Don’t Ruin the Lives of Others with Bad Time Management

We all know someone who drives us crazy because they are extraordinarily bad at time management. They commit every time management sin imaginable. He off she is always late, does everything last minute, doesn’t plan at all whatsoever, and somehow it becomes your responsibility to fix everything and it’s your fault when something falls through the cracks. This can be the case with a boss, a close friend or family member, a team member, a co-worker, etc. The things we do rarely effect just ourselves so it is important to understand how what we do effects those around you. In the case of bad time management practices, below are just a few ideas that I have have come up with.

1. You stress others out. Poor planning on your part means those who you manage have to rearrange their priorities while they already have a busy schedule. This means things that were going to do won’t get done as planned and they will be more stressed out and aggravated. There are emergencies in life and that is understood, but there is an urgency several times a week, especially due to poor planning, those around you will be frustrated.

2. Momentum is interrupted. Every company, family, and individual performs better when there is a pattern and a momentum going on. When this is interrupted, everything may get off track and is not at an optimal level anymore. A decreased level of productivity often results in frustration and aggravation because people are not reaching the things they are seeking to achieve.

3. Unintended consequences. Things in life ripple out, one things effect another and we don’t usually have a way to see this until it may be too late. Not everything is predictable, and for example say an employee is overwhelmed and stressed because of many urgent demands over the past months, many of which resulted from poor planning. The employee becomes openly frustrated and lowers the morale in general, and then possibly good employees go looking for work in another company, and that can ripple out further. That is just an example, but we should be aware of possible unintended consequences.

4. You don’t get what you are looking for. People will get frustrated with you if you manage your time poorly and it negatively effects them as well. If they are working for you, they will likely end up not doing their best work. The same with a friendship or relationship or whatever else. If we continually manage our time so poorly that we miss commitments that are important to others, stress out the lives of our employees, or end up performing work poorly and miss important deadlines that will frustrate our bosses and managers, then we will not get the results in life we are desiring. There are countless examples of this, here are just a few

   1. Loss of a job because of poor performance

   2. Failing or doing poorly in a class because of poor performance

   3. Losing a friend or a relationship because we miss our commitments

   4. Upsetting a child by missing a commitment

   5. Letting down your parents by not doing what you are saying

There are so many ways to annoy others by managing our time poorly. This can be destructive to ourselves and those around us. While we never can be perfect at managing our time, we can always do better. If it is something we don’t prioritize in our life, it will most likely suffer. It may be a skill that some people can do better than others, but we must remember the importance of managing our time to the point that we can function and that the lack of it doesn’t hinder us. 

How to Identify Wasted Time

There are several ways to waste time, and many of us are well aware of how and when we are wasting time. There are a lot of obvious ways to determine we are wasting time. Most of us spend too much time on activities that we don’t really need to. More often that not, it is not something that we consciously wake up and do. We don’t wake up and plan to spend two hours watching random videos on YouTube, scrolling your Facebook timeline for 15 minutes, or end up doing a low priority task that may not even need to get done at all. We all fall in the trap occasionally, and sometimes we are aware and other times we are not. The solution is simple for the time wastes that we are aware of. You just need to consciously decide to not waste time doing those activities as much. What you need to be aware of are the time wastes that sneak in. Here are a few tricks on how to identify these things.

1. Watch the little things. You need to pay attention to the little things, you need to pay attention to the activities that you end up wasting much more time than you would expect. Remember that 5 minutes here and there can add up to much more quickly than expect. Five minutes three times a day is an hour and 45 minutes a week, which is 91 hours a year!

2. Remember the dangers of distraction. You are not just losing the five minutes each time you go to do the activity, remember that you also lose the time that you spend getting back to the activity that you were doing before.

3. Pay attention to your momentum. Remember that it is not only the distraction that will cost you more time than you would want, but also loss of momentum that can add up to even more lost time. When you have a positive momentum on a task, you are getting much more done than you would if you just working in spurts. Even worse is disrupting that momentum.

4. Do you really need to be doing this? You should get in the habit of questioning everything that you do. If you answer yes, then keep doing it, even though it may not be something that you want to be doing. In this case it is probably something that you have to be doing. Now if you answer no, find out why. More often than not, we can find a few things that we don’t need to be doing at all. This is the low hanging fruit of cleaning up your schedule.

There are plenty of ways to waste time, there are no ends to the options we have now a days. While the path to wasting time may appear enticing, we need to understand that the costs outweighs the benefits. Therefore, it is worth putting forth the effort in searching out ways on which your time may be slipping through the cracks. Please let me know your thoughts and if there are any methods that you personally use to identify how time slips away from us.

How to Avoid Getting Off Track During Breaks

The first day back from a vacation, holiday weekend, or even a regular weekend can be a drag. Actual results may vary based on how long you have been gone and what you need to be doing. Often on the first day back from a long break, we are off track and are not in the flow. There are many reasons for this. The main reasons is that we get out of a routines on our day off. We may stay up and wake up later than we normally do, we do activities that we don’t normally do, and we don’t do activities that we normally do. While there are ways to get back on track after we return, even better is a way to keep us from getting as far off track. This is more like the prevention rather than waiting until you need the cure. Here are a few tips that I try to use, that would really help.

1. Keep you bed time and wake up time rather consistent. Ideally, you can go to the bed the same time every day and wake up the same time every day. I do know people who somehow can do this; however, so far in my life that has never been me. Oddly enough, I can function quite well early and also very late. In the last week alone I have been up as early as 3:53 AM and up as late as 1:25 AM (and only two days apart!) and I was fine, but I would not recommend this be a regular thing and for me this last week has been unusual. Pick a time that is best for you and that is actually obtainable. If you have evening commitments, don’t try for a time that is too early. 

2. Have a morning and evening routine. Find things that you do every day and make it a regular routine. This way even on weekends, holidays, and vacations you will be in a pattern with some sort of normalcy regardless. This alone will make it easier to stay in the groove. 

3. Pick a routine that is sustainable. Very often a reason we do go off track the first opportunity we have is because the regular routine we have is not sustainable for us. It may not involve enough activities that we enjoy, so when we do have free time, we jump ship and binge on whatever we feel like doing. 

4. Be as balanced as you can. While I do believe in work life balance, I am going to take it with a different approach. For one thing, there will never be a perfect balance of work, life, and anything else. There are needs that arise in any category in our life that will require more attention at the moment. For example, big project at work or a product launch for your business will raise the priority for work, a family emergency or a major event like a new baby will make family a higher priority than other times in your life. If you do take an average of everything, by the end of your life the hope is that everything balanced out in a reasonable matter that you lived a meaningful yet productive life.

I hope everyone has enjoyed their Thanksgiving time. Even if you did not have a full weekend, it was still likely a shift in your routine and there was most likely a need for a course correction and a need to get back on track. Also, take note that you are not alone in this either and part of the reason you may feel off track is that everyone around you is also out of it and trying to get back on track as well. After all, this is why Mondays have a bad rap after all. Please let me know your thoughts on this and if you have experienced getting off track after time off and how long it took to get back into it as everyone does experience it differently.

Being Thankful for Efficient Strides

We all have a lot to be thankful for. As we approach Thanksgiving, this is an excellent time to be thankful. Although, it is good for us to be thankful all the time, Thanksgiving is extra special because we know that we can join many others in being thankful. There are plenty of things we can be thankful in our life, even when we are in a tough time in our life. If we stop and think we can all find several things to be thankful for. This post will focus on time management and productivity and how we can be thankful for the progress we have made to become more efficient and get more done. Here are just a few things we can look at and be thankful for our progress. 

1. We can be thankful for our progress. This is an easy one to do because everyone can do this one. It has nothing to do with where we begin, but however with where you as an individual came from. Also take note that you don't have to compare yourself to anyone else but rather only to yourself. It can be easy to look at where we haven't seen results yet, but it takes just as much effort to be thankful.

2. We can be thankful for our efforts. Anything that we did to make our lives more efficient has brought us closer to the life that we want and the place that we want to be. 

3. We can be thankful for our when things go right. Things do not always go right, but they do sometimes. When we make a schedule, a time budget, and/or a goal, when we do come close, achieve, or even exceed what we set out to do, it calls for us to be thankful.

4. We can be thankful for time to rest, relax, and enjoyment. I hope this week brings you time to rest, relax, and enjoy yourself. As I have discussed the value of taking breaks in the past, this is one of those times to take advantage of that opportunity. If your schedule does not allow you to do much of that this week as I know the holidays can be hectic, there are still times when you can .

As we come to the holidays, I hope we all can continue to be as efficient as possible, but still have time to rest and enjoy yourselves. It is important as we do come into this time of the year, we do not go too far off track of our goals, schedules, time budgets, and plans. To all, I am thankful to have you as a reader and I hope you have a wonderful thanksgiving.

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Developing a Pattern of Productivity

There are all kinds of patterns in life. We have patterns for all the different activities we do. Many people have a standard workweek, working from Monday through Friday with the same start time and end time. Many of us have regular activities that we attend to on the same day of every week. We may have a night out with friends, activities we do with family, chores, and even our leisure activities are on some kind of pattern. Our routine is our pattern. However, like anything in life, things don't stay the same forever and they need to be updated and revised. We don't want to let our routines get stale. We have a greater tendency to get off track when our routines get stale. The good news is that there are things we can do when we get off track and we can get into a productive pattern.

1. Switch things up. Whenever something gets stale and is no longer living up to it's purpose, it is time for a switch. There is no need to keep something that is not working.

2. A complete schedule overhaul. Sometimes you can switch just a few things up, other times it is better to totally switch up your routine. There are times we should start from scratch with our schedule.

3. Try A/B Testing. A/B Testing is where you try things out two different ways. You can make two routines and try both and see which one works out better.

4. Take a break in general. You may just be worn out. Taking a break and getting back to your routine is a good way to test if your routine is wearing you out. There will be adjustments necessary if you do determine this is the reason why. Although, there should be breaks in general - breaks throughout each day, week, month, and year. 

It is easy to get caught up in a pattern that is not productive and not-optimal. This is why we should review our routines on a regular basis. This is why I review my routine often. I am in the process of doing this right now as I will be doing a new job soon. I am going to practically do an overhaul of my existing schedule and I will be getting up and going to bed earlier and following a more consistent schedule. If you have any ideas for future topics that you would like me to blog about. Please let me know your thoughts and suggestions. As always, thanks for reading.

Getting Back on Track after Derailment

Have you ever gotten off track of schedule? How many times have you decided to give up for the day, week, month, or even year and mark it up as a loss? We then get in an argument with ourselves about how we will do better next time and we can start again on Monday, at the beginning of the month, and an all time favorite for everyone which is the beginning of the year. We do not necessarily have to stop and give up when we get off track. We can make a decision to get right back on track as soon as we discover. For some reason, this is much harder than it sounds though. We set out with a bunch of ambitious goals and we fail to achieve them because we got too busy with something or got taken off track by something else. It can often be easy for us to lose track of what we should be doing and there are several ways to help us remember what we need to be doing. We could use a course correction fo what we need to do and get back to where we need to be. Here are a few ways to do this.

1. Look back at your schedule. If you made a schedule and even more so if you made a detailed schedule, you should be be able to get right back on track by making a few tweaks to account for the detour.

2. Make a new schedule. It is very possible that the reason you got off track is that your schedule wasn’t working. You may have schedule too many things, or too few things for the schedule to be effective.

3. Schedule breaks in. Perhaps you have gone away from your schedule because you lost focus and took a break. Maybe you got lost on the internet and social media for an hour and realize that you were off track after that. You could just schedule these things in that way you have a better expectation to stop when time is up. Of course, this takes discipline and is not guaranteed to work.

4. Keep track of the times you go off track. Keep some kind of record of times you find yourself not sticking to your plan and look for trends and find out the reasons why.

5. Don’t beat yourself up. I used to get upset when I didn’t follow my schedule completely and when I got off track. Realize that life is always going to be inconsistent and there will always be things that happen out of our control to take us off track.

So you see that if you get a bit off track, there is no need to throw your whole schedule in a waste basket. It is always better to start again now rather than later. Remember, the longer you stay off track, the longer you will be off track. In addition, it will only be harder to get back on track when you need to. So get back on track now

A Spooky Tale of Poor Productivity

This post is going to be a bit different. Every once in a while I like to write a post that makes a reference to the season of the year. We are around the time of year where people like to be spooked and scared, and several people celebrate Halloween. While I'm personally no fan of horror movies; however, I have seen several "horror" time management situations in my life. Just for fun, I'm going to list a few scenarios that will provide a reminder of time management and productivity gone wrong, and even so what happens when these things are absent. It can get quite scary when you don't have good time management or productivity in place, and can last much longer than a single day or month of the year. So be prepared to be spooked, and hopefully scared straight into better productivity methods! 

1. Scenario #1. You are in school. You committed to be part of too many activities and have a ton of assignments to do. You did not plan ahead and barely looked at syllabus for each of your courses. Midterms are quickly approaching and you also have a paper due and a team presentation coming up after that. You understood that these assignments were due in a couple of weeks or even a month away so you were completely down with relaxing, hanging out with friends, and doing whatever else you could imagine other than studying. Now three of your midterms are next week and you just about did the assignments with out any studying. You are now forced to stay up most of each night and pretty much give up all of your activities that you enjoy because you have to keep your grades up. To add insult to injury, you have realize that your paper that you thought was due in two weeks on the 19th, is actually due tomorrow, on the 9th. Apparently, you made a typo.

2. Scenario #2. You are at a stressful jobs with tons of different things that need to be done and they need to be done now. Your to do list already has 100+ items on it and it is growing by the minute. It is a task in itself just determining the priorities for the next hour. There are tasks that come all different directions and you are so busy and you can't seem to get caught up. It is not only the quantity of the tasks, but also what you have to do to get things done. There is communication required in many different ways means with all kinds of emails and communications and it is very easy to track of where you are in each of the processes. You have tried all kinds of methods to get the job done the best you can, and you seem to be buried beneath and are not able to get out from under the mountain of work. On top of that you are doing something that you are not good at and don't enjoy. Someone else is more suited for this work than you are.

3. Scenario #3. You have plans with friends that you made several months ago and you committed to. You never made note of these plans therefore you completely forgot about them and got caught up with the rest of your busy life. Your more last minute friends invited you to do something on the same day. To make matters worse, what you committed to last minute is something you'd rather do than what you committed to months ago and it would definitely hurt the feelings of your friends you committed to the first time. You are also going to not look good to the new commitment either by double booking yourself. You have made this a habit and have double booked yourself several times and everyone you know is getting annoyed with this. You are now in a lose-lose situation.

So after reading these "spooky" scenarios, grab some candy and consider the source of the problem. The common thread in these scenarios is a failure to plan ahead and really account for your time and schedule. In the college scenario, there was no planning for each course our realizing how large the commitment to the activities would be. There was additional carelessness in planning regarding the courses and how much work was actually involved. There was even more carelessness in mistaking the date of the paper that was due. A lack of planning and carelessness is also involved in the job scenario. While there may be issues with management and maybe your boss is unreasonable and expects too much to be done, but it is your responsibility to understand what kind of job you are getting into at first and also on understanding the tasks that need to be completed before you commit to doing them. While I am talking about commitment, the whole problem in the social scenario is that you have a bad habit of over-committing yourself and saying yes too often. And again, carelessness plays a role in here. The painful situations can be avoided by these five quick take-a ways.

1. Always keep a schedule, even if it not that detailed, always have an awareness of what you have to do and when you have to do it

2. Plan ahead, never just live day to day and make plans haphazardly

3. Maintain priorities, and make sure you are doing what you need to be doing

4. Pay attention to what you are doing! Again, don't go through life haphazardly. Realize that what you do doesn't only impact you, but those around you whether it be your classmates, boss, co-workers, family, or friends

5. Take your life seriously, now not too seriously to the point that you get anxious or sick, but still enough so that you are true to yourself and true and honest to others. Commit to things that are the most authentic to you, and not to everything that you can think of.

I hope you enjoyed this different post and are enjoying the fall weather and the upcoming holiday season. If anything like me, you are probably having just as much a hard time as I am realizing that 2018 is already almost over! Please let me know your thoughts and any suggestions that you may have. 

The Value of a Clear Mind

Have you ever tried to do something late at night when you were really tired? Then wake up the next morning and do the same thing? You can probably quickly determine which worked better for you. If you try to do something without having a clear mind, you will end up wasting much more time than you should. As I have said in previous blog posts, it is very important to do things at the time that works best for you. Here are a few ways to have a clear mind.

1. Do not multitask. Do not try to multitask much of anything. If you are trying to do something that requires your mind, it should be dedicated all to itself. For example, watching TV and reading should never happen at the same time, you will either focus on the TV or the book, or neither. The only time multitasking can work is like doing something like walking and listening to music or a podcast. This is OK because you do not need to concentrate on how to walk, so you can do that automatically while you dedicate your mind to the podcast content you are listening to.

2. Be aware of when you are too busy. When you are very busy, you tend to be scatterbrained. You are not able to focus on much of anything and your mind is not clear. It's best to regroup and sort out what your priorities at the moment should be. I have seen countless instances where I could not get much done because I could not focus due to be stretched in too many directions.

3. Take a break from the activity. Sometimes you just need to do something else to get your focus back on track on the activity you are doing now. Work on another project for a little or do a few quick easy tasks to build productive momentum.

4. Do something fun. When your mind is not clear and you can't seem to get things done the way you are supposed to be, it is time to do something you enjoy and have fun. Sometimes you have to stop working for a bit, switching activities may not work. Getting your mind off of what you were doing can often allow you to come back with a clear mind to the task

5. Take care of yourself. To have a clear mind, you also have to be in good health, eating the right foods, having enough sleep, getting proper exercise, etc.

There are plenty of times when we are not functioning with the clearest mind that we could have. This is when we need to realize that and try to find a better time to do the activity we are working on. Although sometimes we won't be able to make any switches to our schedule and we have to do the activity at the time we are doing it. Most of the time, there will be things we can do to make our schedule work out and do the tasks at the best time.

What Wasting Other People's Time Tells About You

I’ve once been on an interview for a job that turned out to be a complete waste of my time. I drove 30 minutes to get there, waited about five minutes after my interview start time to get called in (that in itself was not that bad considering I’ve waited as long as 45 minutes for interviews to start). That wasn’t the problem though but rather was that the interviewer answered a phone call during the interview and then completely forgot what we were talking about. This was only to be followed up with a rude, abrupt ending to the interview because I was not experienced enough. This was something that could have been determined well before I was contacted and brought in for an interview. Everything was on my resume! This kind of behavior tells you about a person. More often than not, if someone doesn’t value other people’s time, they don’t value their own time either. Do yourself a favor and avoid these type of people if possible. 

Now that we are done pointing the finger, let’s take a look at ourselves. How do we know if we are the type of person that is wastes someone else’s time? There are a few ways to tell. People may tell you or hint at it. You may realize it on your own from time to time as well. You may be completely unaware of it. We all end up wasting someone else’s time on occasion, just we all waste our time. Some examples of wasting others time are

1. Being late to a meeting or appointment

2. Not listening in a conversation

3. Not focusing on what you are doing with the other person or people

4. Distracting others who are trying to focus

5. Being unreasonable

I am sure there are plenty more ways to waste other people’s time. However, let’s now focus on what we can do to be more aware of how we treat other people’s time.

1. Know the person. Do your best to know who you are dealing with. There are certain things that would be a waste of time for everyone. However, some people will consider some things worse than others. What is a waste of time to someone may not be to someone else! Someone may freak out if you are 1 minute late, and with someone else you can be 15 minutes late and still wait for them!

2. Take hints. If you think someone is annoyed with something you did; for example, like running slightly late (5 minutes or less) to a meeting, Take a mental (or maybe even a physical or electronic) note on how each person behaves regarding things like that.

3. Apologize. If you even think that maybe something you did could have perceived as wasting their time, apologize just in case.

4. Take inventory. Take a personal inventory of how you spend (or waste) your own time, and this will give you a clue on how it can possibly affect others.

5. Strive for improvement. Strive to improve yourself always, so that you way you benefit not only yourself, but those around you as well. 

It is excellent to care about how we spend others time as well because how we treat others is a reflection on us. Just like we would want people to respect our time, we should respect each other’s time.

Identifying High Value Activities

A lot of us are busy. Sometimes we are so busy, we have no idea what we are doing that’s actually moving the needle and has value and what doesn’t. Rememer that the busier you are does not equate to you being more productive. If you work 80 hours a week, you many not be doing any better than 60 hours or less a week. If you just keeping yourself busy, I’m going to go out and say that you are probably not even being all that productive. While “busy” and “productive” are not antonyms, they are not necessary synonyms either. It is time to take a minute and reflect on how valuable the things your doing are. Here are just a few points to consider in doing so.

1. Get all of your activities in one place. Whether you do this on paper, in an spreadsheet, or in an application, be sure to get everything you are doing in one place.
2. Create a point system for each activity. Use whatever point system you want, I’d recommend 0 to 10.
3. Multiply the amount of time of each activity by the point score. This could be based on your time budget at first. However, this should be based on your actual activity that you get from tracking your time. This could be down to every single thing you do or more broad to just a few main activities. Do what works best for you, and it is OK to change methods from time to time as well.
4. Keep a running score for regular set of period. This can be done daily, weekly, or even monthly. Just remember that months are different lengths so multiply by number of days and get an average per day.
5. Compare your score with your previous score. This can help encourage you to do the tasks that you determine the highest value by seeing a higher score as well. If you are the type of person that enjoys gamifying things, this is the ideal approach.

This is a great way to gauge how well you are spending your time. In addition to keeping a time budget and a detailed schedule, this can also help you gauge your time further. You can also assign points to your schedule or time budget and than compare your score to the actual. Please let me know if you have done anything like this before and what your thoughts on this are.