Time to Live
Module 4: The time thieves

Interruptions and unsolicited visitors

Open-plan offices offer little privacy. If you have important work to focus on, how can you avoid interruption?

Remember the 20/80 principle. Only 20% of your tasks each day are vital. How about creating your own sign and writing 20% on it in large numbers?

Tell your colleagues what it means when the sign is on display: it means you are working on something of real importance and should not be interrupted.

Don’t abuse the sign and I can almost guarantee you’ll get left alone and others will follow suit!

Quality communication

Using the word ‘No’ can be challenging. People attach their personal meanings to the word ‘No’. They make it mean that they are unhelpful, not a team player, perhaps aggressive. They think promotion depends on them never saying ‘No’.

The fear of saying ‘No’, however we justify it, actually means that we say ‘Yes’ too often.

You only have so much time in your time bank. If you say ‘Yes’ to working late, you are saying ‘No’ to social life. Look to your values. This is so important to understand, because not using this simple word is a major contributor of stress and illness. At the very least, it leaves you feeling overwhelmed.

There are, of course, ways of saying no. ‘I can’t do it now, but I can do it later/tomorrow/next year’, or ‘I have the annual report and the budget, does this work take priority?’

The more you use the ‘No’ muscle, the more control you will have over your time.

Meetings

While online meetings are becoming more common (and can save considerable time), the approach you take to meetings is the same whether they are live or virtual.

• Plan in advance and stick to the agenda
• Start and finish on time
• Only attend if you have to- would a summary from someone afterwards be enough?
• Hold live meetings standing up – they tend to end quickly!
• If the meeting runs overtime or you are no longer needed, speak up! Ask to be excused.

What about the telephone?

Remember we talked about ‘urgent v important’. When the phone rings, it’s urgent but not necessarily important. Unless it’s your job to answer the phone or company policy insists you do, the phone can be managed.

• Use your voice mail message as your personal assistant. If you have an important task, decide how much time you need to concentrate and leave a message letting callers know when you will next check your calls. You may only need an hour. Most people can wait an hour.
• If your calls really need to be answered, ask if you can divert them to someone else for a hour. You can return the favour another time.
• Put your mobile phone on silent as often as you can.
• Plan your outgoing calls and have any information you may need to hand in advance
• Determine a time limit for calls in advance, and keep your watch by the phone.
• Tell the person you are calling your time limit “I’ve got ten minutes, let’s get going on this!”

Be imaginative in fighting the Time Thieves. Keep asking yourself, ‘what else can I do?’ rather than focusing on what you can’t do.

Emails

Emails are an extremely useful tool for time management but can also be a huge distraction.Don’t let them rule your day – and they easily can!

Here are some suggestions:

• Set specific times each day when you check messages. Let senders know your routine. Unless you are expecting something urgent, don’t even look at your inbox outside of these times.
• Keep emails short. Use one main point per message
• Don’t send joke messages
• Keep emails professional
• Create subject files, filters, labels and so on (if you don’t know how, find out). Delete or archive emails regularly. There’s nothing more distracting than a cluttered in-box
• Always reply to emails within 24 hours

Voice mail

• Leave precise messages.
• State your name, the reason for your call and suggest a call back time.
• Schedule a time each day to receive and return calls.

Online Messaging

Twiiter, Facebook, internal company messaging systems – these have all become more popular means of communicating in recent times.

Here is the truth: Most text messaging is a waste of time.

Don’ t have them constantly open, they will distract you. If they absolutely need to be checked regularly because of the nature of your work, open them once an hour, spend no more then five minutes dealing with anything that’s come in, then close them again.

Delegation

Delegation is about asking for help. Working with others offers the opportunity to delegate. A good delegator knows how to create the ‘buy in’ from their staff, their colleagues and their bosses by asking in the right way:

A person must know why the job is being delegated; what must be achieved and when it must be finished. You must then reclarify so the person you are delegating to understands what needs to be done

Delegating gives you a chance to show how much you trust those on your team and it frees up your time to do what you do best.

Self-imposed distractions

Your aim should always be to have a clean desk at the end of the day. Only keep on your desk the equipment for daily use and one task you are working on. Every time you raise your head and notice other work cluttering your desk (shouting, ‘do me, do me!’), you will experience a 5% distraction rate. This can add up to 45 minutes of wasted time each day costing you, and your company, money.

Be selective with your reading. We live in a world of information overload. Open your mail by the bin, keeping only the essential papers. Date them, file, them or pass them on.

Business magazines or articles must be filed and a date and time scheduled for reading. Paper breeds paper. Be ruthless, your time is at stake!

Consistent focused daily planning and personal organisation is the key to great time management. You know your weak spots from your time log. Keep building those muscles and regain control of your time. Be ready for unsolicited visits by having a stock phrase to handle them. Once again, use your own imagination, keep the Time Thieves at bay and make more time to live.

Actions of the Week

1. Identify your time management problems
2. Create your strategies, from the above suggestions, to control interruptions
3. Improve your personal organisation
4. Avoid procrastination – decide and take action
5. Know when to ask for help and do it with dignity and respect

Keep up with your actions, because in Week 5 we’ll be focussing on how you can create powerful goals and achieve sustainable success.

See you next time!