Dumb Little Man - Tips for Life: Time

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Getting Things Done: The Art of Time Management

Drop into any office during peak working hours and you are sure to find people busy at their desks trying to get their day’s work done; yet, at the end of the day, it seems like there is still so much left undone.

Speak to any stay-at-home parent and you will find them complaining of always racing against the clock to get all their jobs done.

What’s the problem here? It’s obviously not a lack of effort because everyone works pretty hard; it is more likely to be a lack of an important skill – time management.

If you find yourself nodding in reply to the description of people stressed for time, here are a few ideas you may find useful in managing time better.

Focus – The Recipe for Success

Take the example of any person who has achieved success in his or her chosen field and you'll find that they share certain traits.

You'll find strong motivation, clear goals, the will to overcome all odds and hard work.

But there is one quality that distinguishes them from the rest.

And it is their ability to concentrate all of their attention on the goals they have set.

While effort is important to complete a given task, it is this ability to focus that is often the deciding factor that determines how well you do it.

The Value of Focus

Remember the school experiment in which we used a lens to cause the convergence of the sun’s rays and watched in awe as a scrap of paper placed underneath caught fire? This, precisely, is what focus is about.

When the rays of the sun scatter everywhere, they do not have the capacity to generate enough heat but use a lens to focus the same rays and you get magical results.

Similarly, you may have the greatest ideas and the most brilliant of plans but unless you set your sights clearly on what you wish to achieve and follow through with focus, you will not reach your goals.

How to Develop Focus

Compared to motivation or perseverance, focus is often easier to develop. It does not require you to learn something new; rather, it involves a process of letting go of some of your habits that distract you from the most important things.

Here are a few ways in which you can develop focus.

1. Stop Doing Too Much

Think of all your activities throughout the day and list them out. Then look at each one individually and assess if you really need to be doing it. Where possible, delegate the task to someone else; if there are things you simply do as a matter of habit, but which do not contribute in any meaningful way, stop doing them.

Keeping up with news of your area of expertise or general situations in your area may be necessary; but is it really so important to regularly follow the gossip columns that detail the lives of celebrities?

If you have a full-time job, attend classes to pick up a new skill, volunteer for community work and take up a part-time job to augment your income, burnout is an inevitable outcome because you constantly have so much on your plate that it overwhelms you.

Rather, stop doing the things that are not an absolute necessity at the present moment, and you will find it easier to focus on those that are most important.

2. Prioritize

Before you blindly jump into getting things done, pick the tasks that are most important. Sort out the items on your “to do” list and arrange them according to how urgent or important they are.

Prioritizing will help you avoid the activities that drain your time and energy. If you have set your aim on learning a new skill, give yourself a timeframe within which to complete it and put it as an important task on your list.

Cut out something that is not as important and you will find it easier to do what you need to do to achieve your goal.

3. Get Rid of Distractions

It takes very little to divert our mind from the task at hand – an e-mail from a friend, or an interesting article in the newspaper or even a simple conversation in the office can serve as a distraction.

Distractions tend to make you lose not just valuable time, but also your focus; so take steps to keep them away.

De-clutter your desk, your computer or your home and you are sure to find it easier to focus on the task on hand. If you have an important presentation to prepare, do not log on to your email and turn off notifications because the messages there will divert you from working on your project. Take off the headphones to cut out the music.

Announce to people that you are going to be busy and out of bounds for the next few hours and shut the door of your room. Turn off the television and maybe even your phone.

The Bottom Line

In today’s competitive world, we believe that multi-tasking is essential and we are obsessed with becoming “well-rounded” personalities.

While this may seem like a good thing, it has the potential to cause damage by draining you.

Instead, stick to one goal at a time, eliminate clutter and work on achieving your one goal before moving on to another one.

Take these steps to improve your focus and almost instantaneously, you will find your productivity soaring.

Written on 4/18/2013 by Vishal P. Rao. Vishal P. Rao runs the work at home forum, a popular online discussion forum for those who work from home. Read reviews of business opportunities/programs, get advice or just stop by to have a casual chat.

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Six Simple Steps to Better Time Management

Being able to manage your own time is a crucial skill in the workplace.

If you work for yourself, it’s even more important – poor time management could spell the end of your business, or at least make you less successful than you’d hoped.

Poor time management can be at the root of many problems.

If you find yourself taking work home in the evenings, for instance, it might not be because you’ve got too much work but because you’re not managing your time well during the day.

And if you’re often stressed out and frustrated by your work, this might be a time management issue too: no-one likes feeling disorganized and behind with things.

If you know your time management skills aren’t quite up to scratch, try these simple steps to improve:

#1: Use an Organizer

It doesn’t matter what kind of organizer you use – some people like a paper diary, others use Google Calendar, and others have a favorite software program. What’s important is that you have an organizer and that you use it.

Your organizer should let you keep track of your appointments. If you’ve ever forgotten a meeting, or double-booked yourself, you’ll know why this matters!

You’ll also want to keep a note of key reminders (“Buy anniversary card for spouse”). It’s also useful if there’s space for a daily to-do list or similar...

#2: Write a To-Do List Every Day

How do you begin your working day? Many people start off by checking their emails, and then begin tackling whatever happens to have come in. It’s easy to end up spending the whole day on minor tasks, rather than tackling the work that really needs to be done.

At the start of each day, take five or ten minutes to write down a list of what you want to accomplish. You’ll probably have a few mission-critical items (“Finish client’s report”) and a few things that are essentially just reminders of small tasks (“Phone Joe”).

Writing down the big items helps you focus on them right from the beginning of the day; writing down the small ones means you don’t have to use up valuable mental energy trying to remember them.

#3: Prioritize by Importance

How do you decide which tasks to tackle first? If you go for the ones that seem most urgent – with the closest deadline, or the pushiest client – then you might end up shoving aside more important things. Sometimes, prioritizing by urgency makes sense, but as a general rule, you should be tackling the important tasks first.

One way to do that is by dividing your day into two halves: work on important, longer-term tasks in the morning, and on urgent tasks in the afternoon.

If those urgent things truly need to get done by 5pm, you’ll probably manage them just fine -- without spending the whole day caught up in them.

#4: Understand Your Peak Times of Day

Are you a morning lark or a night owl? Do you find it easier to focus at 8am or 8pm? We all have peaks and troughs of energy throughout the day – and it’s useful to get to know when your best (and worst) times are.

For me, mornings are the best time: I use them for my most creative and energy-demanding work, which is writing. Afternoons are when I deal with editing, admin, emails, and other smaller tasks.

I have a slump around 4pm - 5pm, when I’m grouchy and unable to focus. I can easily accomplish twice as much between 9am - 10am as between 4pm - 5pm. Your ups and downs may be very different from mine – but by figuring out when they are, you can plan your work and manage your time more effectively.

#5: Take Regular Breaks

This might sound a little counter-intuitive – but are you taking enough breaks? If you’re aiming to improve your time management, you might try to do so by working steadily for hours without stopping ... but this isn’t going to make you more productive. By taking regular breaks, you give yourself a chance to switch off and recharge.

Most people can only focus for around 25 - 45 minutes before needing a brief break (even if it’s just five minutes to get up, grab a glass of water, and move around a bit).

Planned breaks are crucial: don’t simply work until you get stuck or run out of steam. If you know you’re going to take a break at 11am and it’s 10.40, it’s easy to stay focused – you may even find yourself working harder to get a task completed before your break.

#6: Check Email Less Often

Do you keep your inbox open constantly? Or do you find yourself checking emails every half-hour? If so, you’re destroying your ability to get into the zone with your work. Yes, your clients and colleagues might like it that you always reply promptly – but if this pulls you away from your actual work, you aren’t doing anyone any favors.

Try checking email a bit less frequently. That might mean every two hours, or just once or twice a day, depending on your industry and the expectations of your boss or clients.

You’ll find that you’re not only more focused, you’re able to get through your emails in less time, because you can tackle them as one batch.

Do you have any great time management tips to add? Or do you have a particular time management problem that you’re struggling with? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Written on 9/22/2012 by Ali Luke. Ali is a writer of fiction and non-fiction and a writing coach. She blogs about writing on her site, Aliventures.com, and has a free ebook "How to Find Time For Your Writing" available when you join her writing newsletter here.

Photo Credit:
Roberto Ferrari

Seven Procrastination-Busting Tips to Use Today

One of the most common questions I get is “how do I stop procrastinating?”

It’s human nature to avoid hard work if we can – and it’s no surprise that many people find themselves chatting on social networks, or tackling “easy” work rather than getting on with important projects.

If you struggle with procrastination, though, there’s plenty you can do to make it easier to get on with the task at hand.

Try at least one of these tips today:

#1: Achieve Quick Wins at the Start of the Day

One of the best ways to beat procrastination is by taking action – straight away. If you tend to start your day by staring at your inbox, or chatting to colleagues, look for a few quick (5 – 10 minute) tasks that you can complete, so you get a sense of instant achievement.

These might be:

Making that phone call you’ve been putting off
Sorting out the stack of files that’s threatening to engulf your desk
Writing a plan for your big project (see tip #5)

… or anything that you can get done and checked off your list quickly.

#2: Tell Yourself “I’ll Just Open the Document…”

It’s very easy to feel daunted by big projects – especially if you’ve been putting them off for a while. This tip might seem a bit silly, but it really does work to overcome inertia.

Let’s say you’ve got a major report to work on, and just thinking about it gives you a sinking sensation in your stomach. Instead of telling yourself “I really must do a couple of hours on that today,” tell yourself, “I’ll just open the document.”

Opening a document is so very easy that there’s no room for procrastination to creep in … yet once the document is open, you might well find that you can tell yourself “I’ll just do five minutes on this section.” Before you know it, those two hours will have sped by.

#3: Write a To-Do List for the Day

If you don’t already use a to-do list, get into the habit of writing one at the start of each day. Your to-do list doesn’t have to be complex – it could be a few tasks jotted down on a Post-it note.

The act of writing a list helps you to focus, especially if your job involves lots of different tasks and responsibilities. It lets you prioritize different tasks (you might want to put “1” against the most important, “2” against the next, and so on).

Your to-do list will also keep you on track during the day. Instead of finishing one task and wondering what to do next, you’ll be able to move straight on.

#4: Use Your Energy Peaks Wisely

Are you at your best in the morning, or in the afternoon? You’ll almost certainly have particular times of the day when you can focus well – and times when you struggle to get anything done.

Once you’ve identified your energy peaks, you can use these times of day for your most important work – anything that requires a lot of concentration, or that you tend to put off doing. Use your energy slumps as a chance to catch up on less intense work, like answering emails.

You might even want to adjust your working hours to take your energy peaks into account (if your boss will allow that). For instance, if you know you’re at your best between 7.30am and 9.30am, you could try getting into the office earlier.

#5: Make a Plan – then Make a Start

It’s very easy to procrastinate when you haven’t quite pinned down what you’re supposed to be doing. By writing a plan, you have a roadmap to take you step-by-step through a particular project.

Your plan doesn’t need to be complicated, but it should break things down enough that it’s easy for you to get going, and so that you always know what the next step is. It’s useful to make your plan on a computer rather than write it on paper: that way, you can easily move steps around, or add in extra ones.

Once you’ve got a plan, make a start! Even if you can only tackle one step right now, it’s worth doing it so you get a sense of achievement and progress.

#6: Look Forward to Something Fun Later

Some projects are intrinsically motivating: you enjoy doing them (once you get going, at least) and you get a real sense of satisfaction from completing them.

Most of us, though, have to tackle at least some tasks that are a bit tedious. If you’re facing a lot of boring work, try motivating yourself with the promise of a reward. You might decide to go out for lunch, or to watch a movie after work, or simply to treat yourself to your favorite coffee – whatever works for you.

This can also be a good way to stay motivated in a group, if you’re all working on a task or project together: you could decide on something that you all enjoy, and agree to do it once you’ve finished (or reached a certain point).

#7: Finish in the Middle of a Task

If you struggle to get going at the start of the day, try to complete your workday when you’re in the middle of a task – not when you’ve just finished something. That way, it’s easy to pick up where you left off the following morning.

If you’re worried that you’ll forget what you were supposed to do next, jot down a few notes before you leave for the day.

This also works during the day – for instance, if you know you tend to procrastinate after a coffee break or after lunch, try leaving a task half-finished that you can pick back up. Once you’re into “work mode” again, you’ll find it easy to keep going.

If you’ve successfully beaten procrastination (or if you’re in the process of beating it!), do you have any tips to add? Let us know in the comments.

Written on 9/18/2012 by Ali Luke. Ali is a writer of fiction and non-fiction and a writing coach. She blogs about writing on her site, Aliventures.com, and has a free ebook "How to Find Time For Your Writing" available when you join her writing newsletter here.

Photo Credit:
Tristan

The 5 Commandments for Saving Time and Reducing Stress

I know a lot of people who would give anything to get more done and in less time. They typically respond by freaking out, being rushed, and living a high stress life.

This stressful existence isn't the answer.

Instead, here's a chance to have both productivity and freedom from stress. Now I can't promise this will be easy, fun, or something to brag to friends about. But, I can tell you this is very possible and that the answer lies in the 5 Commandments of Time Management.

Commandment #1: Organize your time
This first rule of thumb will make a dramatic difference in your effectiveness: keep one calendar and devote yourself to keeping it current. Stop spreading yourself thin between calendars on Outlook, on your smartphone, in your planner, and even on your kitchen refrigerator.

Life is busy, and there are far too many chances for an important event to fall through the cracks. Commit yourself to one trusted location for your appointments, meetings and events.

Yes, there will be other calendars you're issued at work, school or home, but those should be considered secondary. Spend a few minutes each morning transferring upcoming events from those calendars to your primary schedule. You'll save tons of time later by not scrambling to remember dates and times.

Equally important, be sure to always keep your calendar on-hand. Being able to pull-up your schedule in a split-second empowers you to make better choices when setting upcoming appointments and it takes pressure off you having to remember your schedule. Stick with this rule, and you'll take a better command of your time.

Commandment #2: Prioritize your time
You may be busy today, but are you the right kind of busy? It's all a matter of priorities. Far too often people spend their days doing busywork instead of focusing on the important tasks.

Here's how you prioritize what's important:
1. Think about the top 5-10 items you want to accomplish today and make a to-do list in your daily planner. Keep it realistic to the time you have available.
2. Prioritize your to-do list by ranking the activities by importance. Assign them a letter A, B, or C using this criteria:
  1. A tasks must be done today, and carry undesirable consequences if not completed
  2. B tasks need to get done, but you won’t be penalized if not
  3. C tasks are things you want to do, can wait another day
  4. Number your tasks in the order you want to complete them with the most important tasks going first
Word of caution: Avoid the "kitchen sink" list, an overwhelmingly long list filled with everything that needs to get done, ever. It's a major source of one's anxiety and fears, and it sets you up for failure before you even get started. Instead, plan 3-5 high priority tasks you can realistically accomplish each day. You can spend 5-minutes each morning and effectively get your priorities set for the day. It's a vital step to getting more done and staying on track with what's important.

Commandment #3: Protect your time
Time is your most valuable currency, so don't allow yourself to waste it.

To do this you must avoid the common distractions that knock your productivity off-course. Try scheduling a daily "Distraction Free Hour" in your planner. Then, shut your door, unplug from the internet, turn off your phone, and blot out any other external noise that steals your time.

Another good way to defeat your worst procrastination habits is to keep a work log where you track what you've accomplished each hour. That way you can learn your weaknesses and self-correct. For example, if you often get sucked into Facebook and other entertainment websites then unplug and go offline for one hour, twice per day.

Commandment #4: Balance your time
You've long been told that success comes from working longer and harder, and by "burning the midnight oil." But it comes at a cost – your other commitments will suffer from neglect.

The key is to find balance between work and life. Here are some more suggestions:

1. Choose a personal goal to work on each week and schedule tasks.
2. Include activities from all categories of life in your daily to-do list.
3. Schedule a repeating family event such as Thursday game night.
4. Use the downtime in your day to accomplish personal tasks, such as reading, exercise, calling a friend, or meditation. Schedule these activities in your day planner calendar to ensure you don't skip it.
5. Designate a daily exercise time, such as an early morning run or a lunchtime walk.
6. Unplug at home. Turn off the television, internet and smartphone and enjoy the lost art of conversation with friends and family.

In order to be truly productive, you need to include tasks from all facets of life, like grocery shopping, fitness, yard work, personal finances, and of course quality family time.

Try one of the above ideas each week and you'll soon develop habits that create a more balanced life.

Commandment #5: Enjoy your time!
Don't wait to get organized tomorrow. Instead of struggling through your days and weeks waiting for the weekend to come, enjoy your time in the here and now.

Here's the secret: it's all about putting yourself in the driver's seat when it comes to your time. Gain control of your time by using the daily habits above that will make you more proactive about setting your schedule, your to-do list and your priorities.

When you're making the right choices with your time each day, you'll enjoy more productivity, will get more work done in less time, and enjoy more time to do things for yourself and your family.

You can live a richer, more fulfilling life that is free of stress. So, what's stopping you? Start today by living by the 5 Commandments of Time Management.

Written on 6/22/2012 by Jeff Doubek. Jeff Doubek is a productivity expert who writes for the Day-Timer Blog where he offers practical tips for managing your time better and getting more done each week.

Photo Credit: Joe M500

Why You Need to Delegate More

Do you live by the motto, “If you want a job done well, do it yourself?” And do you feel stressed out, rushed, or anxious a lot of the time?

Perhaps you’re worried about forgetting one of the many tasks on your mental list (you’ve not had time to sit down and commit it to paper). Or maybe you have a whole bunch of things that keep getting put off -- like sorting out that niggling problem with your computer, or organizing your files -- and you just know that this is eventually going to result in a crisis situation.

The truth is, you don’t need to do everything yourself. Good delegation is an important part of time management: it means figuring out which tasks you can hand over to other people, and passing them on in a timely fashion, so that your colleague (or family member) can get them done before a necessary deadline.

Delegating Frees You Up for Your Great Work
Taking care of every little task, whether that’s at work or at home, can make you feel productive -- even when you’re not really accomplishing anything worthwhile. You might be very efficient at entering data or doing the laundry, but is it really an effective use of your time?

By getting into the habit of delegating tasks to other people, you give yourself time for what really matters: your great work. That could be almost anything: a new vision for your company, a personal project like writing a book, or simply having more time to spend on nurturing your kids.

Delegating Empowers Others
If you insist on taking care of everything, then you’re not only failing to live up to your own potential -- you’re also stopping other people from progressing.

At work, if you’re always the person who sends the e-newsletter to clients, you’re stopping your colleagues from learning something new. Perhaps you’ve got an under-used team member who’s sitting around bored, and who’d welcome the chance to take on a new task. (Plus, what happens if you’re off sick? What if you leave the company?)

The same applies at home: if you insist on doing all the cooking and the chores, you’re stopping your spouse and kids from developing useful life skills.

Why Aren't You Delegating Enough?
Chances are, you agree with me that delegating is a good thing ... in theory. But when it comes to putting it into practice, you’re almost certainly not delegating enough.

Why not?

#1: You Don’t Have Time to Train Someone
If you’re already busy and stressed-out, it often feels easier to take care of a task yourself. Let’s say that writing and sending a short e-newsletter takes you an hour; it might take you two or three hours to go through the process in detail with a colleague.

Try planning ahead: handle today’s newsletter yourself, but block out some time in your calendar to train a colleague on the process well in advance of next month’s newsletter.

#2: You Don’t Trust Them to Do a Good Job
Maybe you’re convinced that your colleagues or kids won’t be able to produce sufficiently high-quality results. Be honest with yourself: have you even given them a chance before? If you have and you’ve been disappointed in the results, you can still delegate. You’ll probably need to try one of more of these:
- Have a trial period: let them handle the task a few times, and assess the results.
- Schedule in time to review and check their work: you may have to make a few adjustments, but it’ll still be quicker than handling the whole task yourself.
- Lower your standards: maybe you’re putting too much time and energy into a task that really doesn’t need to be completed to perfection.
#3: You Need to Get a System in Place
You might be struggling to delegate a particular task because there’s no real system for it. Maybe you don’t follow the same process each time -- you just have a rough idea in your head of how it should work.

Write down instructions for completing the task, step by step. Even if you don’t end up delegating it straight away, you’ll still have a useful reference document for your own purposes. This is especially useful for tasks that only crop up every few weeks (so they never become ingrained habits) or for ones where you constantly find yourself making mistakes or forgetting how you did something last time.

You don’t need to delegate everything all at once. Instead, each week, look for just one task that you could hand over to someone else. That might mean something as simple as showing a colleague how to change the toner and restack the paper in the photocopier, or teaching your kids to stack the dishwasher and turn it on. A few minutes of effort today could save you hours over the course of the next few months or years.

Let us know about your experiences with delegating (good or bad!) in the comments...

Written on 4/03/2012 by Ali Luke. Ali is a writer of fiction and non-fiction and a writing coach. She blogs about writing on her site, Aliventures.com, and has a free ebook "How to Find Time For Your Writing" available when you join her writing newsletter here.

Photo Credit: Menage a Moi

10 Ways to Find More Hours in Your Day

We all wish we had just a bit more time.

Just think what you could do with an extra hour or two each day: you could finally stick to an exercise routine, or spring-clean the house, or write your novel, or learn the guitar, or get a new qualification.

I can’t magically make all your days 25 hours long. But I can help you find more hours in your day for the things that really matter.

Get Out of Bed Earlier
If you normally get up at 7.30am, try getting up at 7am. That half-hour might not sound like much -- but it could be time that you use to meditate, to exercise, to read that book you’ve been meaning to finish, or simply to get your day off to a calm and organized start.

The first hour or half-hour of the day is often a great chance to work on something important, before other demands crowd in on you. And if you need your beauty sleep? Just get to bed half an hour earlier.

Use Your Commute Productively
How much time do you spend commuting every week? Unless you work from home, you’ve probably got at least a couple of hours each week when you’re traveling between your home and your workplace.

Use your commuting time for something useful. If you drive, you could listen to audio books. If you take the bus or train, you could read a book rather than grabbing a free newspaper. And if your workplace is quite close by, you could try walking or cycling to work -- this builds exercise into the natural rhythm of your day.

Tackle the Important Tasks First
Once you get to work, take a few minutes to prioritize your tasks. Get the important ones done first (not the easy ones, or even the urgent ones). You can afford to spend at least an hour working on big, important tasks rather than on all those little urgent ones.

If you work like this, you’ll usually save time: the urgent tasks will still get done, and you won’t spend hours procrastinating over the important ones.

Don't Check Email So Often
Your colleagues and clients can wait for a few hours -- or even a day or two -- for you to reply to their emails. If there’s something truly urgent, they’ll pick up the phone.

Keep your inbox closed when you’re working, and only open it when you’re ready to spend 30 minutes or so dealing with emails. It’s much more efficient to batch-process your emails than to keep popping in and out of your inbox to deal with individual ones.

Reduce Interruptions
If colleagues have a habit of hanging around your desk to chat, or if the phone is constantly ringing, you might find that it takes you half the day to finish a simple task like writing a letter. Constant interruptions don’t just eat up time -- they also break your concentration.

When you’ve got a big task to focus on, let your calls go to voicemail. If you have an office door, close it. If you work in a cubicle, wear headphones: having them on makes it less likely that people will try to strike up a conversation (you don’t have to listen to anything through them).

Stay Focused on Your Work
You might have heard the saying “procrastination is the thief of time.” When you want more hours in the day, procrastination can be a real problem. A few minutes chatting, browsing the web, updating your Facebook status, and so on, can easily turn into hours of wasted time over the course of a day.

When you’re working, work. If your concentration is slipping, take a proper break: go and get a glass of water, or stretch your legs a bit. And if you’re facing a difficult task, try breaking it into small steps or stages so that it’s easier to tackle.

Go Home on Time
If you’re supposed to finish work at 4pm, but you never make it out of the office door until 6pm at the earlier, then it’s no wonder you don’t have enough hours in the day.

In some jobs, it is difficult to get away on time (if all your colleagues work late, you might feel obliged to do the same). But if you’re staying because you only ever seem to get any work done in a mad dash at the end of the day, then your working habits need to change.

Delegate Some Chores
Perhaps you seem to be the only person in your household who’s capable of unstacking the dishwasher or ironing the clothes. If your evenings get taken up with a long list of chores, see whether you can delegate some of those.

Your partner, housemates, or kids can pitch in and help out. Even if you just free up 20 or 30 minutes every evening, you’ll have a bit of extra time to spend on something important to you.

Eat Dinner at Home
Although going out for dinner might seem like it saves time (after all, you don’t have to cook) -- you’ve got the time cost of traveling to the restaurant, ordering the food, waiting for it to arrive, paying the bill ... and it might well be faster just to cook and eat at home.

If you don’t have much time to cook during the week, try making extra portions at the weekend so that you can freeze some. That way, you’ve got an almost-instant meal (and one that’s probably healthier and cheaper than a restaurant meal, too).

Limit Your TV Watching
If you put the TV on as soon as you get in from work, it’s easy to end up spending hours slumped on the sofa. Instead of watching whatever happens to be showing, try watching just one or two programs each night.

You might also want to have at least a couple of TV-free evenings; a great chance to read a good book, or to work on a project around the house.

Do you have any great tips for finding more hours in the day? Does one of the above ideas work well for you? Share your thoughts with us in the comments...

Written on 3/20/2012 by Ali Luke. Ali is a writer of fiction and non-fiction and a writing coach. She blogs about writing on her site, Aliventures.com, and has a free ebook "How to Find Time For Your Writing" available when you join her writing newsletter here.

Photo Credit: ~twon~

How to Find Time for What Really Matters

Do you ever feel as though weeks, months, even years, are going past, without you making any real progress in your life? Often, our time can get swallowed up in the busy-ness of day-to-day living: emails, commuting, meetings, chores, TV...

You’ve probably got some aspects of your life that really matter to you, but that never seem to get the time they deserve. Perhaps it’s your family or friends. Maybe it’s that novel you’ve always meant to write, or that small business you want to start.

Here’s how to find enough time for the things that are truly important:

Get Up Earlier
If you work a regular office job, you might tell yourself that you’ll work out / study / draw up that business plan during the evenings. But, day after day, you’ll reach 6pm and find yourself so tired and demotivated that you just slump on the sofa.

The solution? Make time for the important things at the start of your day. That means getting up earlier – perhaps half an hour or an hour before your usual alarm call (and heading to bed earlier so you get enough sleep).

Multitask (Appropriately)
You probably know that multi-tasking is generally a bad idea – you can’t read emails and talk on the phone and work on your report all at the same time.

In a few cases, though, multitasking is a great idea. For instance, you could:
- Listen to audio books while driving to work, or exercising
- Read a book while traveling by bus / train / plane
- Make phone calls while you’re out walking
Essentially, any time you’re engaged in a purely physical task, see whether there’s some way you can combine it with a mental one.

Make Specific Plans
You’re not going to magically end up with lots of free time to work on your novel or hang out with your family. You need to make actual plans. And if you want to maximize the chance that you’ll stick to those plans, either put money on the line or get other people involved.

That might mean booking tickets for a concert you want to go to, or agreeing to meet up a friend to go for a job. It could mean paying to attend an evening class, or promising your kids that you’ll take them to see a movie on Saturday.

Ring-fence Certain Days/Times
This is similar to #3 ... but you’re not necessarily making specific plans to be somewhere. You’re simply setting aside time on a regular basis to work on an important goal or project.

That could be:
- You always spend Tuesday evenings reading a book, instead of watching TV.
- You’ve blocked out Saturday mornings to work on your small business.
- Every Friday lunchtime, you get out of the office and sit in a cafe with your laptop for an hour, writing your novel.
By “ringfencing” particular days and times, you make it easy to avoid committing yourself to other activities. You also ensure that you’re making steady progress towards a goal, by working on it at least weekly.

What are your real priorities in life? How could you start dedicating more time to them? Feel free to share your ideas and thoughts in the comments below.

Written on 2/13/2012 by Ali Luke. Ali is a writer of fiction and non-fiction and a writing coach. She blogs about writing on her site, Aliventures.com, and has a free ebook "How to Find Time For Your Writing" available when you join her writing newsletter here.

Photo Credit: Brenda Anderson

Is Time Management Really Such a Good Idea?

Whatever your field of work or study, you’ve almost certainly come across the idea of time management. Perhaps you’ve bought books about it, or even been in courses. You may well have written a résumé that emphasizes your “excellent time management skills”.

I’m all for using time effectively. But when we talk about “time management”, we’re often missing the bigger picture.

If all your efforts to be more efficient seem doomed, then maybe the problem isn’t you. Maybe the problem is how you’re viewing time.

Here’s a reality check:

Not All Hours Are Equal
Too often, time management advice assumes that every hour is the same: sixty minutes of potentially productive time.

This ignores how life really works. All of us have peaks and troughs of energy (both mental and physical) during the day. For instance, you might find yourself foggy-brained in the early morning, but you focus well from 10am – 12 noon.

You want to do your best work during your best hours. Sometimes, that could mean going against traditional time-management advice. If your work day starts at 8am but your brain only seems to wake up around 10am, then spending the first two hours dealing with emails makes sense – never mind if the book you’ve just read says you should never look at your emails before lunch.

Do it: When are your best hours? How could you rearrange your day so that you can do your best work during them?

You Won’t Get Eight Productive Hours a Day
Most full-time jobs have a consistent pattern with shifts around eight - nine hours long. If you’re a student, or self-employed, you might feel that you “should” be able to work solidly for eight hours a day.

The truth is, you probably can’t. If your job requires a high degree of focus and/or creativity – graphic design, for instance, or computer programming – then you might only manage three - four hours of “real” productive work every day.

Don’t make yourself feel guilty over this – just be prepared for it. When you’re working, stay as focused as possible: you’ll be surprised how much you can get done in a few hours.

Do it: When you draw up your to-do list for the day, focus on two or three “big wins” for your best hours – and fit in the small stuff when you’re feeling less energetic.

Manage Your Life, Not Your Time
If you’re good at time management, you’ve got a bunch of useful skills like:

Staying on task and avoiding procrastination
Prioritizing appropriately and effectively
Avoiding wasted time (e.g. you listen to audio books while you commute)

The problem is, time management won’t get you very far if you’re working on the wrong things. If you’re in a boring, dead-end job, you can be as effective as you like and it won’t really help you reach your goals. If you keep starting new projects and never finishing them, the hours you spent aren’t worth much.

Don’t think so much about managing your time – think about managing your life.

Do it: Which tasks on your list could you ditch? Is there anything new you should be doing to help you reach your goals?

Have you got any suggestions to add? Let us know in the comments!

Written on 11/13/2011 by Ali Luke. Ali writes a blog, Aliventures, about leading a productive and purposeful life (get the RSS feed here). As well as blogging, she writes fiction, and is studying for an MA in Creative Writing.

Photo Credit: Matt Calow

Try the Tag-It Approach For Increased Daily Productivity

Being stressed and overwhelmed with a lot of work is quite common. Whether it's real work or a perception of "I'm so swamped", it is difficult to think straight and fast. To help, we often talk about prioritization, creating SMART goals, etc. Today, let's look at a hybrid model.

The Tag-It Approach is about setting an order of importance and time to your task list. You don’t want to be spending time on the least important tasks while the more important ones are left unattended. Further, you don't want to waste time looking for a task that you can knock out before lunch, this list approach will have weigh priority and time so that you can quickly move from task to task.

You can tag tasks using following parameters:

Urgent & Important
Huge Benefit to Completion
Large consequences for delay
High on Irritation / Nagging
Estimated Time (to complete the task)

7 Steps to The Tag-It Approach

First do the basic task filtering processes. Remove things that you plan to delegate and remove things that are simply 'wish' items.

Create a table with 7 columns. Use the 5 steps above for column headers and then also label another column 'Task Name' and one 'Yes Count'.

Fill the first column with your filtered tasks. Remember - don't add things that you are punting to someone else, this list is for things that you are executing on.

For the next four columns, simply ask yourself following questions and record answers in respective categories –
- Is my task urgent and important?
- Do I really see a benefit when this task is completed??
- Will I face negative consequences if this project doesn't get done??
- Is this task constantly nagging and irritating to me and my peers?
'Estimated time required' column is self-explanatory.

In the count column, simply add up number of ‘Yes’ your task has. A task with 1 'yes' is not too important compared to a task that accumulates 4 yes answers.

Start picking up tasks in groups of descending order of Count Column and finish them off as fast as possible.

Effectively Using The Estimated Time Column
The 'Estimated Time' column is a great way to create your work schedule for day / week or more than that.

For instance, if a meeting gets cancelled and you suddenly have a free hour, look at your list and choose to knock something out that takes less than an hour. Having this list handy and predetermined, will prevent you from sitting there for 20 minutes wondering what you should work on, or worse, visiting your inbox and simply killing an hour bouncing between Facebook and email.

You can also use ‘Estimated time ’ to set a priority order within your task group. Based on what works for you, you can either work your way through most time consuming to least time consuming (bigger tasks first) or the other way round (quickest tasks first).

Customizing The Tag-It Approach
For the above example we used only five parameters, based on your unique situation, you can add or remove any parameter you want to.

For instance, if you are working on a team and would like to use the tag-it approach, you can consider adding ‘Has dependencies’ as a parameter. This will help you in picking up those tasks first which need to be completed before others can begin their tasks.

Examples of additional parameters you can use: Can become a bottleneck? Customer Impacting? Is this important but not urgent? You get it. Choose things that are important but don't add criteria simply to have a complex plan'. Chose truly pertinent that impact real concerns. Over a period of time as you get comfortable tagging tasks, your tag sheet or file can become a single place where you jot down task specific planning details.

How do you see yourself using the tag-it approach? What customizations can you think of?

Written on 9/13/2011 by Avani Mehta. Avani writes on motivation, happiness and personal effectiveness on her personal development blog. Hop on to her site to grab a copy of her free e-book: The Fabulous Motivators

Photo Credit: kalyan02

How to Effectively Measure the Amount Of Work You Actually Do

I remember reading somewhere that only a fraction of the work we do every day is productive work. Rest is not actual work; we just fool ourselves to believe that it is.

I think that if each of one us were to take a minute and carefully think about the work accomplished during the last 24 hour period, it won't be too difficult to not agree with what I said in the first paragraph above. With distractions galore, both online and offline, it is easy to get sucked into a non-work routine which feels like work.

The purpose of this article is to try and measure the real, hardcore work we do every day and to find out ways to eliminate the distractions that stand in our way of accomplishing actual work. Lets check out the methods I suggest, and then you could suggest similar methods in the comments.

What's Work For You?
It is very important to answer the above question correctly. What's work for you might not be work for me and vice versa. For example, for a social media manager, spending time on Twitter and Facebook is very much part of actual work. She is doing that to track audience engagement and to promote her client's site. But that might not be the case at your end.

So you need to have a clear picture of what's work and what's fun. I think one way to figure that out is to know if what you are doing makes you money in the short or long term. If it does, it's work. If it doesn't, it may or may not be actual work. But it's definitely something that can be done later.

Using Separate Devices
Once you know what's work for you, you need to know how much of it you are able to accomplish each day. Seth Godin talked about the two-device solution few days ago. He proposes that you use your computer only for actual work, and a second device - like your iPad - for everything that doesn't fall in the domain of actual work. It's definitely an easy way to track the time spent doing actual work every day.

Using a Timer
We just had a post on how a simple timer can go a long way in making you more productive. Yes, timers work. And you can make use of them to measure the amount of work you do.

I'd also take an opportunity to mention one of my previous DLM posts on time management tools and apps. Some of the tools mentioned in the list, like RescueTime, can effectively track the time you spent doing different things on your computer.

Using Separate Logins or User Profiles
This is something I talked about on my personal blog sometime back. I took cue from Seth's article on using separate devices, and suggested that we create separate user profiles for work and fun. You can also make use of this neat tutorial to track your login and logoff times using scheduled task in Windows. That would tell you exactly the time you spend in a particular user account.

So, what do you think about the above methods? What else do you think can help you track the amount of actual work you are able to complete daily?

Cheers,

Abhijeet

Written on 5/6/2011 by Abhijeet Mukherjee. Abhijeet is a blogger and web publisher from India. He loves all things tech as long as it aids in productivity. He edits Guiding Tech, a blog that publishes useful guides, tutorials and tools. Check it out and subscribe to its feed if you like the site. You can also find him on Twitter.

Photo Credit: bark

How to Minimize Interruptions When You’re Working

Have you ever been right in the middle of something – a complicated email, a tricky paragraph of a report, a hunt for some vital figures – only for your concentration to be shattered?

Maybe your work day seems to be a string of interruptions. Maybe your colleagues want to chat constantly, or people keep phoning with trivial issues, or your housemates can’t understand that you want to be left alone to work on a college assignment.

You’ll never be able to eliminate interruptions altogether – but you can do a lot to minimize them.

Here’s how:

Look Unavailable
If you have an office with a door, keep it shut when you don’t want interrupting. It’s a simple visual cue to would-be visitors – and you’ll also keep out any noise from passers-by. If you’re working at home, ask your family or flatmates to avoid interrupting you when the door is closed.

Of course, you might not have a whole room of your own to work in. Try wearing headphones (even if you don’t have any music playing) – this often makes people think twice about interrupting you. If you’ve got a hands-free headset, you could even pretend to be on the phone while working.

Let People Know You’re Busy
I know this seems obvious, but how often do you actually tell people that you want some uninterrupted time? At home, this might mean explaining to your partner and/or kids that you’re going to be working on your novel for an hour.

At work, get in the habit of telling potential interrupters, “I’m right in the middle of something. Can I get back to you in fifteen minutes?” Chances are, they’ll be happy to wait – and they may well go and find some other solution which doesn’t involve waiting for you!

Set an Example
If you want other people to respect your time, be respectful of theirs. Try not to interrupt colleagues – and when you do need to have a conversation with someone, start off with “Is this a good time?” If you can see their calender, heck, use that an schedule 30 minutes at some point later in the day. Don’t use work time to chat, unless you want your colleagues to assume that you’ll always be happy to stop what you’re doing to listen to the latest office gossip.

You might find that several colleagues (or other people in your household) are getting frustrated by interruptions. If so, look for some way to make things easier for everyone – perhaps by spending the mornings on focused work, and encouraging more discussion and collaboration in the afternoons.

Don’t Answer Calls and Emails Straight Away
Most of the interruptions in your day probably don’t come from colleagues or housemates who drop by your desk. They come from people phoning or emailing.

Unless you work in a job which requires it, there’s no rule which says that you need to answer your phone as soon as it rings. Further, just because they call it "Instant Messaging", you don't have to respond this instant! You can let it go to voicemail and you can let your chat window blink for a bit. You can switch off your mobile, too.

The same goes for emails: you don’t have to leave your inbox constantly open. You’ll work much more efficiently if you process emails in batches, rather than trying to deal with them as soon as they come in.

Work Early/Late in the Day
This is a bit of a radical step, but worth considering. Can you shift your working hours so that you avoid interruptions for at least part of the day?

If you get into the office at 7am, for instance, you’ll have at least an hour or two to work before most of your colleagues arrive. If you stay up late at home and write your essays after the kids are in bed, you’re much less likely to be interrupting than if you try to work on Saturday afternoons.

What tips and tricks have you used to avoid interruptions when you need to concentrate? Share your ideas with us in the comments...

Written on 5/3/2011 by Ali Luke. Ali writes a blog, Aliventures, about leading a productive and purposeful life (get the RSS feed here). As well as blogging, she writes fiction, and is studying for an MA in Creative Writing.

Photo Credit: Star5112

16 Great Tips That'll Add More Hours To Your Day

Everyday it seems that one of my friends is whining about how tied up he is in his work and household chores, and how he wished he had more than 24 hours to accomplish things. As if they were placed on Earth with some lesser amount of time than the rest of us. Don't get me wrong, I have time management issues too. However, I'd like to think that I'm the one in charge of the schedule, not the tasks.

The best way to overcome this situation (and the never-ending frustration) is by doing a careful analysis of your daily schedule and figuring out how to save time by doing the same things you do every day in a slightly different way.

The following points should help you get started. Oh, and please: don't do all of these tomorrow. Choose one or two that are simple to implement. Once you see some gains, revisit this article and grab two more and implement those. Time issues cannot be solved with a shotgun approach, you have to selectively and carefully target what needs to be tweaked.

Ok, so enough monologue. Here are some ideas to get you started.

Work From Home When You Can
Working from home sure saves time. Try and convince your boss to let your work from home for few days a month. And if she does agree, you should take a look at our posts on staying productive and beating the stress when working from home.

Make Use Of Your Commute
Can't get rid of the long commute? Boss won't let you work from home? Well, then make the most out of your commute. Reading a book, listening to a good podcast or catching up to the DLM feed in your RSS reader....there are just so many ways to utilize that time.

Spend Less Time Looking At Your Inbox
I have talked before about managing your email productively. If you are able to do that successfully, it could go a long way in adding time to your busy schedule.

Outsource Errands
We don't often realize that paying bills and running errands could suck up a good bit of time from our 24-hour days. May be you could outsource them to a local service, or find someone on a site like Mechanical Turk and have him do it for you. Maybe you go as far as finding a virtual assistant.

Use the Best Tools Of Your Trade
No matter what work you do, there are always tools available to make your job quicker and easier. The important thing is to know about them. For example, a list like this could come in really handy for web workers. So, tab into your inner autodidact and find the right tools of your trade.

Use Windows Productivity Tricks
Using a Windows PC? Implement these essential Windows productivity tricks to make your everyday computing a better experience.

Deal With RSS Feeds Productively
RSS Feeds could end up consuming a lot of time if they are not managed well. Our posts on avoiding RSS overload and getting good with Google Reader should help.

Use a Good Password Manager
A password manager can speed up the task of registering on sites and creating strong passwords. You should definitely start using one of these 8 amazing password managers.

Get a Good Startpage
A well crafted startpage can help you start off the day productively by letting you take care of multiple tasks from a single page. Try one of these 6 startpages and see how it pans out for you.

Be More Productive At Online Shopping
Shopping - even if it's online - could be one of the most unproductive exercises during a 24-hour period. And it's not usually avoidable either. We can't stop buying, can we? But we can be better (and faster) at it for sure.

Delegate Tasks Whenever You Can
Delegating tasks you are not good at (or you don't enjoy doing) can be a big time saver. Granted it's not easy but there's no harm in trying. Start with these four steps we talked about previously.

Make Use Of Your Offline Time
Are you one of those who can't figure out what to do if your internet is down? I don't blame you. We are just too hooked to the world wide web these days. But offline time can, and should be utilized. You can do a number of productive things during that time.

Don't Multitask
If you remember my productivity myths article, the very first myth I talked about was about the belief that multitasking works. I don't think it does. Save time by not doing it.

Declutter Your Home and Your Life
Decluttering your home and office can help you find things quickly when you need them. Eliminating unnecessary possessions also helps to clear your mind about what exactly you need and when you need them.

Get Things Done With Your Mobile Phone
It's hard to differentiate a computer from a mobile phone these days, at least in terms of functionalism if not the look and the hardware. Hence it'll be good to learn how to get the maximum out of your cellphone, and use it productively.

Use Twitter and Facebook productively
Last but not the least, we've got two social sites that could turn out to be the biggest time suckers - Twitter and Facebook. You might not be able to stop yourself from using them but you could certainly try and become an expert at using Twitter and be more productive on Facebook.

Cheers,

Abhijeet

Written on 4/25/2011 by Abhijeet Mukherjee. Abhijeet is a blogger and web publisher from India. He loves all things tech as long as it aids in productivity. He edits Guiding Tech, a blog that publishes useful guides, tutorials and tools. Check it out and subscribe to its feed if you like the site. You can also find him on Twitter.

Photo Credit: svofski

How to Find Time For Yourself

Today our lives are busier than ever before. Our time is pressed by career, family, friends and sometimes even the things we took on as being “for me” become a chore that saps our precious time. I mean, while your iphone addiction may be considered 'a break', is it really relaxing and does it really do anything to recharge your batteries? Doubtful.

So how do we successfully take time out for ourselves? Where can we look for those little nuggets of time in a world of perpetual task lists? It sounds simple but we all know it's not. Here are some tips for addressing issues related to the time in our lives and some advice to help you find some time for yourself in your hectic schedule.

Complete a Time Audit
It might sound silly but we often actually don’t know where our time goes. Over the course of a normal week, make an attempt to keep track of what you do with your time. Carry a small notebook and check your watch when you start different tasks at home and at work.

What were the surprises? Do you spend an inordinate amount of time checking emails, responding to phone calls, completing tasks you thought were a minor part of your workload? Try to think about why these things take longer than you thought they would. Are you completely focused on them or, because they are minor tasks, are you doing something else at the same time? As we’ve been aware for a while now, multitasking is not always the best way to go.

If tasks take longer in reality than you expected or allowed for, you will always feel as if you are behind schedule and ‘playing catch-up’. Knowing where your time goes is the first step to finding some time for yourself.

HINT: Allow more than enough time for tasks, including driving to and from various places. Use your audit results and be realistic about the time you’ll need to complete tasks. If it suits the way you work, use your audit results to create a timetable or schedule for your day and don’t forget to include coffee breaks and downtime in your plan.

Complete a Priorities Audit
This will work in conjunction with you time audit to help you determine whether you are spending your time on the things that are actually most important to you.
- Start by brainstorming all the commitments you spend your time on (use your time audit to help you) including your spare time.
- Check your list and see if there’s anything missing eg. it’s important that you visit your great aunt every month but your time audit wasn’t completed in the week that you have you visit.
- Rank your commitments in order of importance.
- Compare the ranking with your time audit – you have to be a little flexible here. For example, ‘work’ may rank down your list a little but take up a huge amount of time, you need to take into account the fact that without work many of the leisure time commitments are not possible. Of course, make sure to acknowledge and address whether the time commitment required by you job is worth it.
Plan a Break
Plan breaks in your daily schedule but also in your leisure time. We sometime fill our weekends with as much socializing or home duties as possible because our hectic working lives leaves little time during the week to chat with a friend, catch up for a coffee or get the clothes washed. When we pack our lives so fully, we leave no down time and we tend to feel as if we are rushing from one thing to another – from work to drinks with friends to a dinner out to a family birthday…

Regularly (perhaps once a month or two) block out a weekend in your diary or calendar. Give it a title like “My Time” or “VIP Weekend”. Don’t accept invitations on these weekends. And don’t wait for a free weekend to present itself because last minute invitations can easily swallow up your time or, if you do actually get the weekend to yourself, you’re not ready for it. In your scheduled time off from your life, plan something that you want to do. Spend the weekend catching up on some reading, watching some DVDs, wandering around a market, gardening, playing in the park with your kids… whatever it is that you will enjoy and will make you feel as if you have used your time in a decadent manner. You’ll feel more refreshed and ready for your working week if you’ve actually treated yourself and allowed yourself the time you need to start feeling human again.

In summary, know your time usage; know your priorities; and plan time for yourself. You’ll be more productive in the long run and, besides, you’re worth it!

Written on 4/2/2011 by Deb Wain. Deb is a freelancer writer, poet, short story author and marriage celebrant. You can read more of her work or find out more about Deb’s weddings.

Photo Credit: Public Domain

Why Punctuality Matters - and How to Be On Time

Do you often find yourself running late? Perhaps it's been a life-long problem – at college, you were always sloping into class five minutes after the professor had begun. It might not have mattered too much then ... but in the working world, punctuality is crucial.

If you're habitually late for meetings, if you miss deadlines, if you're often late for work, then you're going to be killing your chances of promotion – and even putting yourself in line for dismissal.

You might be an intelligent, creative person with a ton of skills and experience. And in some countries, where time-keeping isn't seen as very significant, your lateness wouldn't matter at all. But if you live in the West (or work with a number of Western clients), it's really important. Because if you're always late, you're giving people the impression that:

You're disorganized and careless – you can't get yourself together to set off on time.
You're self-centered – you're keeping people waiting for you.
You're a liar. You said, "I'll email you by Wednesday" – and you didn't get in touch until Friday, not even to explain the delay.
You're stupid (or, at best, far too optimistic). If "traffic was bad" is your excuse every morning, people will wonder why the heck you can't just plan for it.

Now, these things might all seem very harsh and unfair. Chances are, they're not true of you at all. You probably have good intentions, but end up being late because you have poor time-management habits. But your bosses and clients are inevitably going to judge you on appearances. If the first impression they have is that you can't even show up on time, will they really trust you with an important project?

So, punctuality matters. A lot. And once you realize that, it's an easy thing to get right.

Being On Time (Always)

There are plenty of little tricks that you can use to show up on time. Try these six for starters:

Aim to arrive ten minutes early
Take a book or some work with you, so that you've got something to do before the meeting (or whatever) begins. It's much better to be early and relaxed than late and stressed!

Allow for delays
If you're traveling in rush hour, you know that traffic's going to be bad. If you're taking the kids to grandma's, you know it will take a while to get them all into the car. Don't be hopelessly optimistic; just give yourself an extra half hour.

Cut yourself some slack
When you're agreeing to a deadline or giving an estimate, build in a bit of slack. You might be fully confident that you can complete that report in two days, but what if something unexpected crops up? Ask for three days (and, if you can, make yourself look good by finishing a day early.)

Be more organized
How often have you been late because you forgot your keys and had to hunt the house for them? Or because you had to turn back and get that vital document which you left sitting on the coffee table? Keep your keys, phone and wallet in a consistent place. Get your meeting materials together the day before.

Don't get distracted at the last minute
Have you ever checked your emails right before heading to a meeting, "just in case"? It's far too easy to get distracted and leave it too late to get there on time.

Set an alarm to remind you when to stop working
If you have a meeting at 11am and it's a half-hour drive to get there, set an alarm or reminder for 10.15 so that you've got time to stop work, grab your stuff and get there with a few minutes to spare.

You'll probably have some of your own favorite ways to be on time – some people swear by putting their watch forwards 10 minutes, for instance. Even if you're habitually late, I'll bet that you can be prompt when you need to. How do you do it? Share your tips in the comments...

Written on 3/4/2011 by Ali Luke. Ali writes a blog, Aliventures, about leading a productive and purposeful life (get the RSS feed here). As well as blogging, she writes fiction, and is studying for an MA in Creative Writing.

Photo Credit: manwithface

How to Know When to Quit

How would you feel if someone called you a "quitter"?

My guess is – not good. You might feel hurt, guilty or upset. You almost certainly wouldn't feel proud of yourself.

Quitting gets a bad rap. We're often encouraged, from an early age, to stick with our projects at all costs – even when we're totally fed up. You might have come across quotes like Napoleon Hill's "A quitter never wins and a winner never quits."

Frankly, that's nonsense. Lots of successful people achieve their real goals by knowing when to quit. You could waste years of your life beating your head against a brick wall – when the real way forwards was to quit, and start something new.

I like the way W.C. Fields puts it:

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There's no use being a damn fool about it.

So how do you know when to try again – and when to quit? Here are four warning signs that make quitting a perfectly valid option.

You Just Wish It Was Over
Maybe you're engaged in a long project – like studying for a degree, or working in a particular career. If all you can think about is the day when you'll finally graduate from college, or finally retire, then it's worth thinking about whether this is the right course for you.

Almost every project we undertake will have some less-than-fun moments. But if you're working towards your real goals, the process will generally feel worthwhile and interesting.

There's No End in Sight
Do you feel as though you're going round in circles? Perhaps you're slogging away in a particular job, but it's become clear that you're not going to get that promotion you hoped for. Maybe you've been working on a novel for the past five years, but you're not really getting anywhere nearer to "finished".

Of course, not everything we do has an end point – and that's fine, so long as you enjoy what you're doing. But if you're thoroughly fed up, think about whether there's an end point which you can reach or not. It's probably worth sticking out your final year in high school so that you can graduate – but it's not worth staying in a job you hate if there's no route forwards.

You're Not Gaining Anything New
If you've been engaged in one particular project for a while, are you still getting anything out of it – or has it just become a habit? I've given up a magazine subscription that I used to enjoy, because I was finding that the articles were very beginner-focused – and I'd moved on from that stage.

You might consider quitting:

Particular groups or classes where there's nothing new to learn
Hobbies which you used to enjoy but have lost interest in
A job which was once exciting but now feels stale

Your Priorities Have Radically Changed
What was right for you five years ago – or even one year ago – might not be a good fit now. Various life events may have seen your priorities change: perhaps you've started a family – or your kids have left home.

If you took on a particular project, goal or hobby in the past, it's worth considering whether it's still something that you want as part of your life. You might, for instance, quit an expensive hobby so that you have more money to spend on your growing family – or you might leave a hectic job in order to have more time with your aging parents.

There is absolutely no shame in quitting. In fact, it can take a lot of maturity and bravery to stand up and say "I quit".

If there's something in your life that's holding you back, what's your first step towards quitting it?

Written on 10/27/2010 by Ali Hale. Ali writes a blog, Aliventures, about leading a productive and purposeful life (get the RSS feed here). As well as blogging, she writes fiction, and is studying for an MA in Creative Writing.