This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Ruby Buzz
by Mike Shoemaker.
Original Post: Time Management
Feed Title: Unruly Rambling (ruby category)
Feed URL: http://www.shoesobjects.com/blog/rss.xml?category=ruby
Feed Description: My thoughts on software, technology, and life in general
1) Own Your Destiny
Be decisive and conservative when determining how to spend your day. Every day presents the same economic challenge: time is a limited resource that must be actively managed or it risks being squandered. To be more specific, if you receive an invitation to a meeting where the topic is not on your critical path, you should probably think twice before attending. Declining is a perfectly acceptable response to the invite. If you want to know the outcome, ask for the meeting minutes once it concludes. Also, you should never get into the habit of putting your goals on hold for the good of someone else's. It will likely be detrimental to your status within the company.
2) High Priority Means High Priority
Make sure you work on the highest priority, highest return items first. Only in very specific cases should you stray from this pattern (industry compliance comes to mind as an example of when it's okay). Marginalizing your time on high priority items so you can exceed expectations on lower priority items will probably lead to your exceeding expectations in a different role or company.
3) Don't Do What You Shouldn't
Are you doing something you should not be doing? I don't mean criminal or unethical, I mean something that you should delegate. If so, you could be robbing valuable experience from your team, which could affect their advancement as well your own. Finally, if you are using your authority only to delegate mundane tasks that you do not want to do, go ahead and assign yourself an F as a leader. You've earned it!
4) Be Purposeful
Don't end up somewhere. Significant accomplishments resemble marathons not sprints (See my post on The Dip if you would like to delve deeper into this topic). Just like a marathon, you will need to subdivide your end goal into measurable chunks or milestones. Without measurability, you risk getting off track and wasting valuable time and effort. So planning is good, right? It is, but if you are planning out the next 5 years before executing on anything, you might be wasting time also. I'd suggest only performing lower level planning for the next milestone or two. The time it takes to produce detailed long term plans will be squandered if something blindsides your plan at 4pm on some idle Tuesday(Trivia Challenge: Name the song that contains these lyrics?). At each milestone you can always reevaluate your position and correct course if needed.
5) Sharpen Your Tools
Figure out how to process email proficiently in an expedited manner! If you are a slave to Microsoft Outlook, your mind will not be engaged in the next big thing. Tip: If you send less email, you will receive less email. Last time I checked the telephone still works!! If you find yourself frequently sending email for CYA purposes, you might be in the wrong position and/or company.
6) Use The Right Tool For The Job
Your brain, yes yours and mine to, stinks at keeping track of things. On the flip side, your brain is really good more proficient at critical thinking. A supporting example might be this. Have you ever been thinking about a wildly important topic and in from left field comes an idea about picking up milk on the way home(feel free to swap in any arbitrary honeydoo item). If you answered yes, do you know why this happens? It is because you don't have a trusted place to keep track of it. Subconsciously you are worried that you will forget to pick up milk so it will continually interrupt you at the most inopportune time. You could avoid this debilitating context switching by having a trusted storage place outside your brain. Don't steal cycles from higher priority threads any longer. Log these items on your ToDo list, palm pilot, or at an online site like RememberTheMilk.com where it can be text messaged to you at the right time. If you get good at working in this manner , start tagging each item with contextual information so you can squeeze out extra productivity during brief periods of idle time. More details on this can be found in Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity.
7) Organization
Get organized. If your desk is a wreck you will be less efficient. Clear the nonessential items, file what you will need later, and discard what you don't need... Immediately! Every second you spend looking at something you don't need is a wasted second. Looking at that same thing a second time is downright foolish. At first you won't prune enough. With practice you will perfect this skill.
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