Time management | Productive Life Concepts

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How Getting Overwhelmed Helps Improve Productivity

By Royale on April 30, 2012 in Productivity

Guest post by Krisca Te

Ridiculous Suggestion

How could becoming overwhelmed — the end of productivity, efficiency, accomplishment — be tweaked to render some benefit to those finding themselves overwhelmed? Well, it may seem ridiculous to suggest, but being overwhelmed can bestow some benefits.

Bad Math

To be overwhelmed is simply to have one too many (or two too many, or three) things to do. As a result, you will be dealing with some unpleasant effects, all of which overlap to a degree:

Too many things demanding attention.
Inability to figure out where to begin.
Flitting from task to task.
Lack of concentration.
Poor productivity.

Taking some time to pause is necessary to glean some worth out of being overwhelmed. Ask yourself these questions:

How did you get overwhelmed in the first place?
Did you overestimate yourself?
Did you underestimate the tasks?

No matter the answers to those individual questions, the broad answer will be that you simply have more work than you can do. Just as in mathematics, when the results of your calculations don’t work out, it’s time to go back over them and figure out where you have made a mistake.

Not Purely Negative

Look at the positive side of being overwhelmed. Like any negative aspect of life, it is an invitation to reflect and consider yourself, perhaps even the way you look at life and earning a living. And you should ask yourself still more questions:

Where am I over-extending myself?
Which tasks are essentials?
Which tasks can be completed later?

As you’ve always heard, mistakes make the man. They are lessons, sometimes-unpleasant ones that are teaching situations. Learning is learning but you will hopefully, be that much stronger and wiser for having endured them.

What Do I Need to Do?

What are your needs? If you were taking a course in managing your personal finances (banking, investing, taking loans, etc.) you would be asked to differentiate between your needs and your wants. You may think this is obvious until you really start concentrating. Needs and wants can both be very strong, almost emotional, and both can strongly compete for your attention. But needs, no matter how distasteful at the moment, come first.

Moore’s Law Often Kicks In

Cast a critical eye upon your undertakings. What can you reasonably do? Not what you could do if you were perfect, but what you can expect to accomplish as a human prone to error and missteps. Also, at some point Moore’s law will probably kick in, inspiring smarter, more adaptive problem solving that optimizes task integration at a greater speed while reducing your energy consumption, just like a semiconductor.

What Can I Do?

Knowing what you need to do isn’t enough. Humans tend to underestimate enterprises and overestimating their productivity. Sift through your tasks to prioritize things. If you do, need two things at the same time, better go with the one you know you can do first, followed with the other. Being overwhelmed is not an entirely a negative thing. It can be turned into a positive thing if you see it as an opportunity for re-evaluation and learning. And perhaps prompt you to critically ponder the philosophy of life that you are presently following.

Krisca Te works with Open Colleges, Australia’s leading provider of TAFE courses equivalent and counselling courses. When not working, you can find her actively participating in local dog show events – in support of her husband.

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Round-up: Great Reminder Apps for iPhone

By Royale on April 12, 2012 in Inspiration, Life Balance, Productivity, Time

Despite text messages, email and a constant stream of notifications, it’s still easy to forget things. We can all use a little help staying on track and bringing a little life back into our days. Any app that can help me do that is a wonderful thing.

I recently wrote a review for Lifehack.org on three reminder apps that I have personally found very helpful on my quest for better life management. Read the entire post…

Alarmed - An all-in-one time app for iPhone/iPad that is packed with useful features; a pop-up reminder, timers, wakeup alarms and sleep timers available in the iTunes store.

TellMeLater – Simple and easy to use, it’s a great little app for all those times you want to remember something later. $.99 in the iTunes store.

Timeless Reminders – Timeless Reminders allows you capture your most inspiring photos, videos, music, audio, and text to create personally meaningful reminders that inspire you to take healthy and productive action in your life. It’s free in the iTunes store.

One is simple, one is multi-faceted, and the other is highly motivational. The most important thing is to choose which approach best works for you, so you will actually use it.

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5 Minutes in the Morning Will Make a World of Difference in Your Day

By Royale on April 10, 2012 in Health, Productivity

A good plan is like a road map: it shows the final destination and usually the best way to get there. - H. Stanley Judd

Do you have a plan for how you spend your time each week? Each day? Whether you are a working in the corner office, a tiny cubicle, from your home or on the road, you need to plan how you will spend your time. If you don’t, there’s a good chance you will look back at the end of the day and ask yourself where all the time went and why don’t you have more to show for your efforts.

I know you’re anxious to get down to the nitty-gritty task of getting more accomplished in a hurry, but quick fixes just don’t work. You have to do the prep work and set up the foundation first, and then take small steps each day. It’s very similar to the process of losing weight. If you go on a crash diet, the weight will eventually all come back. If instead you embark on a process of changing your eating and health habits, you can have significant, sustainable success.

If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much. – Jim Rohn

So, how do you decide what to do each day and when to do it? Well, that depends in part on your personality and temperament. You can make this process as simple as 5 minutes each morning to quickly run through it or take 20 minutes to break everything down into GTD categories, context filters, and calendar slots. However, one thing is absolute; you must have a list to work from! No matter which approach you prefer, the linchpin of your system is your task list.

I don’t know anyone, and I truly mean anyone, who is highly productive, effective, and successful without some sort of ongoing list. You might prefer to keep it on paper, your computer or your smartphone – I discourage the use of sticky notes though, they’re too likely to get lost into that void of the “unknown tasks that fall through the cracks.”

Simple Planning

1. Start with your brain dump; quickly brainstorm any tasks you need to add to the list. If it’s a simple task add it to your master task list, if it’s a project, break it up into individual tasks.

2. Add any due dates or time constraints.

3. Prioritize those tasks that are due today or are big picture (cash flow, health, meaningful relationships) as “important.” You can rearrange tasks in order of importance if you choose – I just place a star next to the important ones, so I don’t have to keep moving the items on the list.

4. Choose 5-10 tasks to do today; depending on how full your schedule is and how much time you have available. Don’t overload your list. That’s just setting yourself up for failure and then you’ll beat yourself up, because you failed.

5. Do your top priority task first. Get it out of the way. Alternatively, you may choose instead, to do the task you’re dreading most. That will help eliminate the tendency to procrastinate and make you feel a whole lot better about crossing that dreaded task off the list.

Bonus – Schedule a period of at least 30-60 minutes of uninterrupted work or chore time. If you can do this first thing great, if it’s home chores, block out chunk of time in the evening or on the weekend to tackle them. Resist the temptation to be distracted and wander off to do something else. Make yourself focus.

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Why You Need to Go with the Flow

By Royale on April 4, 2012 in Energy, Productivity, Stress, Time

The entire course of our life follows a cyclical pattern of good and bad, up and down, more then less. Everything flows this way, years, months, weeks, days, hours. High energy, then low energy, creativity, then boredom, tremendous focus, then distractibility.

The key is in understanding how to use these shifts to our advantage. We can channel these fluctuations, if we understand how they affect our moods, actions, and productivity. It can be a valuable tool lower stress and improve the quality of our lives.

How can we do this?

Analyze

When are you the most focused? The most distracted? The most tired? Energized?

How does lunch affect you? Difficulty concentrating or energized?

Are their times when you prefer to be more social? Periods when you want to be left alone?

Are there periods when you can’t seem to sit still?

When do you find it easier work on long projects?

Do you see a pattern starting to emerge?

Utilize

Look at what you do each day…each week…each month.

Shift whichever projects, tasks, or activities you can so they better match your energy?

Propose changes for activities that involve others. Altering the schedule may help them as well.

Schedule detail work or highly creative activities; designing, writing, idea development for times when you are better able to focus?

Do social tasks/activities during times when you feel the most social; meetings, calls, project collaboration.

Save tedious or repetitive tasks, like data entry, billing, reports, filing for when you can be quiet and alone.

Everyone is unique. Don’t conform to other people’s cycles or moods.

Some things are beyond our control. Manage what you can. Deal with the rest. You’ll be surprised at how flexible other people can often be once they understand why you’re making this type of request.

Big Picture

Think about what happens throughout the year. Some months are usually busier, while some are quieter and more flexible.

Consider commitments that you have in the other area of your life. If you have young children, parent who needs care, or a spouse who travels or works a lot, take that into account when taking on a new project, role, or responsibility.

Our persistent tendency to compel our brains and our bodies to conform to a schedule that conflicts with our individual energy patterns adds stress to our already unbalanced lives.

Stop fighting it and go with the flow…at least sometimes.

Your turn…Thoughts?

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Are You Up for The Challenge?

By Royale on March 26, 2012 in Productivity, Time

I challenge you to a race…

A race against time. A race against yourself.

What could you do faster? Where would a bit lower quality be OK if it saved you time? What is necessary, but you’d like to spend less time on it?

Perfection is the enemy of time. Distraction is the enemy of time. Overwhelm is the enemy of time. Mindless activities are the enemy of time.

We are often our own worst enemy of time.

In many cases, we can do something to save, recover, and take back that time.

Challenge yourself to a race.

I’ll be doing it along with you.

Great candidates for a TIME CHALLENGE:

Email –always at the top of the list

Social media – another top contender

Household chores – vacuuming, mopping, dusting, clean up

De-cluttering and purging – tackle those pile, closets, shelves

Organizing – rearrange, put items back, restore order

Filing – just do it

Phone calls – keep it brief, no chitchat

Meetings – agenda, timer

Writing – stop censoring and editing as you write; edit later

There are many others. Tasks you dread. Activities that are time wasters. Necessary, but tedious. Whatever may be on your, “Oh no, not again,” list.

Here’s the simple challenge.

Choose an activity. Decide the amount of time to allot. Settle on the acceptable quality. Set a timer. GO!

How many emails can you get through in 20 minutes?

How many words can you write in an hour?

Can you get the filing done in 15 minutes?

What can you cover in a 30-minute meeting if you stay on topic?

How many calls can you make in 45 minutes if you cut chitchat?

Dusting race – 10 minutes. Good enough is the key phrase.

Sort, purge, piles. 30 minutes. 60 minutes. When in doubt, throw it out.

So many options. So much time saved.

The best part. When you’re done, use some of that recovered time to treat yourself.

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How to Live a More Productive Life by Changing This One Thing

By Royale on February 29, 2012 in Productivity, Time

I read an article a few weeks ago about a writer who decided to radically change her writing schedule and found as a result that she was able to see a significant increase in her ability to be productive and get things done. I was inspired to adapt this for my own writing and work life, but I thought the strategy could also be applied to my home life as well.

After a couple of weeks of changing this one thing, I decided that my experiment was a resounding success. I got more writing done than ever before. I completed projects in less time. As my productivity increased, my stress level decreased, and as an added bonus, the side effect was that my life and work satisfaction level rose as well. Now, it’s time to share.

Concentrated Effort

This strategy takes time blocking and task focus to a whole new level. It is useful on both a mental and physical level.

The secret, use an Extreme Focus Blitz whenever possible. What this means is not only do you focus on one job, one task, or one project at a time, you do it for as long is reasonably possible. It can be applied both in the office and at home.

Some work examples:

Instead of writing three blog posts at a time in a block, I now write an entire month’s worth in an eight-hour day. How? By sticking with this same task all day, I become more efficient with the repetition, I avoid the time and effort necessary to start and stop and the quality of my writing is increasing. Once I stay in the zone for a long period the ideas and words flow more freely, which also makes the tasks more enjoyable.

I complete client projects and articles, marketing, administrative tasks and anything else I can in that same manner. Projects now take me less time, so I’m effectively earning more per hour and I’m finishing well before deadlines.

This could also work for meetings, appointments, team projects, billing, data entry, creating documents and lots more. Clearly, there will be some jobs that are unable to be done this way, but if you think outside the box, you’ll see that this could apply to more than you might think.

Try this at home:

I was skeptical about how I could use this practice at home. I have specific routines and I am pretty organized as a rule, but I decided to just give it a try for a week or two and have been pleasantly surprised by the result of changing this one thing.

Instead of doing laundry every day, I now do it once a week. I am a bit a data nerd, so I tracked my results. It used to take two hours (wash, dry, and fold,) to do each load, about 10-14 hours per week depending on volume. It now takes me 6-8 hours on Saturday or Sunday to do all 5-7 loads. That saves me 4-6 hours. While I know that the hamper never stays empty for long, at least for a time all the clothes in the house are clean.

I used the same strategy to wash my windows, do errands (shopping, post office, library, dry cleaners, etc.,) mop floors, and any other cleaning or household management task I could think of.

I’m still working at finding ways to apply this, but I have discovered, much to my shock, that I will literally save more than 20 hours per month. That’s a whole day! Imagine what you could do with an extra day each month…

The added bonus is that by accomplishing such a significant amount of progress in one area instead of a bit of progress in many areas, you experience a greater amount of satisfaction in a job well done. And with more visible results. This has enabled me to better enjoy the remainder of my time and look forward to the next project I can put to rest.

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Why You Need This Tool to Keep Your Goals on Track

By Royale on February 15, 2012 in Goals, Habits, Life Balance, Personal Growth, Productivity

GoalsOnTrack offers a thoroughly researched, well-designed system to achieving goals of any kind. Their website offers a systematic approach that has been shown to be highly effective for many users. What’s more, you don’t have to use all of the available tools to get results. Utilize the options that make the most sense for you.

As is my usual practice when recommending products or tools, I use them myself to assess their usefulness and determine if they are the right fit for my readers. I am happy to report that after having used this software, I am impressed by the system, the potential results, and the quick and easy customer support to answer any questions.

Some of the features of GoalsOnTrack

SMART Goals

Writing your goals in a SMART way makes it much more likely, that you’ll succeed. Follow the goal creation instructions to ensure your goals are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely.

Chunk it Down

The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your long, complex, overwhelming goals into small, manageable chunks. Use Sub goal feature to chunk it down and stop procrastination

See Instant Progress

Seeing immediate progress on whatever you do is the most powerful motivation sources. That’s why some games are so addictive. Real time progress tracking features allow you to view instant progress on your goals whenever you complete a task.

Tame Your To-do List

Stop getting frustrated and overwhelmed by your to-do list. Setup your tasks for your goals, and see them automatically organized by goals, categories, and days. Use drag-n-drop features to quickly prioritize your Today’s tasks. Recurring tasks and email reminders also supported.

Use Your Time Wisely

If you don’t manage your time, you will surely waste time. Track how long you spend on tasks accurately and effortlessly, using animated, and offline time trackers no matter where you complete the task.

Day Planner On-the-go

Print out a Day Planner sheet with all your active goals and tasks for today. Take it with you wherever you go. You can check off your to-do list and know you are making progress on goals without using the software.

Visualize Your Success

Visualizing when all your goals are accomplished is a great way to motivate yourself. Upload your own pictures for goals and watch your dreams unfold before your eyes in vision board tool.

Start a New Habit

Nothing can help you reach goals quicker than a right set of great habits. Start a new habit today with Habits Builder tool.

Stick to it until It’s Formed

Tracking your habits is as simple as placing checkmarks on habits tracker calendar tool. The software remembers when and how many checkmarks you placed, and automatically track your habit strength and days to form.

Create Goal Journals

Use the goal journal tool to write down what you did for your goals, how you did it, and what lessons you learned. Not only will you have a written record of your goal journey, you’ll also gain valuable insights and grow personally in the long run.

Import & Export Tasks

See your goals and tasks in your favorite calendar tool, such as Outlook, Google Calendar, and Yahoo Calendar etc. You may also import tasks from Outlook and export them into CSV files.

Progress and Time Usage Reports

Everything you do in the system is recorded and you can create reports on them anytime you like. Create detailed PDF reports on goals, tasks, progress, and time usage. View 3D charts online.

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18 Minutes To a More Productive Day

By Royale on February 8, 2012 in Books, Goals

I could not wait to read “18 Minutes,”by Peter Bregman. A longtime reader of his Harvard Business Review column, I was confident that he would be offer useful productivity tips. I had no idea that he would lay out such a simple solution to a problem that plagues most of us, too much to do, a never-ending task list, and the overwhelming struggle to master the issue of time management.

To be fair, his 18 minutes a day process alone is not the entire solution. He goes beyond daily task management, to address the larger issues that overwhelm us, not being happy and fulfilled with what we’re doing, feeling like we’re beating our heads against the wall and becoming more clear about where we want to go with our lives.

With strategies like using the Four Elements of Focus, hourly reminders and learning to pause.

“A brief pause will help you make a smarter move. Know what outcome you want before you respond.”

- Peter Bregman

Peter Bregman offers us an insightful, useful and easy to implement success program. Written in a conversation tone, he lays out step by step how combat the overwhelm, hectic busyness and lack of focus that make up the bulk of our days. 18 Minutes might be one of my favorite reads, notes in the margins, highlights on the pages, it has earned a prominent place on my bookshelf.

Let me know your thoughts on this book?

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Make a Difference in Your Productivity in Just One Hour

By Royale on December 12, 2011 in Habits, Productivity

Image

Simple Steps

Implement a daily Focus Hour. We bandy about strategies for focusing and concentrating our mind on technical or creative pursuits, but the single most useful tactic to get more done in less time is to eliminate all distractions and “uni-task.” But, but…people need me…I can’t be out of the loop. Really? Even for an hour?

Try it for a few days and you’ll see for yourself how valuable it is. For 60 minutes each day, preferably at the start of your day, shut off and shut out everything else and just focus on doing whatever task or project you’ve chosen. If you can’t manage 60 minutes, try 30. Any time you can carve out will help.

I have been doing this, not every day, but several a week and even I am shocked at how much I can get done. (Confession…I have to leave my phone downstairs and out of earshot so that I am not tempted to peek at messages.) But I am getting more comfortable with the disconnection as I start to see results.

Question everything, move forward, enjoy the journey.

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Don’t Forget the Golden Rule….of Productivity

By Royale on December 9, 2011 in Health, Productivity

Image via Wikipedia

Every once in a while we need to be reminded of the basics…

We are, most of us at least, creatures of habit and structure. We thrive when there are rules and guidelines to assist us through the veritable maze of life and work processes. Why should productivity be any different? Learning or developing any routine or program can be frustrating and confusing. If you are feeling overwhelmed, don’t let those feelings discourage you from your quest for higher personal and professional efficiency. You will not master every technique for organization or effectiveness; you should not even try. I can hear the type A’s protesting out there – mostly because I am one of them – but if you strive for perfection, you will inevitably come away disappointed. Seek instead; measurable improvement over time and your pay-off will be less stress, greater success and more time to enjoy your life.

So, with that in mind, I have assembled a list of the most crucial rules that will ensure your success in becoming more productive over time. They are a combination of strategies gathered by researching and studying highly successful productive professionals, juggling mothers and also what I have personally found works for me.