Time Management Expert Nomination

I am not going to do my usual blog on time management tonight. That's because I've been given the incredible honor of being nominated as "Best Time Management Expert" of the year by my colleagues at NAPO (National Association of Professional Organizers). I am nominated along side Julie Morgenstern, David Allen and Harold Taylor, three very well known names in time management. This award is the equivalent of the Academy Awards for organizers.

So, in lieu of a blog, I am asking you to please vote for me. The public is allowed to vote. I will give you the instructions below. They are easy and it will only take you about 2 minutes. I suggest that you read them before you click on the link so you will not end up on the NAPO mailing list (unless you want to). Here they are:

1. Click on this link: http://bit.ly/20P5b8
2. The link brings you to a sign on screen. Sign on as a new user. This is to prevent any one email address from voting more than once.
3. After signing in, you will be brought to the ballot.
4. Scroll down about 7 categories to "Best Time Management Expert." I am the first name listed. Click next to Christine Reiter.
5. Scroll down to the bottom of the ballot (feel free to vote for any other category for which you'd like to vote) and change the bottom 3 responses to "NO" if you don't want to be on the NAPO mailing list.

I would appreciate your vote. Feel free to ask your family and friends to vote as well. Every vote is appreciated.

Many thanks!

Stop Trying To Do Too Much

In my previous blog I talked about the various reasons why people do too much. In this entry, I will talk about ways to break the cycle of doing too much.

One of the most common excuses people give is that they work best under pressure. The reality is that it is exceedingly difficult to do good work when under pressure. Doing a project under pressure almost becomes an excuse for not doing the best job possible. There will always be loose ends and overlooked details when working under pressure.

Don't try to do others' work, even if you see they are not doing their job. They are responsible for doing it, not you.

Not everything on your list needs to be done. Learn how to prioritize and only do the top items.

Do a self inventory. Is part of your problem due to a lack of organizational skills?

Learn when enough is just enough. Everything doesn't have to be perfect. Be discriminating about when it is worth the extra effort to make something perfect.

Which one of these suggestions applies to you? Will you try to implement it today? Have you tried any of these? Let me know, I'd love to hear from you.

Why Isn't There Enough Time To Do It All?

We all know that most people are squeezed for time. In other words, there are not enough minutes in the day for all that needs to be done. Why do we do this?

There are a number of reasons. We are probably familiar with most, if not all of them. Sometimes it's good to revisit the reasons because the exercise enables us to step back and look at what we're doing. By taking a little bit of time to gain some perspective, we can explore ways to eliminate or reduce the behaviors that contribute to an overscheduled day.

1. We take on more than we should in order to satisfy a need to achieve. This often grows out of a personal sense of insecurity and a need to prove our worth.
2. Lack of delegation skills or a failure to delegate. Sometimes a failure to delegate springs from a sense of not trusting others to complete a task as well as you, or because you feel it is just faster to do the task yourself.
3. Inability to estimate the amount of time that will be needed to do something resulting in planning too much for the available time.
4. Inability to say no. Many people can't say no because of a desire to please or the inability to be assertive.
5. Piles of paper on the desk because of weak organizational skills.
6. A pursuit of perfection. A lack of a sense of when something is good enough.

Now that we've looked some reasons of why we are too busy, what can we do about it? I'll propose some answers to that question in my next blog.

Which of the above issues are your time challenges? Have you figured out any techniques that help you keep your time under control? I'd love to hear from you!

Benefits of Planning

I had a conversation with a man yesterday who likes to manage his day. By manage, he prefers to have a calendar (paper) where he can see the whole week in order to pace himself. At the end of each day he reviews the current day and plan the following day. He then writes down his goals and everything that he needs to do.

The benefits to his personal management system are that things don't fall through the cracks, he responds to his customers in a timely manner, and he paces himself in order to keep stress to a minimum. He also manages to spend a certain amount of each day reading books for personal growth and business knowledge. Having his goals written down enables him to keep his priorities straight.

He said he has a couple of friends who don't like writing anything down. His question to me was if I knew anyone who works in this kind of "freeform" fashion. My answer was yes. We all know people like this. They are the ones who appear to be busy but seldom accomplish anything. They drop things through cracks, fail to meet deadlines, and most important of all, they seldom win the business or a promotion.

The moral of this story is that it may take a little extra time to plan, but the benefits of spending that time far outweigh negatives in terms of personal satisfaction, success, and overall sense of accomplishment.

Breaking the Stress Cycle of Your Day

What do you do when you realize you are totally stressed out and it's only 10 o'clock in the morning?

When I met with my client this afternoon, she told me she was totally stressed out. There was too much to do and the pace was hectic. By the time we were done with our meeting, she stated that she was feeling much better and more focused to move through the remainder of the day.

We had not done any relaxation techniques or focus exercises. What do you think made the difference for her? What do you do midday to help release some of the tension in your head and shoulders?

Today, the difference was that she took a break from the day's pace to meet with me. We focused on the projects she was dealing with and determined why she felt they weren't moving forward. We were able to put a plan in place for her. By the time our meeting ended, the difference in her demeanor was remarkable. Her face was relaxed and her shoulders were unhunched. Her energy level appeared to be much better.

She wasn't more relaxed because of anything I had done or said. Her stress level was eased by the fact that she took a break, took time to rethink her projects from a different perspective, and talked through a couple of sticking points. She walked out of the room with a new attitude toward her work. Because of our appointment, she had to do what she would not have ordinarily done. She would not have stopped to think through her projects. She would not have taken the time to step away from her desk to change her visual and intellectual focus. She would have continued to "spin her wheels" and accomplish significantly less.

Do you ever find that you lose focus and continue to plow through a day without ever truely being productive? When do you realize you have been rushing around, looking busy? Do you ever step back to consciously examine what you're doing and figure out a plan to complete your work? Let me know what you do to cut the stress cycle. Do you have any special rituals, or do you just continue to work without results until it's time to go home?

Multitasking Creates A Bottleneck In The Brain

Many people still believe they are good at multitasking in spite of many studies that prove them wrong. They insist that they are capable of doing several things at the same time. Witness the people who still hold a cell phone to their ear while driving and suddenly reduce their speed by 10-15 mph, or the people who text while driving.

Another study about the brain and multitasking caught my eye today in the November/December 2009 edition of Scientific American Mind. It was run by Paul Dux, a cognitive neuroscientist.

He discovered more about the brain when it is attempting to multitask. The latest findings suggest that slow processing in the prefrontal cortex, the brain's central executive, is where the limits on multitasking arise. A bottleneck is created because the brain can't process the information from different tasks at the same time. The brain can only deal with the tasks one at a time.

The proof of the bottleneck was verified when the researchers used functional MRI on people juggling two assignments. The prefrontal cortex appeared to deal with the tasks one at a time.

When study participants "trained" the prefrontal cortex, by repeating the tasks until they could be done much faster, the activation time in the brain became shorter. It increased the speed of processing by about 10 times. That was the good news. The bad news is that the benefits of training only applied to the tasks which were practiced. What it really means is that with practice, study participants were able to do each task that was practiced more quickly, but not at the same time -- i.e., multitasking. The practice did not improve the speed of other tasks that were not practiced.

So, those of you who still insist that you are good at multitasking, science has once again proved that we only think we are multitasking well. The reality is that we really are taking more time to complete the tasks.

The Three Things You Need To Decide About Paper

There are only three things that can be done with a piece of paper, whether it is a physical piece of paper or a virtual one in an electronic document or email. You can file it, act on it, or toss it. In order to determine which of these three courses of action you need to take, you have to decide what needs to be done with it. What are the criteria you can use to make your decision?

If you decide to file it, you need to determine if it will go in to a reference file or an active file for a current project. If it is to go in to a reference file, ask yourself if the information can be found somewhere else: on the internet, in someone else's files, or ...? Is it needed for legal purposes, such as a contract or tax purposes?

If the paper needs something to be done, you must act on it. Perhaps you need to respond in an email, a phone call, delegate it or pass it on to someone you know who needs the information.

If you decide to toss it out, great! If you have any doubts about tossing it, just ask yourself what is the worst thing that can happen if you throw it away? If the answer is nothing, or I'd need to pay for a copy from the source, such as bank documents, or I'd have to track it down, then drop it in to the trash can or shredder. You can always locate it if needed.

Each of these steps is quite simple. However, to some people, the concept is easier said than done. Just remember that for every piece of paper sitting on your desk, the floor, on a shelf, in a file drawer without a home (a file folder and a storage location), it represents an unmade decision. It is a symbol of procrastination, and it can be a reflection of how you work, how capable you are, and how effective you are. Everyone in the corporate world has worked with a manager or coworker whose desk is known to be a "black hole," where things go in but nothing comes out. These are the people who impact their workgroups, teams, and ultimately, the company.

If you agonize over what to do with your paper, make a conscious effort to decide what to do with it before placing it into a pile.