Establish a Routine

Don’t get stuck figuring out over and over again how to do the same task. Having good documentation is time consuming, but it’s essential to have step-by-step instructions for tasks that are extremely detailed and prone to error. Otherwise you’ll end up correcting the same mistakes. Make sure to keep this in an easily accessible place or you’ll forget or be too lazy to reach for it when starting the task. You’ll also find this handy when it’s time to pass this task to someone else.

Goal Setting

A To-Do-List allows you to set goals, and assign tasks to those goals. Setting specific tasks to goals   ensures that you keep your eye on the ball. You can look at your next steps and see how far you’ve come. Once tasks are assigned to specific goals it creates a chain display that shows the number of tasks completed for each goal, as well as the goal’s chain. The chain gets longer for each consecutive day that a completed task contributes to the goal. Make progress on a goal each day to get a long chain. Miss a day and that chain will get broken.

It’s important to see beyond the task list at the bigger picture and know that checking off the tasks brings you another step closer to your goals.

Managing Distractions

Oftentimes I’m working on something when I get distracted — the phone rings, an instant message appears, I notice a new email — and then I completely forget what I was working on. I’ll get off the phone and decide to check email. Before long I’m off doing something else with the original task left hanging. Many people call this “multi-tasking” but most of us know that there are very few things we can really do at the same time. I can walk on the treadmill and read email at the same time, but I can’t talk on the phone and write an article at the same time.

I’m not disciplined enough to follow strict rules of checking email only twice a day or turning off my phone. But I can go back (after I’m no longer distracted) and see the task I was working on previously.

A feature that helps me is a TIMER, it helps me to stay on task when my mind starts to wander and I want to do something else. Click the timer button and it keeps the clock running for the time spent on that task. Knowing that before I switch tasks I have to stop the timer button actually gives me incentive to just finish what I’m doing. That one small barrier is enough to prevent the impulse to check email until I’ve completed the task at hand.

Scheduling Your Time

Time scheduling helps me manage my time by using the timer (which tells me exactly how long I’ve spent on a task) and the time estimation I can include for each task (to get a handle of what I can expect to accomplish in one day). Sometimes a day passes by and I wonder what I did all day. With the timer function, I can see exactly where all my hours went, and it does make me feel better to know that I actually didn’t spend all day on emails, phone calls..etc. It also helps me see where or what I may be spending way too much of my time on.

Being able to see how long a task will take also helps me plan my day. If I’m just going down a list of items, I might think I can complete 10 things. But taking into consideration the time it’ll take for each task will keep my expectations realistic. If there’s a big project I need to slot most of the day to, I might only accomplish 3 things that day, but it still would have been a full day of working.

Next Week -  Setting Goals and Establishing a Routine

Enjoy Your Week