In an ironic twist on the previous chapter, I want to share the power
of mindless checklists. As I was packing for a summer vacation, I
was scrambling around and getting stressed over whether or not I
was forgetting something. As I was digging through my junk drawer, in
the back of a notebook I found last year’s list. There it was; everything
I needed to bring—including a swimsuit, sunscreen, and sunglasses.

The burdensome task of packing turned from a budding stressful situation
to a quick to-do. I have since made a winter vacation list, and a
business trip list. Each of the lists has matured and changed over time,
but the basics remain the same. Routines—or doing the same thing
over again with predictability—can make you a better organizer and
time manager if they enhance your productivity and reduce your stress
levels.

Determine what checklists and routines personally and professionally
can work for you. Are there standard operating procedures that need
to be made up? Are there morning opening or closing tasks that can
be made holistic and easier for you to follow? What regular reference
points or routines can you establish and create both personally and
professionally? You might even want to establish a routine to have time
each week, or even daily, for no electronic disruptions so that you can
commit to doing nothing but what is in front of you. To put the last
two chapters to work, you can have an appointment for today to review
the specific checklist that will be used (e.g., “Use packing list to pack
for vacation”).

Checklists and routines reduce unpredictability and consistently
let everyone know ahead of time what is expected. If it’s a standing
meeting or a common task that makes you more productive and
reduces unnecessary stress, then checklists and routines can and should
be implemented.
 

Thomas B. Dowd III’s books available in softcover, eBook, and audiobook (From Fear to Success only):

• Now What? The Ultimate Graduation Gift for Professional Success
• Time Management Manifesto: Expert Strategies to Create an Effective Work/Life Balance
• Displacement Day: When My Job was Looking for a Job…A Reference Guide to Finding Work
• The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas: Growing from a Cynic to a Professional in the Corporate World
• From Fear to Success: A Practical Public-speaking Guide received the Gold Medal at the 2013 Axiom Business Book Awards in Business Reference
• The Unofficial Guide to Fatherhood

See “Products” for details on www.transformationtom.com.  Book, eBook, and audiobook (From Fear to Success only) purchase options are also available on Amazon- Please click the link to be re-directed: Amazon.com

advice, appeal, appointment, audience, author, balance, book, business, business development, Business Training, change, Coach, coaching, competence, Confidence, control, deadline, delegate, development, Dowd, efficiency, follow up, growth, hr, human resources, Inspiration, intentions, interests, interruptions, introduction, leadership, life, Management, Motivation, multitask, network, Networking, organize, output, Personal, personal growth, planning, preparation, prepare, prioritizing, productivity, professional advice, Professional Development, recruit, recruiting, recurring, routines, speaker, speaking, speech, stress, success, tense, tension, Thomas, Thomas B Dowd, Thomas B Dowd III, Thomas Dowd, throughput, time, time management, to-do, to-do list, tom, Tom Dowd, touch it once, training, transformation, transformation tom, transformationtom, urgent, work, work life, worklife, yield

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I used to work with an individual who carried her calendar with her
everywhere. Within the calendar was her personal checklist for the
day. Each morning, I would see her flipping the pages back and
forth from yesterday to today and transferring the items not finished
yesterday to the new day. After several days of watching her do this, I
finally asked her two questions: First, how long does it take each day to
transfer the new items over? Second, how important were the tasks in
the first place if they kept getting moved? The answers were, that it took
longer than she liked and the tasks transferred each day were probably
not as important as she had originally thought. She was hurting her
ability to manage time effectively in an attempt to organize each day.

The use of checklists always starts with the best intentions.
Unfortunately, people often like to see them to check off their completed
items and turn it into an accomplishments list. Checklists shouldn’t
be used as an accomplishments list to tick off the little victories, or
as an exercise in procrastination. Checklists should be used to drive
execution of the tasks, but too often we start to migrate to the easier
and quicker tasks. If you want an accomplishments list, then keep one,
but don’t combine it with your checklist. A checklist should be about
getting things done. On it should be all items needing to be addressed
today: important, not important, urgent, and not urgent. It should be
a complete list dedicated to today.

Assess your own checklist usage. Whether it is a literal checklist or a
figurative set of tasks that you keep online, take the time to understand
how often you move tasks regularly. You should stop using a checklist
if you constantly shift tasks from day to day—this isn’t productive.
Consider the following when conducting your assessment, some of
which is reinforcement of past chapters:
• If you have moved a task for consecutive days, you must ask
yourself, “How important is it?” If it is important, take action
on it. If it is important but not urgent, don’t schedule it for
tomorrow, schedule it for a week from now, when you know
you can get to it.
• If you are proactively staying ahead of your day, week, and
month as stated in an earlier chapter, then you should be on
top of this and simply be making tweaks along the way.
• Checklists, if kept, must be comprised of the least amount of
work you expect to get done and still consider the day a success.
Specifically, this is the “I can’t leave until this gets done” list. Be
very realistic.
• Build in daily events and habits. What do you do at eight a.m.
every morning? Are there calls you have to return, administrative
tasks that need to be done (e.g., paperwork to process)? If so,
build it in. Account for the time you are using.

When it comes to checklists, the important key is to not write it
down or add it to your online to-do list today if you are not going
to do it today. Your checklist assessment should enable you to turn a
potential time management hindrance into a time management tool.

advice, appeal, appointment, audience, author, balance, book, business, business development, Business Training, change, Coach, coaching, competence, Confidence, control, deadline, delegate, development, Dowd, efficiency, follow up, growth, hr, human resources, Inspiration, intentions, interests, interruptions, introduction, leadership, life, Management, Motivation, multitask, network, Networking, organize, output, Personal, personal growth, planning, preparation, prepare, prioritizing, productivity, professional advice, Professional Development, recruit, recruiting, recurring, routines, speaker, speaking, speech, stress, success, tense, tension, Thomas, Thomas B Dowd, Thomas B Dowd III, Thomas Dowd, throughput, time, time management, to-do, to-do list, tom, Tom Dowd, touch it once, training, transformation, transformation tom, transformationtom, urgent, work, work life, worklife, yield

 

 

 

 

 

 

To use a sports analogy, if you run with a ball on your own from point A to point B, it will take you longer than simply kicking it or throwing it to another person already at point B. We try to do too much on our own. Whether we want all the glory, think we can do it better, or simply just want it done, there is value in getting others involved. This chapter isn’t about dumping, or even
delegating. It’s about teamwork. Depending on your position, you may still have to supervise, validate the work, or make sure it gets done, but you should find opportunities to avoid doing everything on your own.

Think about the expertise you have surrounding you. Do you have the right people working on the right tasks? Start to keep a list of contacts with their specific expertise so that you can quickly
reference it. If you are part of a team effort, schedule time with your peers or co-workers, particularly if you’re all depending on each other’s contributions. The benefit of a routine get-together is that it allows people to obtain consolidated information in one sitting as opposed to communications going back and forth with “reply all” emails that can take up valuable time.

It’s important to have a meaningful and added-value manner for people to get updates. If it’s not a meeting, at least create a consistent time each week for a progress summary with everyone’s contributions. The goal is to create a routine in which people know when and where updates and answers will be given, which reduces surprises and questions like, “Where do we stand on project A?” If you do set up a progress report email, be sensitive to the amount of time it’s taking everyone. You want meaningful content, but not time wasted for emails that go unread or administrative tasks that take away from actually completing the real work.

Once a routine meeting or progress report is established, clearly define roles and responsibilities. This will hold people, including you, accountable to meeting the deadlines and keeping people informed of status updates. Knowing who is doing what and when is a critical component of time management.

When dealing in team situations, it’s also important to divide and conquer. Not everyone needs to be at every meeting. Have someone who attended the meeting provide an update and any key deliverables to the collective group. Also, it’s important for you to schedule actual work time for yourself and/or sub-group to ensure time is not all spent in meetings relating to what is being asked of you. As for meetings taking up all of your day, you have the right and obligation, whether you are the organizer or not, to question when meetings have run their course and are no longer valuable. Don’t have meetings to set up meetings. Look to get rid of time-wasting tasks.

Understand the importance of working as a team. A group of people can get more done in less time than one person if the process and roles are managed well. It is obvious, but is not always done effectively.

 

 

 

Thomas B. Dowd III’s books available in softcover, eBook, and audiobook (From Fear to Success only):

• Now What? The Ultimate Graduation Gift for Professional Success
• Time Management Manifesto: Expert Strategies to Create an Effective Work/Life Balance
• Displacement Day: When My Job was Looking for a Job…A Reference Guide to Finding Work
• The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas: Growing from a Cynic to a Professional in the Corporate World
• From Fear to Success: A Practical Public-speaking Guide received the Gold Medal at the 2013 Axiom Business Book Awards in Business Reference
• The Unofficial Guide to Fatherhood

See “Products” for details on www.transformationtom.com.  Book and eBook purchase options are also available on Amazon- Please click the link to be re-directed: Amazon.com

Do you know about Avanoo.com?  Two-to-three minute eLearning programs that can change your life.

When Your Job is to Find a Job—and Yourself

Manage Your Time—Don’t Let It Manage You

advice, appeal, appointment, audience, author, balance, book, business, business development, Business Training, change, Coach, coaching, competence, Confidence, control, deadline, delegate, development, Dowd, efficiency, follow up, growth, hr, human resources, Inspiration, intentions, interests, interruptions, introduction, leadership, life, Management, Motivation, multitask, network, Networking, organize, output, Personal, personal growth, planning, preparation, prepare, prioritizing, productivity, professional advice, Professional Development, recruit, recruiting, recurring, routines, speaker, speaking, speech, stress, success, tense, tension, Thomas, Thomas B Dowd, Thomas B Dowd III, Thomas Dowd, throughput, time, time management, to-do, to-do list, tom, Tom Dowd, touch it once, training, transformation, transformation tom, transformationtom, urgent, work, work life, worklife, yield

 

 

 

 

 

 

To use a sports analogy, if you run with a ball on your own
from point A to point B, it will take you longer than simply
kicking it or throwing it to another person already at point
B. We try to do too much on our own. Whether we want all the glory,
think we can do it better, or simply just want it done, there is value
in getting others involved. This chapter isn’t about dumping, or even
delegating. It’s about teamwork. Depending on your position, you may
still have to supervise, validate the work, or make sure it gets done, but
you should find opportunities to avoid doing everything on your own.

Think about the expertise you have surrounding you. Do you
have the right people working on the right tasks? Start to keep a
list of contacts with their specific expertise so that you can quickly
reference it. If you are part of a team effort, schedule time with your
peers or co-workers, particularly if you’re all depending on each other’s
contributions. The benefit of a routine get-together is that it allows
people to obtain consolidated information in one sitting as opposed to
communications going back and forth with “reply all” emails that can
take up valuable time.

It’s important to have a meaningful and added-value manner for
people to get updates. If it’s not a meeting, at least create a consistent
time each week for a progress summary with everyone’s contributions.
The goal is to create a routine in which people know when and where
updates and answers will be given, which reduces surprises and questions
like, “Where do we stand on project A?” If you do set up a progress
report email, be sensitive to the amount of time it’s taking everyone.
You want meaningful content, but not time wasted for emails that go
unread or administrative tasks that take away from actually completing
the real work.

Once a routine meeting or progress report is established, clearly
define roles and responsibilities. This will hold people, including you,
accountable to meeting the deadlines and keeping people informed
of status updates. Knowing who is doing what and when is a critical
component of time management.

When dealing in team situations, it’s also important to divide and
conquer. Not everyone needs to be at every meeting. Have someone
who attended the meeting provide an update and any key deliverables
to the collective group. Also, it’s important for you to schedule actual
work time for yourself and/or sub-group to ensure time is not all spent
in meetings relating to what is being asked of you. As for meetings
taking up all of your day, you have the right and obligation, whether
you are the organizer or not, to question when meetings have run
their course and are no longer valuable. Don’t have meetings to set up
meetings. Look to get rid of time-wasting tasks.

Understand the importance of working as a team. A group of
people can get more done in less time than one person if the process and
roles are managed well. It is obvious, but is not always done effectively.

 

Thomas B. Dowd III’s books available in softcover, eBook, and audiobook (From Fear to Success only):

• Time Management Manifesto: Expert Strategies to Create an Effective Work/Life Balance
• Displacement Day: When My Job was Looking for a Job…A Reference Guide to Finding Work
• The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas: Growing from a Cynic to a Professional in the Corporate World
• From Fear to Success: A Practical Public-speaking Guide received the Gold Medal at the 2013 Axiom Business Book Awards in Business Reference
• The Unofficial Guide to Fatherhood

See “Products” for details on www.transformationtom.com.  Book and eBook purchase options are also available on Amazon- Please click the link to be re-directed: Amazon.com

Do you know about Avanoo.com?  Two-to-three minute eLearning programs that can change your life.

When Your Job is to Find a Job—and Yourself

Manage Your Time—Don’t Let It Manage You

MP3 Downloads of “From Fear to Success:  A Practical Public-speaking Guide” are available at Apple iTunes, Amazon, Rhapsody, Emusic, Nokia, Xbox Music, Spotify, Omnifone, Google Music Store, Rdio, Muve Music, Bloom.fm, Slacker Radio, MediaNet, 7digital, 24-7, Rumblefish, and Shazam “From Fear to Success” MP3 on CD Baby

advice, appeal, appointment, audience, author, balance, book, business, business development, Business Training, change, Coach, coaching, competence, Confidence, control, deadline, delegate, development, Dowd, efficiency, follow up, growth, hr, human resources, Inspiration, intentions, interests, interruptions, introduction, leadership, life, Management, Motivation, multitask, network, Networking, organize, output, Personal, personal growth, planning, preparation, prepare, prioritizing, productivity, professional advice, Professional Development, recruit, recruiting, recurring, routines, speaker, speaking, speech, stress, success, tense, tension, Thomas, Thomas B Dowd, Thomas B Dowd III, Thomas Dowd, throughput, time, time management, to-do, to-do list, tom, Tom Dowd, touch it once, training, transformation, transformation tom, transformationtom, urgent, work, work life, worklife, yield

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Investing time to do something ahead of time saves time. Few people
invest the time to read all their emails all the way through. For
the most part, I am one of the few. I’m often asked how I manage
my time effectively. One critical way is that I don’t skim email—there’s
too much risk of missing critical information or creating more work
by asking questions that are answered within the text. I read them start
to finish, including the attachments. The easy argument for why not
to do this is information overload, or that we don’t have time. I agree.
However, taken in the context of the touch-it-once principle I cited in
the last chapter, this becomes more manageable.
 
I’ve learned that by staying ahead of my emails, I garner incremental
time to invest in other places. I also avoid wasted time digging for
answers on my own, because I know where and who to go to for
information. If you don’t know, invest time to learn. It saves time when
you know the go-to contacts to fix certain problems. Additionally,
you aren’t wasting time asking people to resend information or asking
questions that are answered later in the email that you chose not to
read thoroughly.
 
Effective immediately, be the person who reads one-hundred
percent of your emails from top to bottom, and invests time to read
the attachments. There are often pre-determined assumptions that
an email isn’t relevant, or even portions of an email aren’t relevant.
However, reading it will allow you to make your own determination.
If you find a pattern, you can decide to stop getting them or have a
conversation with the senders about their messaging so it saves both
of you time. Remember, you are attaining a competitive edge by
gaining knowledge, while saving time because you may be becoming
the subject-matter expert.
 
Next, you should schedule an hour once a week to learn another
piece of your own business, take an online class, or meet with someone
in another line of business. Another option is for you to dedicate this
time to reading interesting articles or less urgent inbox items that come
in during the week. You can insert the article right into the appointment
for that dedicated time. This is your chance to be curious, learn from
peers, and get lingering questions answered—all while saving future
time.
 
When you become the go-to person and have the answers, you
actually save time. We say we don’t have time. What we’re really saying
is we’re not willing to find the time, to invest the time, to actually save
time.

 

 

Thomas B. Dowd III’s books available in softcover, eBook, and audiobook (From Fear to Success only):

• Time Management Manifesto: Expert Strategies to Create an Effective Work/Life Balance
• Displacement Day: When My Job was Looking for a Job…A Reference Guide to Finding Work
• The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas: Growing from a Cynic to a Professional in the Corporate World
• From Fear to Success: A Practical Public-speaking Guide received the Gold Medal at the 2013 Axiom Business Book Awards in Business Reference
• The Unofficial Guide to Fatherhood

See “Products” for details on www.transformationtom.com.  Book and eBook purchase options are also available on Amazon- Please click the link to be re-directed: Amazon.com

Do you know about Avanoo.com?  Two-to-three minute eLearning programs that can change your life.

When Your Job is to Find a Job—and Yourself

Manage Your Time—Don’t Let It Manage You

MP3 Downloads of “From Fear to Success:  A Practical Public-speaking Guide” are available at Apple iTunes, Amazon, Rhapsody, Emusic, Nokia, Xbox Music, Spotify, Omnifone, Google Music Store, Rdio, Muve Music, Bloom.fm, Slacker Radio, MediaNet, 7digital, 24-7, Rumblefish, and Shazam “From Fear to Success” MP3 on CD Baby

advice, appeal, appointment, audience, author, balance, book, business, business development, Business Training, change, Coach, coaching, competence, Confidence, control, deadline, delegate, development, Dowd, efficiency, follow up, growth, hr, human resources, Inspiration, intentions, interests, interruptions, introduction, leadership, life, Management, Motivation, multitask, network, Networking, organize, output, Personal, personal growth, planning, preparation, prepare, prioritizing, productivity, professional advice, Professional Development, recruit, recruiting, recurring, routines, speaker, speaking, speech, stress, success, tense, tension, Thomas, Thomas B Dowd, Thomas B Dowd III, Thomas Dowd, throughput, time, time management, to-do, to-do list, tom, Tom Dowd, touch it once, training, transformation, transformation tom, transformationtom, urgent, work, work life, worklife, yield

 

 

 

 

 

I would like to expand on the comment made in the previous chapter
about managing your email inbox. I used to have a position as
business support manager for a large operation. I was privy to my
manager’s inbox and was asked to periodically manage it for him. I
thought it was an easy enough task—until the first time I saw his inbox
and realized there were over one-thousand emails. Many were read,
while many others were not. Some were important, others were not.
Some were critical, with deadlines that had passed. I had some work to
do. The most critical point when dealing with email is to touch it once.
As soon as you’ve chosen to allow yourself to read it or even preview it,
you must now do something with it. Leaving it in your inbox should
not be an option. Learn to touch it once.

You can effectively manage your inbox with a few easy tips. I normally
filter my inbox by time with the most recent on top. However, for this
exercise, start by filtering your inbox by “Subject” and keep only the
most recent one if it’s a duplicate. Next, review for topics, subjects, or
senders that come on a regular basis that you don’t ever read. If you
can or want to, click on unsubscribe. If you feel there may be a need
to reference it in the future but don’t read it often, establish a setting
to send it directly to your trash, but know that you can get to it if you
need to. Next, go through your current inbox and determine which
emails have tasks or follow-up required. Make actual dates to work
on them. Make appointments for following through by embedding
or inserting the email into the calendar appointment. Email platforms
with synchronized calendars will have tutorials or help if you need
further details.

Read your emails once. Even if the email catches my eye as a preview,
I have a rule of thumb to deal with it as soon as it’s seen. It already
distracted me, so I should put it in its proper place. We only have a few
choices in how to handle it: delete it, save it to another file for future
reference, move it to an appointment to do something about it later, or
address it now. Touch it once.

 

 

Thomas B. Dowd III’s books available in softcover, eBook, and audiobook (From Fear to Success only):

• Time Management Manifesto: Expert Strategies to Create an Effective Work/Life Balance
• Displacement Day: When My Job was Looking for a Job…A Reference Guide to Finding Work
• The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas: Growing from a Cynic to a Professional in the Corporate World
• From Fear to Success: A Practical Public-speaking Guide received the Gold Medal at the 2013 Axiom Business Book Awards in Business Reference
• The Unofficial Guide to Fatherhood

See “Products” for details on www.transformationtom.com.  Book and eBook purchase options are also available on Amazon- Please click the link to be re-directed: Amazon.com

Do you know about Avanoo.com?  Two-to-three minute eLearning programs that can change your life.

When Your Job is to Find a Job—and Yourself

Manage Your Time—Don’t Let It Manage You

MP3 Downloads of “From Fear to Success:  A Practical Public-speaking Guide” are available at Apple iTunes, Amazon, Rhapsody, Emusic, Nokia, Xbox Music, Spotify, Omnifone, Google Music Store, Rdio, Muve Music, Bloom.fm, Slacker Radio, MediaNet, 7digital, 24-7, Rumblefish, and Shazam “From Fear to Success” MP3 on CD Baby

advice, appeal, appointment, audience, author, balance, book, business, business development, Business Training, change, Coach, coaching, competence, Confidence, control, deadline, delegate, development, Dowd, efficiency, follow up, growth, hr, human resources, Inspiration, intentions, interests, interruptions, introduction, leadership, life, Management, Motivation, multitask, network, Networking, organize, output, Personal, personal growth, planning, preparation, prepare, prioritizing, productivity, professional advice, Professional Development, recruit, recruiting, recurring, routines, speaker, speaking, speech, stress, success, tense, tension, Thomas, Thomas B Dowd, Thomas B Dowd III, Thomas Dowd, throughput, time, time management, to-do, to-do list, tom, Tom Dowd, touch it once, training, transformation, transformation tom, transformationtom, urgent, work, work life, worklife, yield

 

 

 

 

 

 

As I continued to come up the ranks as a new manager, I constantly
heard focus group feedback about how lack of follow-
through by leaders and managers was a key point of frustration
for teams of employees. Whether it was to solve a problem,
answer a question, or do some customer research, it didn’t matter—the
same managers’ names came up time and time again. They were building
a reputation—and not a good one.

Communication and follow-up are extremely important. Your
ability to follow up with employees, clients, or peers is one of the
clearest indications of the effectiveness of your organizational skills.
When people are continually apprised of your progress, assumptions
disappear and stress is greatly reduced. Even if deadlines must be
extended or your progress isn’t as far along as you’d hoped, your ability
to communicate that clearly to all parties builds trust in the fact that
movement is taking place.

Your online calendar should be a haven for follow-up appointments.
As soon as you ask someone for something or they ask you for something
by a certain date, your next inclination should be to immediately add
it to your calendar. Then, the pressure is off of you to remember. Once
you do this a few times, it will become second nature. Specific examples
include calls to return or email responses. For email requests, many
online calendars allow you to embed the actual email request into the
calendar appointment itself. Now you’re beginning to manage your
inbox volume.

An important point to consider is to schedule these followup
deadlines and appointments before they are due. If you owe
your manager a presentation by five o’clock p.m. on Thursday, the
appointment should not be seen for the first time at five o’clock on
Thursday. You can use pop-up reminders or audible cues (alarms) if
you are using an online calendar tool to your advantage. If you’re still
using a written calendar, you can use color coding or symbols to address
urgency or action needed.

Your calendar is an important proactive tool to manage your followup
items—not just the due dates, but the actual time to work on them
and provide periodic updates to the person making the request. Be
the leader who gets things done. Build the confidence of your peers,
colleagues, direct reports, clients, and business partners, and never have
their confidence in your ability to effectively follow up questioned.

 

 

Thomas B. Dowd III’s books available in softcover, eBook, and audiobook (From Fear to Success only):

• Time Management Manifesto: Expert Strategies to Create an Effective Work/Life Balance
• Displacement Day: When My Job was Looking for a Job…A Reference Guide to Finding Work
• The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas: Growing from a Cynic to a Professional in the Corporate World
• From Fear to Success: A Practical Public-speaking Guide received the Gold Medal at the 2013 Axiom Business Book Awards in Business Reference
• The Unofficial Guide to Fatherhood

See “Products” for details on www.transformationtom.com.  Book and eBook purchase options are also available on Amazon- Please click the link to be re-directed: Amazon.com

Do you know about Avanoo.com?  Two-to-three minute eLearning programs that can change your life.

When Your Job is to Find a Job—and Yourself

Manage Your Time—Don’t Let It Manage You

MP3 Downloads of “From Fear to Success:  A Practical Public-speaking Guide” are available at Apple iTunes, Amazon, Rhapsody, Emusic, Nokia, Xbox Music, Spotify, Omnifone, Google Music Store, Rdio, Muve Music, Bloom.fm, Slacker Radio, MediaNet, 7digital, 24-7, Rumblefish, and Shazam “From Fear to Success” MP3 on CD Baby

advice, appeal, appointment, audience, author, balance, book, business, business development, Business Training, change, Coach, coaching, competence, Confidence, control, deadline, delegate, development, Dowd, efficiency, follow up, growth, hr, human resources, Inspiration, intentions, interests, interruptions, introduction, leadership, life, Management, Motivation, multitask, network, Networking, organize, output, Personal, personal growth, planning, preparation, prepare, prioritizing, productivity, professional advice, Professional Development, recruit, recruiting, recurring, routines, speaker, speaking, speech, stress, success, tense, tension, Thomas, Thomas B Dowd, Thomas B Dowd III, Thomas Dowd, throughput, time, time management, to-do, to-do list, tom, Tom Dowd, touch it once, training, transformation, transformation tom, transformationtom, urgent, work, work life, worklife, yield

 

 

 

 

 

 

When I managed people in a call center, I used to like walking
the floor at least once in the morning and once before
I left for the day in order to talk with the employees.
I often wondered where the time went in the day, and why there were
times when I wasn’t getting everything done I wanted to. I knew the
people doing the hard work deserved my time, but I didn’t know how I
could continue to balance it. My peers were getting feedback that their
employees never saw them, so I knew I was doing the right thing, but
I didn’t want my other work to suffer.

Then, I thought back to my own advice about blocking off time
on the calendar. It was a lesson I’d been trying to teach others, and
yet had completely missed the fact that it was the solution to my own
problem! Although I could typically walk the floor in fifteen minutes,
it wasn’t on my calendar. I instantly scheduled thirty minutes to start
the day and thirty minutes to finish the day, for walking the floor. I
built in double the time to allow for extended conversations, problem
solving, or getting caught in the hall with someone who wanted to
share a lengthy story. As I started to figure out actual timing, I adjusted
it down and input a middle-of-the-day walk, too. I was actually more
efficient because I knew a calendar reminder would pop up—and over
time, I knew it was coming and became better able to focus on my
current tasks and meet all of my goals.

Do you account for everything you do in a day? Take the time to
list out ancillary pieces that you may not have typically added to your
calendar and add them. Some examples may include:

• Walking around/time not at your desk (e.g., water cooler or
even a restroom break)
• Running into people in the hall/casual conversations with peers

Although you may not schedule these events, they do take your time.
These previously unscheduled items can now be add-ons to the
previously noted administrative block of time we discussed earlier.
Have you accounted for this time? Using the blanket blocking of the
time will allow you to know that time is still being taken up.
All of the efforts to account for time are about knowing what is
taking up your time each day. That knowledge is a powerful thing,
because it will ease the pressure you feel on yourself; if it’s not done, it’s
not the end of the world. However, as you become more productive,
you’ll start to see more wins and sustained efficiency. In addition, on
many calendar applications—Microsoft Outlook, Instant Messenger,
and Skype, for example—those blocks of time you’ve set aside will
show your peers that you are “busy,” thus keeping requests for your
time in check.

 

 

Thomas B. Dowd III’s books available in softcover, eBook, and audiobook (From Fear to Success only):

• Time Management Manifesto: Expert Strategies to Create an Effective Work/Life Balance
• Displacement Day: When My Job was Looking for a Job…A Reference Guide to Finding Work
• The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas: Growing from a Cynic to a Professional in the Corporate World
• From Fear to Success: A Practical Public-speaking Guide received the Gold Medal at the 2013 Axiom Business Book Awards in Business Reference
• The Unofficial Guide to Fatherhood

See “Products” for details on www.transformationtom.com.  Book and eBook purchase options are also available on Amazon- Please click the link to be re-directed: Amazon.com

Do you know about Avanoo.com?  Two-to-three minute eLearning programs that can change your life.

When Your Job is to Find a Job—and Yourself

Manage Your Time—Don’t Let It Manage You

MP3 Downloads of “From Fear to Success:  A Practical Public-speaking Guide” are available at Apple iTunes, Amazon, Rhapsody, Emusic, Nokia, Xbox Music, Spotify, Omnifone, Google Music Store, Rdio, Muve Music, Bloom.fm, Slacker Radio, MediaNet, 7digital, 24-7, Rumblefish, and Shazam “From Fear to Success” MP3 on CD Baby

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Are you the eager employee who volunteers for everything that
comes your way in an attempt to advance within your organization?
What is your confidence level when your boss or your
boss’s boss gives you an assignment when your plate is full? I remember
working for an individual who was driving me hard. I made every effort
to keep my tasks organized, so I maintained a spreadsheet. I had a
column that noted all of my deadlines. Some were manager-assigned,
while many were self-initiated, aggressive dates to work toward. I wanted
to do everything possible to push myself and prove my worth. One
day, I was providing an update to my manager, so I showed him the
spreadsheet. Although thirty-seven of the forty items were on pace to
be achieved on time, he focused on the three that were past due. The
three that were past due were my own deadlines missed. Unfortunately,
he held them over my head for quite some time.

I learned a valuable lesson that day: We must be realistic with our
timeframes, regardless of how badly we want to meet them. We should
continue to drive our work and not sandbag our deliverables, but we
must balance it with everything we’re doing. In our efforts to be “gogetters,”
we may actually be casting a negative shadow if we don’t
accomplish everything we said we would by the given timeframes.

Think back to the times when you were a go-getter and found
some commitments not being fulfilled. Effective immediately, I want
you to begin to under-promise and over-deliver. You shouldn’t tell the
boss that it will be done by five o’clock p.m. because you hope it will
be done. You should tell the boss when you know it will be done.
If five p.m. isn’t the right timing, you should be honest and tell the
boss when the realistic right time is, or invest time to reprioritize other
tasks. If you haven’t established a strong enough relationship to do
this, you may want to begin to build the trust and respect required to
have those prioritization discussions. By under-promising and overdelivering,
you’ll start to find appropriate times to hand work in early,
beat deadlines, and often times start taking on more responsibilities.
It’s ironic how easy it is to stop being a go-getter and actually go out
and get more done when you are real with your deadlines.

 

 

 

 

Thomas B. Dowd III’s books available in softcover, eBook, and audiobook (From Fear to Success only):

• Time Management Manifesto: Expert Strategies to Create an Effective Work/Life Balance
• Displacement Day: When My Job was Looking for a Job…A Reference Guide to Finding Work
• The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas: Growing from a Cynic to a Professional in the Corporate World
• From Fear to Success: A Practical Public-speaking Guide received the Gold Medal at the 2013 Axiom Business Book Awards in Business Reference
• The Unofficial Guide to Fatherhood

See “Products” for details on www.transformationtom.com.  Book and eBook purchase options are also available on Amazon- Please click the link to be re-directed: Amazon.com

Do you know about Avanoo.com?  Two-to-three minute eLearning programs that can change your life.

When Your Job is to Find a Job—and Yourself

Manage Your Time—Don’t Let It Manage You

MP3 Downloads of “From Fear to Success:  A Practical Public-speaking Guide” are available at Apple iTunes, Amazon, Rhapsody, Emusic, Nokia, Xbox Music, Spotify, Omnifone, Google Music Store, Rdio, Muve Music, Bloom.fm, Slacker Radio, MediaNet, 7digital, 24-7, Rumblefish, and Shazam “From Fear to Success” MP3 on CD Baby

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I used to lie in bed and roll around with constant thoughts in my
head: What do I have to do tomorrow? On no! Look at the clock.
Tomorrow is now today. I would get ideas in my head, and keep
kicking those ideas around to enable myself to remember them in the
morning, thus sleeping poorly and often not even remembering it anyway.
One of the greatest time management tips I can offer is a simple
pad of paper at your nightstand. I’m now in the habit of waking up
when I have an idea—most times I’m groggy, but it’s now ingrained
in me to immediately write it down. I then drift off for the best night
sleep ever, knowing that my ideas or follow-up items are waiting for me
when I wake up for the new day.

 
Grab a pad of paper and a pen, put it next to your nightstand,
and simply wait for the ideas to flow. When random thoughts wake
you, write them down immediately. This has numerous benefits. First,
you won’t forget. Second, you’ll sleep better. Finally—and the greatest
benefit of all—you will have stronger ideas since you have reached the
inner non-stressed part of your brain.

 

 

 

 

Thomas B. Dowd III’s books available in softcover, eBook, and audiobook (From Fear to Success only):

• Time Management Manifesto: Expert Strategies to Create an Effective Work/Life Balance
• Displacement Day: When My Job was Looking for a Job…A Reference Guide to Finding Work
• The Transformation of a Doubting Thomas: Growing from a Cynic to a Professional in the Corporate World
• From Fear to Success: A Practical Public-speaking Guide received the Gold Medal at the 2013 Axiom Business Book Awards in Business Reference
• The Unofficial Guide to Fatherhood

See “Products” for details on www.transformationtom.com.  Book and eBook purchase options are also available on Amazon- Please click the link to be re-directed: Amazon.com

Do you know about Avanoo.com?  Two-to-three minute eLearning programs that can change your life.

When Your Job is to Find a Job—and Yourself

Manage Your Time—Don’t Let It Manage You

MP3 Downloads of “From Fear to Success:  A Practical Public-speaking Guide” are available at Apple iTunes, Amazon, Rhapsody, Emusic, Nokia, Xbox Music, Spotify, Omnifone, Google Music Store, Rdio, Muve Music, Bloom.fm, Slacker Radio, MediaNet, 7digital, 24-7, Rumblefish, and Shazam “From Fear to Success” MP3 on CD Baby

advice, appeal, appointment, audience, author, balance, book, business, business development, Business Training, change, Coach, coaching, competence, Confidence, control, deadline, delegate, development, Dowd, efficiency, follow up, growth, hr, human resources, Inspiration, intentions, interests, interruptions, introduction, leadership, life, Management, Motivation, multitask, network, Networking, organize, output, Personal, personal growth, planning, preparation, prepare, prioritizing, productivity, professional advice, Professional Development, recruit, recruiting, recurring, routines, speaker, speaking, speech, stress, success, tense, tension, Thomas, Thomas B Dowd, Thomas B Dowd III, Thomas Dowd, throughput, time, time management, to-do, to-do list, tom, Tom Dowd, touch it once, training, transformation, transformation tom, transformationtom, urgent, work, work life, worklife, yield