not now.
Tip 1:
3 statements: Empathy, Situation, Action
*If its your leadership, frame it in terms of
what will get set aside.
Tip 2: Ask the person to leave me a note.
Other ideas?
43. Sound familiar?
• Even weekends are shadowed by “I should
be…”
• Unrealistic about time you need or have?
• Vague about goals?
• Indecisive?
44. Procrastination
• What does it feel like?
• What are the consequences?
• In some sense we are always not doing something on our list
– but what if you are actively avoid something?
• What are the underlying reasons?
Resource:
The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming
Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play by Neil Fiore
45. Are we always procrastinators?
No!
Probably many activities and tasks we tackle
with enthusiasm, energy and get them done
quickly…hmmm.
46. Procrastination to Productivity
Change your thinking! Choose to work.
Create safety and address risk
Break down BIG projects.
Try Procrastination hack: '(10+2)*5’
Bursts of work and rest – like Timeblocking
Rewards and breaks!
47. Good! Procrastination
• “Active” procrastination.
• Percolating ideas.
• Stalling until we can do something from a
better vantage point.
• Deliberate non-action can be beneficial.
• Ignoring something small or unimportant to
work on something ‘big”
49. Summary of Big Ideas
• You can’t control time – only your behavior
• Lists organize you and clear your head.
• Be consistent - Create system & routines.
• Change one habit at a time. Give it 21 days.
• Learn to make decisions – don’t look back.
• Use lists to remind yourself of the BIG picture.
• Refresh, celebrate and enjoy your work.
Why are you here? What can we do in 3.5 hours? Whole courses on methodologies like GTD; this is a jump start
TIME is not within our control…
You can redo a day by crossing the international dateline but I’m not sure you gain all that much productive time.
All we can do is manage our relationship with time and how we choose to spend it.
Goals today…
Understand our emotional relationship with work and with time
Recognize and take advantage of our best habits, favorable conditions
Recognize and address our worst habits, distractions, sources of stress
Understand what is in our control and what is not?
Examine how we spend time: How do we feel? Busy but not productive? Overwhelmed? Behind? Anxious?
How should we spend our time? Who sets our priorities? Covey’s urgent? Important decision making process.
Barriers: Tried & failed? Did not change lifestyle – develop new habits. Understanding procrastination – natural, emotionally driven, not always bad
New habits: planful workflow supported by lists, action and process approach, streamlining and automating; dealing with email
What I hope you’ll get out of today’s session.
Awareness: can be eye opening.
Can be done in different ways:
Logging time and looking at patterns in different ways – take into account “thinking” time, etc.
Categorize time spent by activities (e.g. reading email, reading periodicals, writing documentation, etc.)
Categorize time spent by project or program
Categorize time spent in different roles or areas of responsibility
Time Management starts with knowing what you have to do.
Managing the information, communications, requests and commitments we have can be like drinking from a fire hose.
Lots of time management systems out there. GTD is one of the most popular.
Stephen Covey 7 Habits and Julie Morgenstern Time Management from the inside out.
Linked but should be handled individually
Capturing everything that might need action or to be discarded.
Physical and virtual stuff.- People collect stuff in in box, mail, email, audio recorders, podcasts etc.
Idea is to move to action.
Try not to have too many holders – places to check for stuff.
What’s most challenging to process for you?
What is this item and does it require me to do something?
Memo with information to reference on policy or an assignment or request.
This is where a lot of us fall apart and relegate everything to the waiting room
Incomplete items- need action. Do, Delegate or Defer.
We keep items on our lists, messages, information for “Someday”
These items need to be reviewed and decisions made out keeping, tossing or revisiting upon review.
Items will be different sizes and levels of importance
Do you mix personal and life projects and action items – I say yes.
Action items that make it to weekly and daily lists – seem doable.
Question to ask yourself is where are these items located and in what format – digital or paper.
Most of us live in both worlds. Have to be able to access what you archive other wise it is not serving its purpose as reference material. All that conference information.
This needs to become a habit.
You will have create lists – next and you need to review those lists to remind your self of the big picture.
Adjust edit, delete, add
Priorities change and we will talk about usefullists and assigning priorities next.
From this you’ll generate your todo list _ I like a weekly and daily list so that you can adjust to changing circumstances – but the week keeps one level of the big picture in front of you.
Lists are critical
Once you have established a workflow for information coming in, lists help you get it out of your head and into actionable items.
Important to clear your head…otherwise taking up mental space and things will be forgotten
This is where it gets personal…people even get consultants to set up their Systems.
Several of these lists provide context and remind you of the BIG PICTURE.
Lists of unclear things are not useful.
How many of us create lists “on the fly” back of an envelope, etc. Those are ok but somehow we end up losing things or recreating them
Different kinds of lists
Master list of long term, short goals
Projects, tasks
Effective lists are going to map out your time.
And describe actions
What do you think of this list?
Is this useful?
Is it a daily list?
Does it reflect priorities and planning?
How would you change this list – work at your table for a couple of minutes?
Vacation is a project with multiple steps
This might be translated to a daily list
What’s different?
Does this list indicate prioritization?
HABIT: take the time to plan weekly and daily and periodically review the really BIG LISTS – life goals and professional development.
GROUP CHECK IN?
Let’s talk about priorities…
What’s Important? Urgent? Both? Neither?
Different types and sizes of tasks.
Where do we need to focus our time and energy?
Stephen Covey's Four Quadrants is a useful technique to map the way we make use of our time.
ACTIVITY
Draw a rectangle on a sheet of paper, and divide it into 4 quadrants by drawing two lines through the middle, one vertically and one horizontally. Label the columns along the top from left to right as "Urgent" and "Not Urgent " and label the rows along the side from top to bottom as "Important" and "Not Important." (Click here to see an example of the Four Quadrants.)
Pick a day and call it "Time Tracking Day.”
During the designated day observe all the various tasks and activities you engage in during your waking hours. Use your sheet of paper to record what you did during each half hour as the day progresses. Put a 1-word descriptor of the task or activity, and plop it in the appropriate quadrant. At the end of the day your sheet of paper should have 20 - 30 descriptors scattered among the quadrants. From this, guesstimate the amount of time you spent in each quadrant, and write that amount in the quadrant. Then calculate what percent of your time you spent in each quadrant.
Now label each quadrant as follows: top-left "I: Burned Out; " top-right "II: Change Agent; bottom-left "III: Bored but Busy;" and bottom-right "IV: Fired.”
Punch holes in the sheet of paper and date it, and put it away.
# Plan to repeat the exercise in a month, and make a note on your calendar to do that.
Helps answer some questions. What if you spend all your time in
Q1 - Burned out
Q2 - Leadership development
Q3 – Busy but how productive?
Q4 – neither busy, productive or meeting deadlines – probably out of a job soon.
I Urgent - Important
* Crises
* Pressing problems
* Deadline-driven projects, meetings, preparations
II Not Urgent - Important
* Preparation
* Prevention
* Values clarification
* Planning
* Relationship building
* True re-creation
* Empowerment
III Urgent - Not Important
* Interruptions, some phone calls
* Some mail, some reports
* Some meetings
* Many proximate, pressing matters
* Many popular activities
IV Not Urgent - Not Important
* Trivia, busywork
* Junk mail
* Some phone calls
* Time wasters
* "Escape" activities
Lists and priorities: we know what we need to do.
How are we going to do it?
What tips, tools and yes, tricks are there for doing the work?
Don’t use your high energy time to do mundane or routine work. Urgent and not important stuff does not deserve your most focused attention.
Web based tools.
Knowing where your stuff is
Being able to integrate action items from project plans into weekly and daily lists
Reduce repetitive tasks.
Goodplum blog: Firefox productivity: Tools, plugins and tips
-Learn the shortcut
-Search with one letter
-Image editor: Picnik
Timeboxing is an approach in software development that is especially useful in rapid development projects.
Adapted to personal time management
Limiting work to pre-defined blocks of time. Either its done or we work for another 30 minutes.
Combined with a sense of priorities and nature of our tasks – very productive.
Why is this a useful approach?
Jumpstart a big, complex project – break it into chunks
Gets you unstuck!
Good for open-ended tasks –avoid perfectionist.
Limits time on unpleasant tasks.
Use null time effectively.
Open ended research is legitimate time but put a boundary on it.
Careful about assigning email checking to a timeblock – maybe it’s a reward instead. We’ll talk about email later.
Delegation should distribute work appropriately and hand off task but you may still be responsible.
Is this a good way to delegate…in honor of St. Patrick’s day.
Remember your waitlist…that needs to be reviewed?
Okay. What’s wrong with this picture? What happens when the sheep return to their cubicles. They have an assignment with no explanation.
How will the sheep react? Will they get to work on it right away?
One step that you can take to manage stuff is delegate.
What are the risks?
What do you like/need to know when work is delegated to you? That is what your colleagues and staff need to know when you delegate to them.
Checklist:
Scope, prioirty, impact, deadline, audience, format, review and get approval or its ok to go ahead and do it. Ask colleagues/staff to close the loop with you…did it get done.
Not exactly delegation but related.
Classic harvard business review article addresses the time that managers spend dealing with “monkeys”
Other peoples issues, problems challenges. Called monkey because they usually require care and feeding and you need to pass them to someone else.
How not to take the monkey in the first place.
Think about how much you have empowered your staff, is it a mentoring opportunity? Can someone else help them. You can consult, advise but don’t take on the monkeys.
What is email used for? Project repository, communication, advertisements, etc.
Are you using email the way you want to?Don’t start each day by chekcing it – get some momentum going first.
Same goes for setting your IM status.
Email controls our lives but it doesn’t have to
Julie Morgenstern – Don’t read personal email in the morning. Save it as a treat or break.
43 Folders creative and irreverant blog aimed at creative expression and efficiency.
Diet and exercise analogy (clean office picture) You may have your own metaphor…
Trying to change how we think about time and priorities and find the strategies and tools that will help us internalize behavioral and mental changes.
Pausing – because the information and discussion so far has been relevant and valuable but what happens when you go to apply it.
In times of stress, we fall back on familiar patterns and habits.
Time management is a change in thinking and behavior and in some cases physical and virtual environments and tools.
a behavior pattern acquired by frequent repetition or physiologic exposure that shows itself in regularity or increased facility of performance
an acquired mode of behavior that has become nearly or completely involuntary
Dr. Maxwell Maltz, in a book titled,
'Psycho-Cybernetics':
http://www.amazon.com/Psycho-Cybernetics-Maxwell-maltz/dp/0671780921
Updated in 2002.
Introduction to distractions and procrastination.
Flow research from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced [ˈmihaːj tʃiːkˈsɛntmihaːji]) positive psychologist
Deep focus and immersion in what you are doing at that moment.
System in place – there are things that come up which can derail your time management practices.
Interruptions
A co-worker may need you…their work is as important or more than your personal work at higher levels.
cube farm environment – challenging
Engineers who tried scheduled quiet time.
Open office hours
Several interruptable times of the day.
IM
Interruptions as opportunities to mentor, guide – part of your managerial role.
Define the interruption: urgency, importance and nature of the issue
What do you consider time wasters and distractions?
Watch and then discuss!
Not about being lazy.
The Now Habit. Neal Fiore
Self-protection, fear of failure, perfectionism, etc.
Results? Consequences?
Is it always a bad thing? As a method of working?
How does this happen?
Excuses? Challenge faulty reasoning
Upside of procrastination
Goal: get things done with less anxiety. Pair up and share your procrastination issues – get rid of the guilt and stress for a little while.
Dr. Suzanne Kobasa University of Chicago.emphasize human initiative and resilience.
Create safety
Fear of failure: What is the worst that can happen?
Overwhelmed? Break it into chunks
Don’t know where to start – ask!
Don’t let the work define you – if all self worth is pinned on a project – always feeling worthless.
I must finish…When can I start?
This is SO big…I can do this part today.
I must be perfect..I must do the best I can
I don’t have time to play – I have scheduled breaks and playtime to look forward to.
Not an excuse..check in how this feels and what the outcomes are.
Getting the wrong things done is the worst procrastination: Paul Graham, Programmer, Painters and Hackers author.
Realistic view of time remaining after we alot ourselves Life time.
Find forms on the internet. D.I.Y. community open source time management source. On delicious.
Until we finally have the technology to control time…
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