In a comment to last week's post on what (worries you) and why, Dan Naden wrote:
I am concerned about effectively managing my time. Focusing on the important sometimes gets shoved aside for the 'urgent'.
This is an issue we're all more all less wrestling with to one degree or another. Let's take a look at definitions and go from here:
Urgent - adj.
- Compelling immediate action or attention; pressing.
- Insistent or importunate: the urgent words "Hurry! Hurry!"
- Conveying a sense of pressing importance: an urgent message.
Important - adj.
Strongly affecting the course of events or the nature of things; significant: an important message that must get through; close friends who are important to me.
The first one gives the idea that our hair is on fire, that things could not possibly get done any faster. The second sounds more strategic. Could we add anything else?
Urgent is often a posthaste type of adjective, something that gets attached to a project, action item, piece of correspondence, phone call that says ― we have not planned for this contingency, or we failed to plan altogether. Urgent may be accidental, is time-driven, and imposed by someone else.
Hence the saying popular in corporate halls: your failure in planning does not constitute an emergency on my part.
Important matters, it makes a difference, thus not everything is important. There's no time limit for important, and it is something we decide and drive. Hence when we talk about doing important work, what we're saying is work that matters, that puts us in flow. Important is planned.
Time management is a balancing act, we'll probably never be able to push aside urgent for important. But we must work on making more of what we do fit under the important column. Important matters ― for a sense of accomplishment and to make a difference. So let's break it down in manageable chunks.
Commitments
This is where it starts for many of us. We think we're superman or something. We keep taking things on when we're already over committed to begin with. Planning is a key tool here. Base don how many waking hours we have in a week, we can start to focus on how much we want to get done.
But unless we plan to prioritize it, we won't get anything important done. We take valued projects, scope them out, then commit to a time line to get them done, scheduling time on the calendar to work on them. Then we hold ourselves to it. This is how we prioritize. Commitments are plans that get done.
Early on, I committed to posting on business and brand strategy through marketing and communications every day of the week, except Saturday. This is an example of making a specific commitment. We plan backing out from goals with a defined outcome we want to achieve.
Another example was my early Twitter strategy, including the weekly #kaizenblog chat. Because questions came up, I drafter an online participation philosophy to reference. Which introduces the role of clarity in communications with others and how it helps.
Weekends are good for finding chunks of time for research, interviews, outlining special projects, feature article writing, fine tuning site analytics, drafting speaking proposals and presentations. We can do a lot of reading while waiting, at bedtime, and if we need to do more, we should schedule it.
Energy levels
To manage energy levels it's a good idea to have systems and create habits rather than too many goals. Positive energy is the stuff that moves us into doing important work. When we learn to manage our energy levels we have fewer lows and more time in the productive zone. So that if the world bounces off us or we're under stress and everything seems to fall apart, our plans remain intact (we may have to be flexible on timing and circumstances.)
In the grips of stress we go to a different place. Our attitude takes a hit, and our approach starts to move dangerously close to the urgent zone. This is how we burn out ― physically and emotionally. Running on fumes is not a good idea for our health.
What do you do to get into the zone? Reading, running or physical exercise, listening to music, pausing to take a deep breath are all good ways to increase our energy levels. Some people have a happy place they go to, either physically or in their heads. Places don't have emotions, which means traveling light and putting the baggage down.
As Viktor Frankl wrote, “the last of human freedoms -- the ability to chose one's attitude in a given set of circumstances.”
Enthusiasm
Enthusiasm is quite helpful. There are days when we're not really feeling like it, but we can fake it until we do. Studies show that even smiling when we're down helps in lifting the mood. Once the mood is more upbeat, we can leverage momentum to keep it going.
Growing up there was this brilliant skit we used to watch on TV before commercials. Like all things simple and effective, it was brilliant. A line (La Linea, created in 1972 by Osvaldo Cavandoli) animated into a figure as in the image here. The line had a mixed relationship with its creator. Sometimes it would go along with what was thrown its way, sometimes it would complain.
But it was the laughing we loved. For some reason, all of a sudden, it would think of something and start laughing, vibrating all over from it. It even banged its fist on the line and rolled over from laughter. As we all know, laughter is highly contagious and we would start into it.
The creator built stories by drawing a horse, a fish, an the interruption in the line, another character, a bump, water, and so much more. The short adventures would always come out alright. The brilliance of having such a narrative device before commercials was that the enthusiasm and good mood from the skit prepared audiences to receive and absorb the messages.
It's a good lesson for us, because whenever an obstacle gets thrown our way and we remember to show enthusiasm for overcoming it, we redirect our energy to solving the problem rather than wasting precious time letting it get us down. We can plan to be in a good mood to get there.
Organization
This is core to planning. How we organize our time and our space to provide the optimal context for thinking and doing is quite helpful. Do we need a big desk to spread books, notes, and technology? My office desk is L-shaped, for example. Having a big surface to spread papers and ideas helps me do important work.
Writers and creators create daily goals. More specific is better. For example, write 1,000 words per day is better than write every day. The number of words we target helps us measure how we're doing.This is the building block upon which to determine when the writing takes place.
People with full time jobs set aside time before heading to work, if possible at lunch and/or dinner time. Routines are great for helping maintain the schedule. Thursday and Friday of current week are the days I plan for the following week. When writing for a highly active site, having monthly goals ― for topics, research, interviews, and so on is a good idea.
Some people use Evernote or other online tools to capture ideas. I use unlined Fabriano notebooks. It's useful to track where we are on projects, follow up, outbound and inbound inquiries and evergreen article ideas. When jotting down an idea, it's useful to add main thinking points and examples. This helps move the idea faster onto a draft.
Procrastination
When we're losing the battle with energy levels and enthusiasm, we start buying time. This technique will guarantee that we will need to take urgent action. Some people operate in this mode all the time. They can't get moving unless they know there's a dire need to do so ― when hair is on fire.
While this may work here and there, it gets old quickly because we do feel bad for not having done what we committed to do. I worked with a CEO who used to say that paper is like blood, we need to keep it flowing.
Inbox zero has become a popular movement online. On the other end of the spectrum, some people manage their attention rather than their inbox ― checking emails only at designated times/day or week. There's plenty of advice at both extremes. Focusing on the substance of communications, it's best to deal with the small stuff in batches quickly, and project plan the big stuff (as long as it fits our strategy.)
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Learning to say no to what or who is not a fit is a healthy way to focus on what's important rather than making someone else's priorities urgent to us.
Doing good vs. great work
Knowing when to say no is the beginning of freedom from commitments we did not make. Clarity helps separate what we're willing to do and what would only distract us and be trivial to our results. People asking for a quick minute of our time can snowball into a time sink.
For consultants, it's a good idea to have a policy that if something warrants our attention it should get billed. If it's very important to someone and doesn't fit our definition of good work, we should weigh whether it's even worth taking it on, for any price. Price focuses people on value, and compensates us for our time.
Good work starts with good planning. There's an inflation of hyperbole and hype. Good work is calm, organic, and planned. Good work is important.
UPDATE: after today's #kaizenblog Twitter chat, we learned about some tools that might help you stay on track. Check out the OmniOutliner, Mori, and RememberMilk.