A presentation on time management. Used as the basis for a video lecture in the course, "Creating a Sustainable Writing Process," offered by Eastlake & Roanoke.

1. Basic time management
strategies
An incomplete introduction

2. ABC
More of an abstract theory than a canned plan, the
ABC Plan is worth mentioning because it's an oldy-
goody, and the basis for many, many other systems.
The rules are easy to understand and follow, and you
have a wide array of choices of how you personally
implement them, which is nice, if you are looking for
an umbrella philosophy to drive what you already do,
or you want a system that's really flexible.

3. ABC divides all tasks into one of three
groups: A, B, or C (surprise!)
• A tasks are urgent (have a deadline soon)
and important
• B tasks are important but not urgent (they
can be done at any time or later)
• C tasks are not important or urgent
When you get a task, you immediately triage
it and assign it to one of the three groups.
The A list is your daily to-do list; that's what
you immediately pay attention to.
If you make it through all your A list tasks,
you start picking from B. Finish B? Move to C.

4. More ABC
At the end of a day (or, for
some, a week), take some time
and look at the tasks that you
have not completed from the B
list.
You must then move all those
remaining B tasks to either the
A list or the C list.
Any C tasks that are suddenly
important? They move to B.
They have to be both
important and urgent in order
to move to the A list.
You then start the new day doing
your A list tasks. New tasks get
triaged as they come in. Finish A
tasks, move to newly-triaged B
tasks, then C tasks.
Do your daily/weekly assessment
(move remaining B tasks to A or
C). Repeat. Repeat.
A tasks are always given first
priority. B tasks are given second,
and must, eventually, be re-
considered as first or third
priority. C tasks are the "if I have
time" stuff, always.

5. Still ABC
Pros
• You can set up the ABC system
in a million different ways. Use
lists in a notebook, use sticky
notes, a white or chalk board,
a mind mapping or note taking
app or program, or on a
calendar (digital or one with
enough room to write your
lists per day).
• It's quick to set up, can appeal
to visually-oriented thinkers
(depending on how you set it
up), and you can choose the
medium of tracking (paper,
digital, both) based on what
appeals and is available.
Dangers
• Requires you to be brave and a
little ruthless. The sentimental
will put altogether too many tasks
in their A lists, and can get
overwhelmed, whereas the point
of the system is that most tasks
fall into the C column, eventually.
• The ABC system doesn't have an
obvious way to track dates and
appointments either, unless you
treat each appointment as a task
and only look at the ones that are
immediately upcoming.

6. The Pomodoro Technique
Yes, pomodoro, as in tomato. The only required tool for
this technique is a timer (you can purchase, if so inclined, a
wide variety of tomato-shaped timers).
You pick a task from your to-do list (the technique doesn't
specify how you keep such a list, so you are free to wing
that as you choose).
Then, you set that timer for 25 minutes, and just work on
that one task -- without stopping, changing focus, or
allowing yourself to be interrupted -- for the full 25
minutes. Once the timer goes off, you take a 5 minute
break.
That 30-minute cycle is called a pomodoro.

7. You complete one pomodoro...
Take the break, and then set the timer for
another 25 minutes, and get back to work on
a task, then take a 5 minute break.
Repeat.
Repeat.
After the fourth consecutive pomodoro
cycle, you take a longer break (15 - 30
minutes).

8. Pomodoro con’t
It's deceptively simple.
• But it’s important to have -- or use
it -- to create predictable chunk of
time in a day.
• You could adapt it for interstitial
tasks, if you wanted, though that is
not the designed use.
• This could be the choice for those
who prefer to work in spurts,
particularly those of you who
answered “yes” to the question of
whether you stayed on one task for
as long as possible.
– It effectively organizes your time into
manageable bites, with structure and
clear expectations.
To learn more:
Check out the Pomodoro
Technique's official site. The
site has tons of information
and tips to implement and
sustain, as well as a bunch of
stuff you can buy.
My advice is to use your
kitchen or microwave timer, or
the timer that comes on your
phone before you invest in a
“fancy” one (if ever)

9. Getting Things Done
Getting Things Done, or "GTD" to its devotees, has a massive
following.
There are books, seminars, websites, blogs, and an entire
economy of products designed for and around GTD.
However, GTD, in a pure or bastardized state, doesn't require
many tools to use, and can be adopted to use paper or digital
tools.
It works best for those who are natural list-makers. Rather than
trying to carry along -- and remember -- the tasks you need to
do now, as well as anything you need to do regularly or want to
do in the future, GTD urges users to “empty” their mind into an
“inbox” of everything.

10. This is a wicked oversimplication.
There are entire books written on GTD. In fact, there’s an
industry built around it, and accessories to help you
implement.
There are user and fan sites that go deep into the
minutiae on how you process and arrange tasks, and can
approach unreal levels of precision.
There is an official website, but there's also a tremendous
amount of information, blogs, articles, and examples out
there, online.
If you get lost in geeking out on topics, proceed with
caution. For example, there are many, may sites that
discuss how to “hack”, specifically, a Moleskine type
notebook for GTD lists.

11. GTD go go!
In a nutshell
• Step one: use a notebook, voice
recorder, text file, etc., to capture
every idea, to do, or distraction; in
other words, anything on your mind.
• Step two: process all of these ideas
and items. Decide if they are
necessary, important, or interesting,
and trash the rest. Turn the rest into
actionable tasks.
• Step three: organize these tasks into
lists (‘bucket” them into categories.
There are lots of ways to do this)
• Step four: review these lists daily and
weekly.
• Step five: do the tasks.
Pros and difficulties
• There are tons of books, articles,
apps, websites, notebooks, and
the like, designed to help you do
the GTD system. Many of them
are free, and it is a robust system
that you can implement quickly
and at little/no cost.
• It is very easy to get lost in the
minutiae of the system, and have
most of your task time wrapped
up in maintaining and improving
your lists...and never get anything
done. Feeling organized is not the
same as being organized.

12. Seinfeld's Productivity
Secret/Don't Break the Chain
This system was made popular by comic Jerry Seinfeld, though
based on classic ideas about how you form a habit:
Schedule time to do a task and do the task every day, and you
will get better and faster at the task.
Doing it every day creates a “chain,” and the goal is to “not
break the chain.”
You pretty much only need a calendar and a task. Pick
something you want to start doing, do it, and then spend the
same time every subsequent day doing that thing.
Every day you do the thing you want to do, mark it down on a
calendar. Over time, that series of marks on the calendar will
serve as their own motivation, encouraging you to keep going,
and keep doing that thing every day as long as you can.

13. Better for skills over “tasks”: big rocks
over granular
Having a predictable
schedule, day-to-day is a key
component to getting a chain
going.
As you work and mark the
days, you'll be able to easily
see how well you're doing
(or where you are falling
down) with one look at the
calendar.
The assumption is that you
will also be able to look
forward and really only break
rhythm for the unplannable
(such as sick days).
This system is better
suited to get you going on
things you want to do --
but don’t -- or want to
learn, over the one-off
and occasional tasks that
keep life humming.
But if you think in large
“buckets” (as in exercise,
house cleaning, writing as
an all-inclusive, practicing
an instrument, and so
forth), this may be an
easy, fast, and effective
way to get you, and keep
you, going.

14. KanBan
• A kanban is a visual time management tool, organized by Japanese
Toyota executive Taiichi Ohno.
• It's a great collaborative system, because it created a way to
communicate what needs to be done, what tasks are in progress,
and how the tasks can be completed: the workflow.
• It can be adapted for individual work, and doesn't require anything
aside from a "board," which can be an actual white/blackboard, a
piece of blank wall with post-it notes, a refrigerator with colored
magnets, or a digital document. There are also lots of specialized
apps and equipment you can buy especially for the process, if you
want to get fancy.
• You can also use KanBan for one-off projects: because it was
designed for collaboration, it is useful for family or co-authoring
projects.

15. Doing KanBan
• Tasks are mapped on the board
depending on where they are in the
workflow, and then moved from left
to right, bucket to bucket, as they are
completed.
• Buckets can be very simple (as in To
Be Done, Doing, and Done). You list
all the tasks you want and need to
do, and, bam, you are off.
• KanBan is great if you are a visual
person, as it can give you, in a glance,
an overall snapshot of your work.
• Like the ABC method, though, if you
are not ruthless about controlling
your to-do list, you can get an
overwhelmingly long list, or a bunch
of tasks languishing in various states
of partial-doneness.
The board

16. Music is “The Wholesale Brain,” by Zhang Li (off Persuasion)
For a bibliography of all information used in this presentation, send
an email request to info@eastlakeandroanoke.com.
This presentation is released under a
Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-SA 3.0) license. If you
use it in one of your classes, we’d love to hear about it! Let us know
at the same email, above.
Please note: the names of these systems made be trademarked by
their respective owners.