Deadlines – stick to them or you’ll get shot!

February 20th, 2012

This sounds drastic, but the origin of the word deadline is related to this headline. According to Lossing’s History of the Civil War (1868): “Seventeen feet from the inner stockade was the ‘dead-line’, over which no man could pass and live.” (Source:  Random House)This referred to the line around a military prison beyond which soldiers were authorized to shoot escaping prisoners. Not a nice thought but it gives the word deadline a bit more severity than it has nowadays.

We are used to move deadlines, extend them, argue over them or simply ignore them. But does that actually help with the day-to-day running of our affairs? Not really. Moving a deadline simply means that you still have to do the work, you just eat into the time of when you were already meant to do something else. You will not get the gratification of feeling proud of yourself for finishing on time. You will not get the praise of others that you are reliable and trustworthy. You are letting yourself and others down by asking for yet another extension. You have to spend more time picking up from where you left of and you have no idea what the time landscape will look like around the new deadline, it might even be more hectic!

So what can you do? How about seeing the deadline as exactly that – cross it and you’re in trouble. Stick to it.

Here are 3 strategies to do exactly that, and in the process become proud of yourself for being reliable and a real team player.

  1. Set yourself partial deadlines along the way with the final deadline due before the actual deadline. Let’s say the project is due in 4 weeks time. Set yourself weekly deadlines for what you will have achieved by the end of each week and set the final deadline 2 days before the 4 weeks are up. You then have a couple of days to make sure all the I’s are dotted and the Ts are crossed and you can deliver an amazing project on time.
  2. If you are the one setting yourself a deadline, make sure it’s realistic. Take into consideration how long each step of the project is really going to take, build in a buffer for things going wrong and don’t forget to add time for travelling, delivery periods and other extras that are out of your control. With a realistic deadline you are less likely to move it and will start to respect it. And if you don’t need the buffer for things going wrong, you will even be able to finish early, giving you extra gratification.
  3. Decide to adhere to deadlines and make it a new habit. Just like being on time, eating healthy and working out, it is often simply a matter of will power and determination whether you stick to your deadlines. And if you keep in mind what happened to those poor prisoners who overstepped their dead-line in the olden days, you might just stay on track from now on.

Bonus Tip: Post the deadline in a visible place to remind you that you haven’t got all day and to keep procrastination at bay.


Posted in effectiveness, getting things done, planning, procrastination, time management | No Comments »

Don’t check your email – process it

January 23rd, 2012

What does checking your email actually mean? Do you have a look how many emails have come in since you last “checked”? Do you want to know whether a particular email has arrived, ignoring the rest and letting them pile up? How often do you check? And what do you actually do?

Checking emails means different things to different people, but in most cases it does not mean making a decision on every email when you first lay eyes on it. The “touch it once” philosophy we are encouraged to use when dealing with paper also applies to email – our virtual post.

Ideally you access your email 2 – 3 times per day and process it. This means that you make a quick decision on everything that comes in, dividing the “post” into 4 categories: delete, delegate, do  and defer.

Delete: pretty obvious, be generous with the delete button.

Delegate: if you are not the best person to deal with the email, forward with a short note to a more suitable person. Move the email into a “to follow up” folder, so that you remember to check whether the matter has been dealt with.

Do: if the email requires a very quick action (less than 2 minutes) do it straight away. If you have to deal with lots of emails (100 or more per day) you might want to take that down to 30 seconds.

Defer: if the email requires an action that takes more than 2 minutes (30 seconds) move the email to an action folder such as “read”, “reply”, “call”, etc. Deal with the emails in bulk when you deal with the relevant actions.

Processing your emails this way a couple of times per day will ensure that you are always up to date, but you decide when actions are completed and you are not “run” by your email.


Posted in effectiveness, efficiency, email, getting things done, productivity, time management | No Comments »

Declutter your mind to get things done

January 16th, 2012

Most people associate with decluttering a big clear-out, getting rid of stuff. But you can not only get rid of physical clutter but also mental clutter. Here are 3 top tips on how to free your mind.

Get it down on paper

Many of us are still trying to juggle diaries, to do lists, important dates, etc. in our heads. And we beat ourselves up when we forget something. In these hectic and stressful times we should be kind to ourselves and give our brains a break. Put things on paper. Note important appointments, birthdays, anniversaries, schedules on a wall calender, a pocket calender or into the computer using one of the many available diary software programmes like MS Outlook. Use an attractive notebook for your To-Do-Lists. And write your shopping list down instead of going to the shops only to come back without the most essential items that you went out for.

Shorten your To-Do List

You are the only one that has control over your time. You decide what is important and what is not. And you are the one who has to say No if you are overwhelmed with things to do. Nobody else will do that for you, they are only too happy to add items to your list. There are only 24 hours in one day, and some of those you need to rest. Decide which items on your To-do List can either wait, be delegated to someone else or scrapped altogether. You will be amazed how freeing this experience can be.

“Don’t cry over spilt milk”

Most things that we get annoyed about are not really a big deal. Someone cuts in front of us on the road, we drop something, or we spill some coffee on our outfit just before leaving the house – so what? It is up to us whether these things will spoil our whole day or just aggravate us for a few minutes. Of course you will be annoyed, maybe even angry but then let it go and decide not to let it bother you. It is up to you to let the rest of the day be a good one.


Posted in declutter, getting things done, sanity saving | No Comments »

In Defence of New Year’s Resolutions

January 8th, 2012

January 2012 – The beginning of a brand spanking New Year. So how are you going to make it count? We’re now already a whole week into the New Year and I’m just wondering how everyone is doing with your New Year’s resolutions. Did you make any this year?

I strongly believe in New Year’s resolutions. I know there are a lot of people out there who tell you “Don’t do it! You’ll only set yourself up for failure.” All I can say to that is, well, if you don’t even try, you’ll never achieve. But you have to do it the right way.

Here are my rules for making New Year’s resolutions work:

  1. Don’t have too many resolutions. If you are trying to change too many things at once, you will make it too difficult for yourself to keep it all up. Have between 1 and 3 things you want to do differently or better.
  2. Choose habits rather than goals than require outside factors. You have complete control over your behaviour and your habits. So for instance if your goal is to be a bestselling author, the first thing you have to do is write a book. Create a habit to write a certain number of words every day. If you write 1000 words every day (that’s about 1 ½ pages A4), you will have a first draft of your book after about 3 months (an average size novel). Then set habits to edit and look for a publisher.
  3. Make your resolutions very clear – use SMART goals (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-based). If your resolutions are woolly and unspecific you have no way of knowing whether you have achieved them or not or whether you are even on track. “Get fit” or “lose weight” are not clear at all. “Run 3 times a week for 30 minutes” or “loose 10 lb by the end of January” are much better. For the weight loss goal you would need to create a plan of how to achieve that weight loss, since it will not happen on its own. You could create 2 or 3 resolutions just around losing weight, if that is your main focus this year. And they all aim for the same result and will support each other.
  4. Finally, New Year’s is a great time to start out fresh and make changes, but it’s not the only time. You can start at any time during the year to improve your life. All you need is to make the decision to do so and then follow through. Some people make monthly resolutions and this works great for them. Each month they focus on a particular aspect of their life and create new habits to implement changes. It takes around 3 weeks to create a new habit, so a new one every month is actually quite realistic.

All that remains for me to say now is go out, achieve some goals and have a very Happy New Year!

 


Posted in goal setting, goals, New Year's resolutions, planning | No Comments »

Use Waiting Time Wisely

December 19th, 2011

Now and again we find ourselves waiting. Waiting for the kettle to boil, being on hold on the phone, standing in a queue at the photocopier or waiting for the computer to boot up. Generally we view these short pockets of time as wasted but have you ever thought of using them productively?

You can use those time pockets to get small jobs done. There are dozens of little mini tasks that always need doing, such as filing a couple of papers, deleting some emails that clutter up your inbox, reading an article or blog post, tweeting, etc. Maybe some of those jobs have been hanging around for a while because you have been procrastinating.

Create a list of those tiny, (sometimes pesky) jobs that need doing but don’t need much time. And whenever you find yourself waiting, do one of those 1 or 2 minute tasks. Keeping on top of those little jobs by using your time pockets will save you a lot of time in the long run.


Posted in efficiency, filing, getting things done, procrastination, productivity, time management, time saving | No Comments »

Never Late Again for Meetings – A Diary Tip

December 13th, 2011

Most of us are using a diary and have been doing so for years. But have you ever wondered whether you could do something differently? Could you be using your diary more efficiently? Something along the lines of – use your diary so that you’re never late again. Today I have a tip for you that could achieve just that, if applied regularly.

When you add an appointment to your diary, don’t just add the start and finish time of the event/meeting/etc. but also how long it takes you to get there and back. This will give you the time you from actually leaving your office to getting back and will be a much clearer indicator of your availability at the office. Even if your meeting is only down the corridor or around the corner, add a few extra minutes of “travel”. This allows you a time buffer for getting there and back without having to stress about not being able to make the next meeting if you booked them back to back. With travel time built in you will be less likely to be constantly chasing your tail if your days are filled with meetings.

If most of your meetings are at your office, make sure to build 5-10 minute gaps in between them especially if your meetings usually run back to back. These gaps can be used for comfort breaks, as well as for gathering materials for the next meeting and changing your mindset from one topic to the next. This means that you have enough time to prepare and you won’t have to keep anyone waiting for you until you’re ready. You’ll be calmer and more able to concentrate straight from the beginning of the meeting.

By applying these two tips your busy days will still be busy but a lot less stressed and a lot more productive.


Posted in diary, efficiency, productivity, sanity saving, time management, travel | No Comments »

Make Presents Free From Clutter

November 28th, 2011

Christmas presents, or any presents for that matter, don’t have to fill up the house in the form of clutter. There are lots of ways (many of them quite inexpensive) to spread holiday cheer without the dreaded thought at the receiving end “Where am I going to put this?”. Have a look at the list below and see if you can get inspired to give an experience rather than a thing:

Vouchers for:

  • a “Meal Out” at your favourite restaurant
  • a “Girly Day Out”
  • a “Boys’ Weekend Away”
  • babysitting
  • cleaning
  • decluttering
  • walking the dog
  • house sitting
  • DIY
  • washing/valeting the car
  • a kid’s sleepover at your house so that the parents get to spend some “couple time”
  • If you’re good at cooking, offer to be the Chef for a night (maybe for a dinner party or just so, for their family)

Experiences:

  • A Massage
  • A Facial
  • A Spa Day
  • Any holistic treatment such as Reiki
  • Adventure Days
  • A cooking course
  • A Weekend Break

Tickets

  • Cinema tickets
  • Theatre tickets
  • Concert tickets

Health & Fitness

  • Promise to be an Exercise Buddy
  • Membership to a Club

Charity

  • Charity Donation for particular cause (Oxfam do “un-wrapped” presents – the recipient receives a card showing what was given in his/her behalf)- (Save the Children have a Wishlist programme doing the same with Children’s gifts)

Digital Gifts

  • Mobile phone top-up
  • I-tunes vouchers
  • Apps for  smart phones
  • Ebooks (such as “Get Twice as Much Done in Half the Time” available here)
  • Audiobooks (such as “Get Twice as Much Done in Half the Time” available here)

Lessons

  • Music lessons
  • Driving lessons
  • Any lessons

The Ultimate Clutter Free Gift

If you think of any other clutter free gifts, why not put the suggestions in the comments below. Thanks for sharing! x


Posted in Christmas, clutter, declutter, saving money | No Comments »

How do you know when you’re productive?

November 21st, 2011

Everyone talks about productivity. But what does it mean? The dictionary definition is: producing or able to produce large amounts of goods, crops, or other commodities; or achieving a significant amount or result. So in simple terms: lots of stuff being created. But is it just lots of stuff or is it the right stuff? Could you consider yourself productive if you create a lot of the wrong things? Or what about if you create lots of the right things, but in a wrong way? Lots of questions, I know. Let’s see if we can answer them.

I came across a great graphic the other day on the “Life Live Well” blog that I would like to share with you. It looks like this:

productive vs ineffective vs inefficient

I adapted the look of it slightly since the image didn’t copy well, but the message stays the same. You can do all the right things, but if you do them wrongly you won’t be effective. Also, you can do things really well, but if they aren’t the right things, you will never be efficient. Only when you do the right things in the right way, only then will you be productive.

To do the right things, you need to align your activities with your goals. Are the tasks and projects you are setting yourself in line with what you are trying to achieve long term? If not, you need to consider whether you are doing the right things.

To do things right you need to know how to best do those things. This could mean outsource, but this could also mean that you need to improve your skills or it could mean that you need some tools you haven’t yet at your disposal. These tools include time management skills and other productivity tools.

Consider a goal setting session with a coach to get yourself on the right track of doing the right things. And have a think about whether you might need some time management tools or strategies to improve your workflow. Here at Well Organised that is something we can help with. Why not drop me a line or give me a call for an informal chat. I would love to talk to you and see how we can work together so that you can become as productive as you would like to be.


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Setting Up Your New Business? – 3 Key Productivity Tips

November 14th, 2011

Setting up a new business from scratch can be a daunting task. All those things you need to consider such as legal status, insurance, accounting, etc. etc. In the midst of this it is quite easy to forget about some basics that will make life a lot easier and more productive in the long run. Here are 3 strategies to implement right at the beginning so you don’t get into a muddle:

1. Have an Inbox and empty it every day

Having an inbox means that everything coming in has a place to go. That can be post (physical snail mail), notes for ideas, anything that you can’t deal with right at this moment. Make sure that at the end of the day you have gone through everything and decided what you’re going to do about it. This could be action straight away or at a later date, delegated to someone else, filed for reference or discarded. Set up suitable containers (folders, trays, etc.) for the different categories. At the end of the day your inbox should be empty. This way you know nothing is slipping through the cracks and everything gets dealt with.

2. Set up a time table for key activities

At the very beginning of your new business you will spend a fair amount of time on marketing activities to find clients. Once you have clients and they take up a lot of your time you will find that it gets more and more difficult to find time to work on your business. Create a time table where you plan in regular times for marketing, admin, research, social media, etc. – whatever applies to your situation.

One of my strategies is to blog once a week, do regular Twitter updates as well as write articles. As I got busier all of those fell completely by the wayside until I set aside a certain time every week when all the writing gets done. Thanks to online tools that schedule when updates are posted I can do all the writing for the whole week in one morning.

3. Use a diary

When you first start your business you won’t have many appointments so it seems quite natural to try and keep them in your head. Don’t be tempted to do that. It is so easy to get caught out and double book. Always rely on a diary. Whether you decide to use paper or electronic is a personal choice, but don’t rely on your memory alone. You can also use a diary to block out time for your key activities (see tip no 2) so that you don’t book appointments when you planned to do strategic business activities.

One of my clients thought that he’d start using a diary once he got busier. So when his first client booked an appointment with him he scheduled it at the same time as an existing appointment with his accountant. And since he completely overlooked the accountant’s appointment in his excitement to deal with his first client, he never cancelled with the accountant, resulting in him having to pay for the missed appointment.

Following these 3 strategies right from the beginning of your business life will make things much easier in the long run. If you implement good habits like these right from the start you can avoid losing track of important things.

If you want to know more about getting more done and improving your productivity, why not check out my eBook and audio book “Get Twice As Much Done in Half the Time – 10 Productivity Strategies for Your Office” which is available right here on this website.


Posted in diary, getting things done, organisation, planning, productivity | No Comments »

How to Create a Productive Electronic Filing System

November 7th, 2011

When it comes to electronic filing there are two extremes that I have come across in working with clients. Number 1 – putting everything in My Documents. Number 2 – almost every document has its own folder.

Even though it’s fairly obvious let’s have a quick look why either of these options doesn’t work and what a better solution would be.

Having everything in My Documents is like chucking every piece of paper you own in one single box. And then trying to find it again. Ouch. Granted, you can sort My Documents alphabetically or by date with the click of a button (unlike the cardboard box) but that’s pretty much it. If you have a lot of files to deal with having them all in one folder is not very productive. Yes of course, there is a search function. But what if you can’t remember what you called the document or spreadsheet? Depending on your naming conventions (the name you give a file when you save it) you might never find the file you’re looking for again. You have to remember details about the file, so that you can find it by content, and if that fails, you’ll have to recreate the file or ask for it again if you didn’t create it in the first place.

Using a system with myriads of folders containing dozens of subfolders which in turn contain more dozens of subfolders can be similarly unproductive. If your system is so convoluted that you need a handbook to navigate through it you will find it very difficult again to quickly access a desired file.

The solution is a happy medium. But first you have to do some thinking. You could either do that on paper or on the computer, maybe using mind mapping or bulleted lists, whatever your preferred thinking tool. Create the top categories, which will become your folders that live on the drive or directly within My Documents. Then subdivide them into suitable subfolders. These subfolders can have another subdivision but don’t go much deeper than that. Three levels of folders is usually enough for most businesses.

If you create logical top categories and enough of them, you will make it much easier for yourself to find documents when you need to retrieve them. This is after all the primary reason for filing. If you know you will never need a file again, you might as well save yourself some time and storage capacity and delete it.

A quick word about naming of files: create a name that describes the file well so that when you come across it several months later you know what you’re looking at without having to open it first. Long gone are the computer days when you only had 8 characters available to name a file and you had to be extremely creative and cryptic. You now have up to 260 characters available. This however includes the path name (the folders and subfolders where the file is stored). And the only things you can’t use in a file name are these symbols: \ / ? : * ” > < |

So go and have a look at your electronic filing system. If it takes too long to locate files, it might be worth spending a bit of time to set up a new, more efficient filing system that will save you a lot of time in the long run.


Posted in filing, productivity, time saving | No Comments »

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Latest Information

Deadlines – stick to them or you’ll get shot! This sounds drastic, but the origin of the word deadline is related to this headline. According to Lossing's History of the Civil War (1868): "Seventeen feet from the inner stockade was the 'dead-line', over which no man could pass and live." Not a nice thought but it gives the word deadline a bit more severity than it has nowadays. >>

Don’t check your email – process it What does checking your email actually mean? Do you have a look how many emails have come in since you last "checked"? Do you want to know whether a particular email has arrived, ignoring the rest and letting them pile up? How often do you check? And what do you actually do? Checking emails means different things to different people, but in most cases >>

Declutter your mind to get things done Most people associate with decluttering a big clear-out, getting rid of stuff. But you can not only get rid of physical clutter but also mental clutter. Here are 3 top tips on how to free your mind. >>


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