Better Time Management Uses A “Do It Now” Technique

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Here’s a relevant quote by Susan L. Taylor:

We don’t have an eternity to realize our dreams,
only the time we are here.

Well, that’s a sobering thought, but that’s the reason you’re here today, to learn how to manage the time you’ve got. Recently, I talked about putting your To-Do List together. You know, with the priorities and all.

Now, here’s a little change I want to add. For better time management, I want you to add a Do It Now category to that list. Put it right at the top. This relates to a task that takes very little time. Would you like me to put a number to it? Okay. If a task will take less than 5 minutes, you’re going to do it now!

My Women in Business Tip of the Week gives you an added time management bonus.

Listen to today’s podcast here.

In a related podcast, you may want to listen to  A Busy Working Woman Needs To Prioritize Her To-Do List —Take These 5 Steps For A To-Do List That Keeps Your Priorities In Mind

Or on our website, WomensMedia, you may want to read Organizing: Time Management Learn 3 Must-Do Principles to Effective Time Management

Reverse Scheduling Works For Women In Business

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Be sure to visit our site, www.WomensMedia.com to get Expert Advice for Women in Business.

Here’s one of my favorite quotes. It’s by Marsha Evans.

You can have unbelievable intelligence, you can have connections, you can have opportunities fall out of the sky. But in the end, hard work is the true, enduring characteristic of successful people.

Do you need help overcoming procrastination? Are you late with business projects—are you late meeting arrival times? Here’s what works for a lot of people. It’s called the Reverse Calendar method. I first started using this technique when I needed to drive somewhere and arrive on time. I’ll admit, I was arriving late for lots of things, things you wouldn’t want to be late for. My kids were even getting annoyed. When it reached the critical stage, I was forced to plan ahead: What time do I need to be at my presentation? What do I need to pick up on the way? What do I need to drop off on the way? And what if I hit a little traffic?

Well, there’s something more important than driving: We need to talk about those business projects that are occupying the worry section of your brain. I’ll tell you the steps to follow for scheduling your project and then My Women in Business Tip of the Week gives you a bonus tip that will make the difference between your project being good or being great!

Listen to today’s podcast here.

In a related podcast, you may want to listen to How To Manage Your Project —Organize A Project With Five Easy Steps

Or on our website, WomensMedia, you may want to read 8 Tips for Fearless Communication in the Workplace

Consider 8 Aspects In Your Work-Life Balance

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Be sure to visit our site, www.WomensMedia.com to get Expert Advice for Working Women.

Balancing all aspects of your life is not about running harder and faster. It’s about realizing the following:

• There’s only a limited amount of time each day when you’re awake and functioning.
• It’s not good to concentrate on only one thing, such as work–you’d be neglecting family and friends.
• Perfection is not always good, and is often a waste of time.
• And, there are a number of areas where your attention is needed.

So what are the areas I need to consider when I’m trying to balance my life? It’s a big list. Here are the 8 that are on my list: Family, Friends, Work, Health, Spirituality, Giving Back, Being Selfish, and then there’s Trajectory—which I’ll explain in a minute.

 

 Balancing Work, Family, Friends And More : Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Take These 5 Steps For A To-Do List That Keeps Your Priorities In Mind

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Be sure to visit our site, www.WomensMedia.com to get Expert Advice for Working Women.

If you’re a working woman, chances are you want to be a success in your job and you want to

be a success with your family and your friends, and you want some time for yourself as well. Talk about a full bucket!

Well, there’s only so much time available in that bucket—we aren’t allowed to make it bigger. So the quantity of tasks we put into this bucket each day is limited. You know you could easily fill it tomorrow with any 1 of these categories:

• Job
• Family
• Friends
• Yourself

First, you need to know what works best for other working women. Our audience members at www.WomensMedia.com have tested our ideas and have saluted the one I’m about to tell you. Most of these women have agreed with us that they’re near a computer and would like to use it for their lists. We agree. This does make it nice and easy—and it looks good too! Aesthetics are important. Well, actions are too.

 

 A Busy Working Woman Needs To Prioritize Her To-Do List : Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Spending Time On Organization Is Time Well Spent!

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Be sure to visit our site, www.WomensMedia.com to get Expert Advice for Working Women.

Visual this: You have a clean desk, no clutter. Ahhh. Every drawer you open has tidy compartments. Nice. You know exactly where to go to find the most important To Do’s and where to go to find the most pressing Urgent To Do’s —they’re rarely the same items! How true.

I’m going to assume you have file drawers with labeled file folders in them. We’ll talk about that another time.

We probably all agree that a clutter-free desk would be great. How do we get there? Things that used to be recommended, such as an accordion file for things on hold, don’t make sense to me in an information-heavy environment. Also, forget about the advice of having an Input Tray that rapidly accumulates tons of paper. It gives me the feeling of having a non-specific, hard to look at file folder on my computer. We can do better than that! I’ll tell you how.

 

 Organizing Your Desk For Time Management Results : Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

By Delegating Tasks You Can Save Time And Boost Your Leadership Status

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Be sure to visit our site, www.WomensMedia.com to get Expert Advice for Working Women.

If you own the company and feel like making coffee, running the copier, and wiping smudges off windows, go ahead with the busywork. But if you work for others and you’re concerned that they may not view you as Leadership Material, drop these tasks as soon as you can.

In my Tip of the Week, I tell you how to bundle a Delegation Package that will save you time and will help develop a lower level employee while you’re at it!

 

 http://media.libsyn.com/media/womensmedia/WIH-leadership-and-delegation.mp3 : Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tackling Procrastination Is A Time Management Tool That Works!

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Be sure to visit our site, www.WomensMedia.com to get Expert Advice for Working Women.

First, admit that you are indeed procrastinating on a task or project.

Get out your To Do List. Take a look at each item and ask yourself, “Am I procrastinating on this? Maybe just a little bit?” If so, put a “P” in front of it and go to the next item. Now, look at your list. Do you have a “P” in front of items that should be of high priority? That’s bad, admit it. Don’t beat yourself up too much. You’re beginning a reframing process and you’ll be better after you put into action my Tip of the Week.

 

 Time Management and Procrastination: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

One Minute of Focus Is A Minute Well Spent

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Be sure to visit our site, www.WomensMedia.com to get Expert Advice for Working Women.

There’s one word I’m not going to use, because I’ll lose most of you at the start. Well, I guess I have to give you a hint: This is not about meditation. This is about something that Jon Kabat-Zinn, a stress management medical doctor and author, calls mindfulness.

If stress bombards you too long and too hard, you end up in a hospital, and that’s not where you want to be. Listen to my one minute solution to reducing stress.

 

 Reduce Stress With Mindfulness : Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Meetings And Other Time Drains At Work

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Be sure to visit our site, www.WomensMedia.com to get Expert Advice for Working Women.

In my blog posting, Work-Life Balance —Creating Boundaries For You To Follow, I talked about the priorities you have in your career and your personal life and the boundaries that you will follow. Today I’ll discuss the boundaries you can put in place for your fellow workers to follow. Now, won’t that be nice!

 

 Work-Life Balance Rules For Others To Follow [5:41m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Save Time By Reducing Multitasking

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Be sure to visit our site, www.WomensMedia.com to get Expert Advice for Working Women.

OK, so we can run on a treadmill, while reading our email . . . and talk on the phone at the same time. And if we see someone—at the edge of our peripheral vision—about to do something dangerous, we can take action. Somehow women evolved with a heightened ability to juggle attention.

As Martha Stewart might ask, “Is this a Good Thing?”  My answer is, “Not always.”  The American Psychological Association reports that new studies reveal the hidden costs of multitasking. There is a time loss when switching from one task to another, and the amount of time increases with the complexity of the task. If one of those tasks is fairly new, your time loss is much greater when you’re multitasking. See how you can reduce the multitasking time loss.

 

 Multitasking: A Gift Or A Curse? [6:03m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download