When I teach time management I always say that you need to find the system that works for you. Franklin planners will never work for me, they are too structured and too much organization.
As a true ENFP, I am constantly refining how I organize my time in order to stay sane. I now carry a small notebook every where with me and take notes. SOMETIMES, I put a check box besides a TODO item so I can glance quickly back through my notebook and find TODOs.
This week I am trying something different. I bought myself some new colored pens, and each day I am switching the color of pen I use, in order to track which day was which.
Just now I was cleaning up my hard drive, and found a file named "Talent Plans" that would have been really helpful to find earlier this week, so I put it back where I naturally was looking for it. It will easier to work on my deliverable if it is there, but when I made that folder on my desktop, I thought it would simplify things. It DID NOT.
Another thing I tried this week with mild success is to write on my whiteboard, in RED, the strategic tasks and in BLUE the tactical tasks. My role requires me to work on more strategic things YEAH, so this helps me determine if I am working a majority of the time on the right things. It is helping with that measurement.
Time management is a constantly iterating process for me which matching my MBTI type. What I have put in place helps me order my life and somewhat fits into my preferences, but sometimes like with the Talent Plans folder, it trips me up.
Advice, find your system that fits your personality and stick with it, or in my case keep iterating and improving the one you have. Back to the RED items on my board.
2 comments:
I completely agree that different systems work for different people. I invested in a software program, and I use it, but I have to admit it doesn't work for me as well as pen and paper. I HAVE to go to the bank today to transfer money for my daughter's tuition payment that will come out of the bank account tomorrow. I have it in the software program. But I also have a big note on the island in my kitchen! And I set an iCal calendar alert, too. I'm currently reading "Master Your Workday Now" by Michael Linenberger for more strategies. He gives new techniques to help get control of the workday which, let's face it, gets busier than ever with fewer workers. One of the concepts is dividing tasks into four "urgency zones," to let you figure out what is really important, and avoid urgencies that aren't.
Just after I posted this, on our Quickbase Blog this came out
http://quickbase.intuit.com/blog/2010/03/03/dealing-with-interruptions-that-throw-your-planned-day-off-track/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+QuickBase+%28The+QuickBase+Blog+-+Get+More+Connected.+Be+More+Productive.%29&utm_content=Twitter
Post a Comment