Tip: Now or Never

For past few months I was planning to write a new tip on time management. Title of the  tip was meant to be ‘Now or Never’ and what I will be writing in this tip kept resonating in my mind but didn’t make it so far.

Hectic work schedules, information overload, lack of attention, numerous distractions have turned me (may be some of you) into a busy bee  and now I suffer from ‘Now or Never’ symptom.  What I need to do keeps coming back to me at various times, but before I get to it, something else comes to my mind.

I have abandoned paper based planner because I am equipped with mobile device like Blackberry. But I find myself re-writing goals on my computer/blackberry which I had in my paper based planner. This is good news because my goals have not changed.

How am I planning to deal with this ‘Now or Never’ problem?

- Focus on at least one Important tasks instead of only Urgent tasks everyday.
- Schedule specific backlog clearance effort during weekend
- Clear at least one item from backlog every day.
- If you can do it, DO IT NOW and ignore possible distractions at that time

One thing is for sure, I am going to post this note TODAY as soon as I have written it instead of planning to reword and send it another day (or NEVER?)  and I DID IT by successfully ignoring a new instant messages I was getting while posting this message.

Being Flexible

I have written earlier a tip about being flexible. Recently I came across a concept of flexibility and flightiness. You should not assume flightiness is same as being flexible.

Flexibility is ability to take diversions from your main goals to accommodate urgent requests from others. For Example, you are in middle of completing a presentation due for tomorrow and one of your colleagues comes by asking you to join an urgent meeting that needs your expertise. While you are working on a deadline you accommodate this unexpected demand on your time. After you are done with the meeting you come back to your deadline and complete your task.

Flightiness is when you let the diversion throw you off-track from your key tasks.  Later you use the interruption as an excuse to postpone your own task. Continuing the above example, after attending the meeting, you suddenly take active interest in that project or something else and loose track of your time. Next day you realize that you forgot about your presentation. You postpone your presentation.

If this flightiness happens once in a while, it is acceptable. When it becomes a habit, it becomes a serious time management problem.  Be aware of this subtle difference and don’t pride your flightiness as your flexibility.  A strategy to make sure this does not happen is relying on your planner or reminder system to help you to get back to your Important tasks.

Life – Balance

A few days back following bumper sticker caught my interest:

‘I had a LIFE, my work ATE it’.

I thought it was interesting. Is this an excuse we give when our life is out of balance? If the above really happened, who is responsible for it?

Do you have a similar complaint?

You can achieve balance by having a proper perspective on your life.

A related blog post, I would share is Do you really HAVE to do anything?

Book Summaries

I love reading books. But of late, I am not able to spend time to read through the books completely. Most of the time I am looking for key take-aways from the books and look for ideas that I can put into practice. A summary or good review of the book typically makes it easy to get the ideas of the book.

There is no lack of tools for busy people. I have covered some books by listening to audio books. Sometimes I read through free chapters that are available and then various reviews posted on Amazon.com to get an idea of the book. For sometime I have been receiving promotions (free CDs and emails) from Summary.com which looked quite promising. For an annual subscription you can get book summaries in print, online and audio format. Summaries are detailed and mostly convey the key ideas in the book. I finally decided to try it out and I am glad. I am able to catch up on my reading by going through a good number of books that I may never get to.

You can take a look and get a free summary.

Related Links

Tips: Save time with audio materials

www.summary.com

Time for important things

The ego will always insist that it needs more time. But if your intention to evolve, to become enlightened, is more important to you than anything else, you won’t need time. If there is integrity in your spiritual aspirations, you will be ready now. Good intentions for the future only flatter the ego. When you’re serious, the time is always now. Unless you intend to do it now, you won’t do it. Evolutionary Enlightenment—which is the experience of consciousness beyond ego in a developmental context—only emerges when now is the only time that means anything to you.  – Andrew Cohen

When we want to do something, we will not find excuses. If you are unable to find time to do something, you will need think do you really, really, really want to do it? if yes, you will find time for it. The above quote I received recently states it so clearly that I decided to reproduce it as it is.

Time management – Career Growth

While talking to colleagues and friends, I was trying to convey importance of time management in career growth. Unless one can focus on their time management skills, ability succeed when we get higher responsibilities will not be easy. I decided to document how various factors change when one is progressing in their career.

I have written this in a table format so that it becomes easier to understand.

	Individual Contributor	First Line Manager	Middle Management	Executives
Task variety	Less. mostly (~90%) repeatable tasks	mostly (~60-70%) repeatable tasks	Mostly diverse. (~30-40%) repeatable tasks	Completely diverse. <10% repeatable tasks. Rarely focused on one thing for more than 10 minutes.
Multi Tasking	Less. Context switching is less. Working on 1-3 projects	Medium. Context switching is needed. Working on 3-5 projects	High. Constant Context switching is needed. Working > 10 projects	Extremely High. Constant Context switching is needed. Working with unlimited number of projects
Tools	Use limited set of tools to get work done	Use set of tools to get work done and no tools for unrepeatable tasks	Other than tools to approve, monitor various business functions, E-mail is preliminary tool	E-mail is preliminary tool. Constantly reading information in variety of formats.
Emphasis	Getting things done. pre-defined deliverables	Ensure things are getting done	Review plans and progress.	Externally focused on business success and ensure alignment internally.
Follow-up	Task oriented follow up: work with colleagues to coordinate work	Follow up needed at task level. Remove hurdles	Follow up needed at milestone level. Remove hurdles	Follow up needed at strategic level. Take course corrections. High reliance on middle management.
Planning	Plan individual tasks	Track plans and create new project plans	Prepare plans at quarter level. Align them with strategy	Prepare plans at strategic level. Align them with business objectives set by market or customers.

Above should be easy to understand. Use this as a guidance only to understand importance of time management. Let me know if you have questions.

Life Transitions

I was reading blog article on managing life transitions.

This article was more elaborate than my earlier article on Tips for Stress Management. It is good to refresh our ideas on stress management once in a while. Whenever you feel you are overwhelmed, a few minutes reminding yourself to slow down will help. You are not alone having a hard time and take it comfort in that. I know it is easier said than done.

Read through the following links at leisure and reflect on them. Take your time and don’t rush through these articles. It is one of the important things in your life to reflect and not an urgent one. Do you need to finish reading this fast so that you can go to the next one? Slow down…. NOW.

Slow Down Therapy
Tips for Stress Management

Time Management: Will you do this?

I have heard of others trying to catch up on their tasks by staying up late or getting up early. But strange are ways of people. Recently I was driving to work and stopped at a signal. I saw a person in car next to me busy making corrections on a paper. You will be surprised to note that this person was the driver and not a passenger in the car. The person kept paper on steering wheel and was doing some corrections. I thought someone is very busy to be doing this at a signal.

What concerned me more was the person continued to do this even while driving. This person was driving slower than other traffic and I could not fail to notice that the person continued to correct and drive.

However busy you may be, don’t ever do this. Especially when it comes to your safety or safety of others. While drive to work can be long, use that time to relax (listen to music), learn (listen to audio tapes on topics of interest) but not work. Even spending lot of time on cell phones while driving is not advisable (and illegal in some places). I know some people who make phone calls when they are driving to catch up on things they are trying to follow up. If you want to do it, use a head set and voice commands. Be Safe.

Best time to catch up on work is early in morning when your energy level is high and you have no interruptions. First plan your day and if you can, do the important/urgent things first thing in the morning.

Schedule time with yourself for hour during the day to do your work without interruptions. Go away from your cube, shut yourself in a place no one can reach you and clear your backlog. There are better ways to clear backlog than doing it while driving.

See if Planplus is right for you?

Time management tools come in various formats so that it is convenient for everyone. I have shared tips earlier on use of Palm handheld. Recently I have used trial version of Planplus for Outlook from FranklinCovey. This software attempts to provide all features available in paper based planner. For people who find it difficult to adopt paper based planner, this may be a good option. This software on top of outlook and extends outlook features easily.

Following are highlights:

1. Extends Outlook Homepage to show only tasks due for today.
2. Enables you to assign priorities within a day in A, B, C categories and also prioritize within a day using Quick Prioritize option.
3. Update status of task easily with extended status types: Delegated, In Process etc.
4. Daily Notes feature is better than Outlook Notes feature and makes it easier to track notes on a daily basis
5. Adds Planplus menu options and a toolbar that allows you to track goals, mission, values etc.
6. You can also print pages just like the paper based planner and have the sheets handy.

Link to Trial version (Opens in a new window)

You can also view screenshots at this link.

Give it a try and buy it if you find it useful

GPS use and planning skills

Will use of GPS impact your planning skills?

Before buying GPS:

When you want to go to a place, you go online. Check the location, review the map carefully for directions and locations nearby. Mentally walk-through the route, print the map and even write notes. Sometimes you can even consider alternate routes. You are well prepared and you know how and where you are going.

After buying GPS:

No more print outs and notes. You get into the car, punch the destination address and release the brakes. You follow voice of the lady and be prepared to make turns and get there.

GPS makes life easy. Right? Yes, of course. Will this habit of not planning ahead become a habit and impact your planning skill in other phases of life (like work). Are you likely to stop making detailed plans? Will you become someone who goes with short term instructions? Will you stop making alternate plans?

What do you think? Share your thoughts.