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

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

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

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

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

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

I come into work each day and the first thing I do is read a passage
from the most impactful book I ever read: “Don’t Sweat the Small
Stuff”, by Dr. Richard Carlson. Why? In addition to doing it as an
inspiration boost each day, I do it because my calendar tells me to do
it. It’s been on my calendar for over ten years, and it pops up every
morning at seven a.m. Naturally after all these years, I barely see it,
because it’s so ingrained to do it—but it gets done. I’m not curing
the world of its ills with this task, but it shows that building the right
habits will lead to stronger time management. More importantly, it’s a
great lesson: You don’t have to think about what has to be done next if
your calendar can do it for you. My calendar is filled with what many
would consider silly reminders—but I also have far less stress because I
know what’s coming. Without even thinking, I get gently reminded to
transition work and tasks.

Create your own recurring appointments. Invest time today to
study your schedule and start to add basic appointments immediately.
You can start with the ones that should be on everyone’s calendar,
regardless of position or role in an organization; the tasks that have
nothing to do with your actual job responsibilities. First, add a fiveminute
appointment at the end of each work day to review and organize
tomorrow. Actually schedule this event at the end of the day on the
calendar. I promise you that you will sleep better knowing exactly
what’s on your plate for the next day. Five invested minutes will save
you hours later!

Next, add an appointment to organize the following week each
Friday—project out a week at a time and actually schedule this event
on your calendar. Do the same thing at the end of each month
based on regular monthly tasks, such as budgeting, for example. It’s
important to also be smart about when you do this. When I say end of
the month, I’m not talking about the thirtieth. I’m actually thinking
sometime around the twenty-sixth, so day one isn’t sprung on you. This
allows you to better spread out the tasks over the course of a month
versus cramming everything into marathon sessions. Many of us like
to procrastinate until the actual need to do something. Therefore, if
you have multiple tasks that are due at the end of the month, you may
not worry about them until the end of the month. Suddenly, a flood
of pressure is on you to beat the impending deadline. Be someone who
does not procrastinate until the end of the month—spread your tasks
out during the month. The amount of time to complete these tasks
throughout the month is the same time it will take to finish at the end
of a month. The only difference is the amount of pressure you feel—
and, most likely, the quality of work performed!

By creating recurring appointments, you’re shifting much of the
self-created pressures away from you to the calendar, and investing time
to save time. You’re now using your calendar as a tool to benefit you.

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

I was once in the middle of transitioning roles, so I met with the
person whose job I would be taking over. I asked for a task list so I
could get started. He handed me two. The first was a short list; the
other was a much longer list, which included all the items from the first
as well as several others. I asked him about the difference. He said the
short list was the least amount of work he could do in a day and walk
out of the office satisfied knowing that all critical items had been met.
Since that day, I’ve managed around the concept of the “least amount
of work I can do in a day.”

You see, many of us think in terms of the longer list, creating high
levels of stress when we don’t accomplish everything. We, in turn, push
our work from day to day like we used to push our vegetables on our
plates as kids. We push it around but does it ever get consumed—or
in this case, done?

Create your must-do short list, including what must be done during
the day, the week, and the month. What is the least amount of work
that can be done with you walking out satisfied that the job was done?
The list can be ever evolving and reviewed regularly to ensure it remains
updated. As you continue to massage the short checklist, you should
block off the time to do each item by using your calendar as a tool to
reserve time for this must-do list. Even if you don’t have a designated
time for these tasks, block off the amount of time anyway, as a way of
acknowledging that they must be done at some point in the day.

For example, you know you need to do an hour of project work
over several days. You may schedule it for two hours from ten a.m. to
noon, but you can build in the flexibility to move this block of time
through the day if something else comes up. Yes, I doubled the time,
because if you don’t do it today, the work still needs to be done and
you’ve just pushed twice as much work to tomorrow. I recommend
that you double all the time you expect things to take. The concept
of doubling time is important. If you want to think you need thirty
minutes to meet with someone, set the actual appointment for sixty
minutes. As stated in the last chapter, expect the unexpected.

Instead of pushing tasks day to day—which actually takes time—
start to use the extra time that you build into your calendar to pull
in tasks from future days, weeks, and even months out. You must
understand that consistently pushing to another day is a red flag. When
you can account for the least amount of work that you can do in a
day and consider yourself successful, you will walk away satisfied and
benefit greatly from the power of the pull versus the push.

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

Have you ever been deep in thought or just hit your stride on
a project only to have it snatched away with a phone call,
an incoming email that you caught from the corner of your
eye, or worse, a loud ding from a device you’re working with? Research
has proven that it will take you up to seven times longer to come up
with the thought you just had than it took for the original idea.

You must build in time for the unexpected—or as the business
world affectionately calls them, fire drills. In an article entitled “Don’t
Let Technology Take Over,” Dave Beck references a Basex study of
over one-thousand office workers showing that interruptions consume
more than two hours, or twenty-eight percent of a typical workday. To
quote the article,
“More than half of those surveyed said they open email immediately
or soon after it arrives, no matter how busy they are. The two hours
of lost productivity included not only unimportant interruptions
and distractions…but also the recovery time needed to get back on
task. The study found that based on an average salary of $21 per hour
for ‘knowledge workers’ whose jobs involve information, workplace
interruptions cost the U.S. economy $588 billion a year.”

Have you accounted for these two hours in your calendar? Have you
trained yourself to jump in to actually deal with these interruptions?
Think about how you schedule your day. If you schedule all eight
hours in a work day, you are guaranteed to not meet everything that’s
on your calendar. Look at your schedule for the coming week and start
to block off time to account for fire drills—the things you didn’t plan
on dealing with today, but have no choice. Maybe the few minutes
here and there don’t need to make your calendar to deal with those
small tasks, but you may need to account for it in other administrative
or work action time. For example, if it takes you thirty minutes to
typically do paperwork daily, schedule an hour for administrative
purposes. Next, it’s time to schedule specific time for real-work action
like responding to emails and returning messages. Personally, I prefer
the quiet morning time for email and later in the morning for phone
calls, when possible. Next, identify other x-factors such as busier days
of the week or seasonality, and make the adjustments. As another
example, when I was a manager in a call center, we knew the call
volume was heaviest on Mondays, so we built time for managers to be
on the floor with the people on the phones that day, and made a point
not to schedule Monday staff meetings.

You may be asking yourself, “Why does scheduling stuff I know I
need to do each day need to make my calendar?” You probably already
know that if you don’t schedule it, it may not get done. Having the
actual reminder will prompt you to get to it. These scheduled periods
of time become a barrier of protection to show you what’s supposed to
be done today. The phrase supposed to is italicized because we know that
planning a day doesn’t always mean that’s how the day will play out. By
scheduling administrative work and overestimating the expected time,
you are leaving a fire drill cushion.

You can’t control all the interruptions that may come your way, but
you can control your reaction to them. You don’t want to be a slave to
your calendar, but you do want to be committed to it when you can.
Let’s go back to the paperwork example. If you actually completed it
in the expected time of thirty minutes and had no interruptions, you
bought yourself some extra time to pull future work in from other days.
If you did have some fire drills to deal with, you accounted for much
of this with the reserved blocks of 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

I was running to what I thought to be the most important meeting
I ever had—I say with sarcasm. I mock myself because I can’t even
remember what the meeting was about. What I can remember is
that someone who worked for me stopped me at my office door and
asked for a couple of minutes of my time. I asked if it was important.
The words said, “No;” the eyes that I remember so clearly said, “Definitely.”
I never saw her again. I found out later that she was having
stress-related mental health issues. I could have easily found her the
support and assistance she needed with a quick phone call. Instead, my
schedule dictated where I needed to be and at what time.

Regardless of your schedule, people are the highest priority. When
we die, our inbox will most likely not be empty. As we go through this
book on time management, it’s critical to understand that “how” you
manage your time can influence others. It’s also important to realize
just how important people are. The ones we often complain about
who are occupying our time, can actually make us all more productive
if they feel like they are part of the solution, part of the team, and
active members in supporting all of our time management challenges.
All the while, these individuals teach us to make better judgments
and assessments that will pay off later. This comes by building trust,
respect, and support for the people who surround us personally and
professionally. We can’t do most things on our own.

Let’s take the time to acknowledge that the clock may dictate where
we should be and at what time, but we must also have a willingness
to drop everything to take care of the matters that need our attention
the most. This usually revolves around people! You must take action to
ensure that you pay attention not just to words, but to the cues that
people are sending with their body language.

When I teach this portion of my seminars, I’m often asked how
this idea of making time for those around us can positively impact
effective time management. After all, dealing with people not only
takes up a lot of time, but it often takes time away from what needs
to be accomplished. Besides the lesson I learned in the story about it
simply being the right thing to do, this also pays off in the long run,
because people see what you’re willing to do for them. They, in turn, are
more willing to reciprocate if you are ever in need. Not everything has
to be burning with urgency, but you will find that time management
is about working together with colleagues, co-workers, clients, and
business partners so that everyone wins. Additionally, as your ability to
assess what is really important and urgent becomes better, your ability
to effectively prioritize will likewise improve.

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