7 Proven Ways to Manage Your Time and Tasks

 

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

I'm giving a free webinar on 2021-02-10 titled "7 Proven Ways to Manage  Your Time and Tasks."

In this post I will provide some information related to the subject. Anyone attending the webinar can find more detail here in this post. If you want to attend, register at this link.

The 7 Proven Techniques are:

1. The Pomodoro technique ® – focus and eliminate distractions

2. GTD: getting things done – take big tasks (projects) and break down into pieces. Just start on one piece.
3. Inbox 0 – Manage your email inbox - look at each incoming task once
4. Personal kanban – visualize work, limit work in progress
5. Saying "No"
6. Eisenhower's prioritization technique
7. Margin – Don’t over-commit
8. Bonus: bullet journaling

 You'll find links to more information below:

Here is a very recent article about Time Management:

Fast Company:  02-08-21 SECRETS OF THE MOST PRODUCTIVE PEOPLE
3 time management myths messing with your productivity

 1. Pomodoro Technique ® (Registered Trademark)

• The original Website (gives a good overview and has info about books on the topic) : https://francescocirillo.com/pages/pomodoro-technique
• The Free web app:  https://pomodoro.francescocirillo.com/
• Trello blog: https://blog.trello.com/how-to-pomodoro-your-way-to-productivity
• Forbes "The Pomodoro Technique Explained"
  

2. GTD: getting things done – take big tasks (projects) and break down into pieces. Just start on one piece.

• The book is written by David Allen and available in many places
  
•  Explained at the GTD website: https://gettingthingsdone.com/what-is-gtd/
• Wikipedia GTD : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_Things_Done
•  New Yorker article "The Rise and Fall of Getting Things Done" (this gives a great history of GTD) https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-rise-and-fall-of-getting-things-done
  

3. Inbox 0 – Manage your email inbox - look at each incoming task once

• 43 Folders: Inbox Zero
  
• The Muse "Your Step-by-Step Guide to Reaching Inbox Zero (Even if You Currently Have 1,000+ Unread Emails)"
  
• Whatis Overview and link to Google Talk: https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/inbox-zero
• Lifehack: "What Everyone Is Wrong About Achieving Inbox Zero" 
• FastCompany "The 7-Step Guide To Achieving Inbox Zero—And Staying There—In 2018" and  "The Smart Way to Tame your email in 2021: Embrace a little chaos"
• Medium: "Why Inbox Zero is Ruining Our Lives (Better Email Habits That Will Help You Save Time And Money)"
  
• Read your email only certain times of the day, don't let email determine your priorities
• Think about where your tasks come from. Read "Management Time: Who’s Got the Monkey?" in Harvard Business Review (one of their top read articles over the years)
  

 4. Personal kanban – principles: visualize work, limit work in progress

• Kanban entry in Wikipedia
• A good tool for keeping your own kanban is trello.com 
  
• Personal Kanban website
• YouTube Video "Introduction to Personal Kanban" By Jim Benson (6 minutes, 36 seconds)
• Modus Institute : Blog
  
• Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) Team Kanban

5. Eisenhower's prioritization technique

•  Monday Project "5 old-school strategies for prioritizing urgent tasks you can try right now" (includes other productivity ideas too)
• Medium "The Eisenhower Method For Taking Action (How to Distinguish Between Urgent and Important Tasks)"  (includes some history of the origin)
• You can also see this used in the book "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People®" by Stephen R. Covey - it is in Habit 3. See also the Wikipedia entry for this book

6. Saying "No"

• Henry Cloud Book "Boundaries: When to Say Yes; How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life"
  
• Michael Hyatt "5 Reasons You Need to Get Better at Saying No"
  
• Inc. "7 Tips for Saying No Effectively"
• Forbes "Three Reasons You Need To Say 'No' More Often"
• From the Agile Manifesto Principles "Simplicity--the art of maximizing the amount of work not done--is essential."
  
• CIO "The art of maximizing work not done"
  

 

7. Margin – Don’t over-commit

• Book "Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives" by Richard Swenson, M.D.
• Sequel book "The Overload Syndrome: Learning to Live Within Your Limits"

8. Bonus: Bullet Journaling (aka BuJo)

• BulletJournal website
• Watch the free tutorial (4 minutes and 11 seconds)
• TED talk "How to declutter your mind -- keep a journal | Ryder Carroll | TEDxYale"
  
• Wikipedia entry
  
• New Yorker article "Can Bullet Journaling Save You?"  
• Good Housekeeping:https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/a25940356/what-is-a-bullet-journal/

My past two blog posts on this subject are also helpful:

https://henrywill4.blogspot.com/2020/02/productivity-time-and-task-management-5.html

https://henrywill4.blogspot.com/2018/10/is-it-time-management-or-task-management.html

I am available to do webinars and presentations on a wide range of topics.
Subscribe to emails of future presentations by sending an email to:
speaker-henrywill+subscribe @ groups.io
Or visit my speaking list page to see the other subjects I've spoke on and will be speaking on soon!

  Please comment here with your ideas about being more productive!

Productivity, Time and Task Management - 5 tips that have helped me

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

 

I've always been interested in being productive and making the best use of my time.


I've mentored people about productivity and spoke to people about it too. Back in 2009 I blogged here about Innovation and Productivity.

I lead a net-working group called Emmaus Work Connectors and last month (January 2020) our discussion was about "Time and Task Management."  I told the attendees that I would share some of the information so everyone can have access to it and benefit from it.

Here are some things that I've learned over the years that have helped me with links to articles to get more information about each:

1. Prioritization is important:
We need to prioritize our work in two ways: importance and urgency. Tasks that are important and urgent need to have the highest priority. The tasks that are important and non-urgent need to be scheduled so we get around to doing them. I first learned about this in Habit 3 of "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen R. Covey. I've lately heard it attributed to Eisenhower. One pointer from me is "don't over-analyze" prioritization. Get it close and then just get started on a task.

2. Using a process helps.
Getting Things Done (GTD), Personal Kanban, Agile Scrum framework (video or .pdf), and the Pomodoro technique are great processes to aid in managing tasks.
   My main take-aways from GTD is that tasks that are less than about 5 minutes are best to just do right away to keep them from getting on a list. And, take any big projects and break them into smaller ones.
   I've used Kanban at work for years. I also follow Personal Kanban for my home tasks. Kanban is the most effective technique that I use. It is based on two easy rules: visualize your work and limit work in progress. I use Trello to visualize my tasks on a kanban board. I use it to track all of my tasks. I find Kanban helpful because by limiting work in progress, it stops me from trying to multi-task which has been proven to be inefficient and even damaging to your brain. 
   I also find that by using the agile scrum framework of bringing a limited number of tasks from my big "to do list" into a "timeboxed" period of time (one day or one week) keeps me from being overwhelmed by my big list. I believe that agile techniques can be very helpful to apply to my every day tasks. Read a bit about it and see if you agree.

   My take-away on Pomodoro is to concentrate on one task at a time for a certain amount of time. Taking breaks is important too and a part of Pomodoro. I find it refreshing to plan a task that takes about a half-hour, work on it, get it done and cross it off the list. Well, in Kanban, I move it to the "Done" column! In Trello, there is even a way to pop some confetti when you move a task to done! (note: Trello can also be used for Pomodoro as one of the several add-ons covered in this article) and it can be used to implement GTD too!)


3. Eliminate (or reduce) distractions
A key part of productivity is to reduce distractions, especially distractions that are unimportant (thinking back to the Eisenhower prioritization mentioned above.  This means you may need to turn off sounds for texts on your smartphone, email and other messenger platforms. Another great productivity framework called Inbox-zero (about processing all of your email so your inbox has zero emails left) tells us to just look at emails a few times a day. All these messages are distractions. Distractions pull us away from focusing and it takes considerable time (23 minutes according to one study) to get back on task.
Background noise sometimes helps to reduce distractions around you. I've been known to use coffitivity and other similar websites to make some background noise when I'm being distracted. Try it out!


4. Don't over-analyze, get started on a task
If a task seems to overwhelming, think of one thing you can do to get started on it. Start that one thing. Usually, this is enough to overcome the feeling of being overwhelmed and gives the feeling of momentum. Try it!

5. Do tasks with long leadtimes first
If something is going to take a long time for someone else to do, or to get a response, get that item into the "pipeline" as soon as reasonable so that you won't later be waiting on it.

Now you try

These are just a few ideas and this article is already way too long, so I'll stop here. This is enough for you to try.

Here's a page describing many productivity techniques and a quiz you can take to help find the best task management technique according to your needs: https://todoist.com/productivity-methods

I use Trello a lot and they regularly post on the topic of productivity.
Here's a blog post they did about "Self-Management: How To Prioritize And Be More Productive"  and another titled "How To Create A Productivity Tracker To Reach Your Goals This Year"

What do you think?
I would like to hear about your productivity tips. Let me know if any of the above tips helped you or not and why.  Let me know if there are other topics or questions you would like me to cover.

Notes from the Mentoring Conference call this past week

This past week, a good friend of mine, Ron Hadley, spoke on Mentoring on the PMlessonsLearned.com conference call I host.
The presentation is available at PMlessonsLearned.com (see the link for "Files and Presentations"). The recording is now available for the next few weeks by phone (for the phone number and access code for the phone recording see details on top left of PMlessonsLearned.com - It will be available until the next conference call on June 3rd) and the MP3 and other recordings will be available on-line in the next few weeks (see the link for archives on the website at PMlessonsLearned.com).

Here are my notes from the call:

• With Mentoring, go slow before you go fast
• Many people concentrate on "Who" to be mentored by before they concentrate on "What" to be mentored about. Take the time to plan the "What" first. Start with the goal in mind.
• Mentoring is a way to develop, so what are you trying to develop?
• Discuss strategies that are outside your comfort zone to be put into practice before the next meeting. This will push you to grow.
• An important value of mentoring: Mentoring builds relationships which works at the need to build "purpose at work" which builds retention of your best people.
• Start with a one year commitment, you can always keep going if it works well. This will set a goal and it isn't too long to commit to.
• Ron suggests that it's best to find someone in your company/organization but from another department. This will help you to learn to navigate your organization.
• Ron recommends that you make an agreement at the start of the mentoring.
• Types of mentoring: one on one or group mentoring. Group mentoring is starting to grow in use. The group presents and issue, brainstorms solutions and then at the meeting the following month they discuss how they handled it.
• It is best to have written goals for mentoring
• What should your mentoring work on? Try to get a 360 degree assessment. If you can't get one at work, then ask people what you should work on.
• Ron said one of the best lessons he learned from his mentor was that he was always bringing his lunch and eating alone, but the mentor told him he should never eat lunch alone. (note: I (Henry) suggest the book "Never Eat Alone" by Keith Ferrazzi)
• When asked what the best format is for a meeting with your mentor, Ron suggested: Review the progress of the last meeting's action items and discuss what needs to be done to move forward (discuss next steps and action items) for the next meeting. Ron suggests that mentoring meetings should be once a month and should last about 1 to 1.5 hours.
  
• Where to find a mentor? Ask at work (ask your manager first), church, and/or other organizations you belong to (PMlessonsLearned.com or your local PMI Chapter for example)
  

I hope you think about getting a mentor!

The Clock that Lost it's Second Hand

We have a clock that was always a bit behind on the time. It seemed as though the clock was having difficulty lifting the second hand as it made it's way from the 6 back up to the 12.

Well, recently, the clock fell off the wall and I put it back up. A few days later I realized that the second hand had fallen off and was laying inside, but I didn't have any interest in taking the time to fix it.

Then, just the other day, I asked my wife if the clock was keeping time. She said that now the time was correct! The clock is now running on time without the burden of lifting the second hand!

My wife and I talked about how sometimes our lives are like that clock. We each came up with our own lesson. My wife remarked that sometimes we get too busy doing many things, just like the clock trying to tick out every second, and because we are trying to do too much, we get behind. That's a great point!

I had a few thoughts about the clock:

• Sometimes we try to keep track of everything and schedule things with such precision that we don't leave any margin (this reminds me of the book I read some time ago, that I would highly recommend, titled "Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives" by Richard A. Swenson)
  
• We get so bogged down in the "overhead" of scheduling and keeping track of things so closely, that we are slowed down and are less effective
  
• Sometimes too, because we're so concentrated on over-managing our time, we miss the things that are most important!

So, I hope you, like me, can take a lesson from the clock that lost it's second hand

Focus

Recently I read a book summary that mentioned the importance of always keeping your top 3 goals written down so you can concentrate on them.

Lately I've been getting lots of messages from the Lord about Focusing. I need to Focus and concentrate on the most important things. And, now this is very important, I need to start removing the distractions.

I was mentoring someone the other day about this subject.

Did you ever notice that when you use a magnifying glass to look at something, it magnifies the area your looking at and at the same time, the area below the glass that you're not viewing is obstructed?

Well, we need to put that same principle into effect in our lives. We need to purposely obstruct all of the items that are not in our focus.

Let me give you some examples:
I realize that much of my email that comes in is from mail lists I signed up for so I could be informed in case I might be interested in something. Well, Gmail lets me create a filter that puts them directly into an archive. So, I don't have to read them, but if I'm ever looking for something, I can just search my email to find them when I need them. It's like having a reference library that only stores things you're interested in!

And, in my personal life, there are THINGS that distract me from PEOPLE. I have to remind myself that people are way more important than things. So, I have to remove the frustrations and time consumption that the things pull away from the people I need to care about!

I hope this all helps you to gain more focus and more concentration on the things that are important to you! Of course, before you focus, you need to establish your goals of what to focus on. I'll have to write about that sometime too.

Raising the Threshold and Getting Things Done

In a conversation with my manager yesterday, I was reminded of the book "Getting Things Done" (GTD) by David Allen (see part of the book here). The book describes having a system to process all incoming information (requests, actions, FYI, etc.). It works for job assignments, monkeys on your back (this is a reference to the Harvard Business Classic "Management Time: Who's Got the Monkey?" by by William Oncken, Jr., and Donald L. Wass), and email too.

In the GTD book, there is mention of how some incoming items should be handled right away if they take about 5 minutes or less to get done. This has worked great for me. Yesterday, my manager mentioned that since I have lots of small work tasks piling up, maybe I should try to tackle some of the small tasks ("low hanging fruit") to get them crossed off my list. It was then that I realized that sometimes we need to "Raise the Threshold." We need to change the 5 minute threshold to 30 minutes or 60 minutes so that we can get some of the tasks hanging around on our list moved off and completed. I'm working on that now. Maybe this idea will help you too!

By the way, if you're interested in GTD, take a look at the links above. You might also be interested in the related inboxzero.com information for managing your email.

Take a vacation

Well, I'm on vacation a few days and enjoying it!

Did you know how important it is to take a vacation?

Did you know you can also take a vacation during the day? You can! At lunch, in the evening, or in the morning you can just take a short 5 or 10 minute vacation. If you think about your special vacation place, it will all come back and relax you!

I found some interesting links on vacations. Especially with the economy being the way it is, apparently many people are skipping their vacation when they need it the most!
(note: I can't say that I agree with all principles in these links, but you may find some part of them helpful)

• CNN: Layoff worries keep many from taking vacations, experts say
• About.com: Don't Forget to Take Time Off From Work
• Business Net: Vacation: the Rx for mental & physical health: by taking advantage of your vacation time you eliminate burnout, which in turn makes you a more productive individual
• The Happiness Project: Take a Vacation.