Here’s How You Can Stop Procrastination Fast!

by Nancy F. Clark (Follow her on Twitter)
Named one of Forbes: Thirty Women Entrepreneurs To Follow On Twitter

 

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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?

You know how it goes for driving. You pick your arrival time at your destination and add a little time cushion in case traffic isn’t cooperating. And here’s a tip, if you’re expecting a stressful day, do what I’ve started doing (now that I’m a reformed procrastinator), I add another time cushion that will relieve stress because when I arrive early, I can read something fun or something informative before going in. I take that along with me as an incentive. It’s my non-food reward. Hmmm, I bet the candy advertisers don’t want to hear that, but I guess the book-selling advertisers will support my thinking.

Well, we’ve taken care of driving, but we need to talk about those business projects that are occupying the worry section of your brain.

For a business project, you need to break it down into Discreet Steps, the smaller the better. Sometimes it’s a little step that fouls up your schedule, such as: Contact James about X.

Write down the date when the project needs to be completed. And now give yourself a cushion of a day or two, and write the date of this deadline as your Optimal Project Deadline. Won’t you feel good when you meet this deadline?

For each small step, write down how long it will take you to complete. Obviously, it’s called the reverse calendar method because you work backwards from this deadline, writing on your calendar when you’ll do each step that you’ve outlined. Scheduling the exact amount of time at the exact time of day, will do a lot toward overcoming procrastination—that is, if you obey your calendar. But, you’re going to do that, because you’re no longer a procrastinator! Ah, positive thinking feels good—Wayne Dyer was right.

My Women in Business Tip of the Week gives you an added bonus for your project. Now here it is.

Women in Business Tip of the Week:

Pick a project you need to tackle. Write down the name of this project to ensure that it’s the only one you’re going to think about right now. Give it a jazzy name, just for fun, or for more positive thinking! Follow the Reverse Calendar procedure, pick your Optimal Project Deadline, break the project into Discreet Steps, and schedule them (in pencil at this point) at exact days and times on your calendar.

Now here’s where I’m adding something that I believe will make your project turn out even better—a project bonus. I’m advising you to add an extra step to your list. You decide where to put this extra step—where it’ll make the most difference in whether your project is good or whether it’s great. For some projects, this will be at the beginning where time for creative thinking could pay off. For example, that creative thinking could lead you to run a quick survey to bolster your information. For other projects, this will be at the end where having another set of eyeballs doing the proofreading is important.

Add that bonus in. Doesn’t it feel good? You have a head start, and you know you have work to do. Now, get out there and do it!

—How Doing It Now Can Save You Time

by Nancy F. Clark (Follow her on Twitter)
Named one of Forbes: Thirty Women Entrepreneurs To Follow On Twitter

 

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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!

There’s one condition to this. Can you guess? I want you to quickly add this to your To Do List—at the top under the heading Do It Now. I know this takes a teeny bit of time, but there’s a reason. When you finish your Do It Now tasks, you can bask in your success. You can pat yourself on the back and tell yourself, “I am no longer a procrastinator!” Now there’s some good self-talk!

After this becomes a habit, you can drop writing down each task. Research shows that it takes approximately 21 days of doing something before it becomes ingrained as a habit. So, give it the 3-week challenge. If the self-talk congratulations are a welcome new positive attitude habit, then by all means, keep doing it. With a positive attitude, I think gold and silver will start landing on your doorstep. But we’re not concerned about that—we’re concerned about time.

My Women in Business Tip of the Week gives you an added time bonus. Now here it is.

Women in Business Tip of the Week:

I can give you a hint of the time bonus with just one word: Delegate. If you want specific information on delegation, go to the WomensMedia.com site and do a search for “delegation.” Your push from me this week is to carefully look over your To Do List and find one—merely one—task that you can delegate to someone else. It doesn’t even have to be someone in your own business. You could delegate a task to an outside vendor or service. If there’s cost involved, think about how much your time is worth to you. And remember the quote—you don’t have an eternity.

All you have to do is find one task. Pull out that To Do List, and find it and you’ll be on the road to better time management!

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

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Website, WomensMedia, by Lynea corson-Hadley, Not Reaching Your Goals Fast Enough?

Blog, Women’s Lunch Talk, by Nancy Clark, Time Management: You Can Organize Your Desk With These Easy Steps! An Organized Desk Will Save You Time Starting Today listen to it here.

Website, WomensMedia, by Lynea Corson-Hadley, Design Your Own Business Or Job
If you feel stuck in a job or career that doesn’t suit you, if you’re not happy and excited about going to work each day, maybe it’s time to make a change — because it doesn’t have to be that way.

For Time Management Keep Your Priorities In Mind

by Nancy F. Clark (Follow her on Twitter)
Named one of Forbes: Thirty Women Entrepreneurs To Follow On Twitter

 

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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

1. First, you need some research. 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.

2. Now you need to know how to format any item on your To-Do List. It can’t be something difficult to do in one sitting, like “Prepare the Marketing Report.”  You might have a file for the Marketing Report. If you’re one of those Super-Organized Women, you probably have an outline of the steps that need to be taken—and the steps are in order! Nah, I’m not one of those women either. So, just think about the Marketing Report and decide what is one physical action that should be taken first. It might be an action such as, “Email, phone, or visit Jan to get her data.” That’s still not quite right. You have to state the exact action you’re going to take—OK, OK, I’ll email her.

3. You remember those 4 categories I mentioned, Job, Family, Friends, and Yourself? (You might want to add others, such as Church, etc.) Well, start with each of these separately, putting To-Do items—just a few—under each. When you’re a working woman it’s tough to decide which category is more important—so don’t do that yet!

4. At the left of each item put:

• “H” for high priority
• “M” for medium priority, or
• “L” for low priority.

You have a column of priority levels, then tab over, and you have the tasks listed. Look over the items you’ve listed as High Priority. Now think about the direction you want your career to take. Are you missing a task that will lead you there? This only takes a minute, but it’s a minute you should give your To-Do List each day. Now put your tasks into priority order, and see why using a computer is so helpful.

Here’s the customization decision only you can make:  Do you want to see 4 categories on your To-Do List separately or do you want to lump them together? Either way, keep the total number of tasks low. You want this to be a Doable To-Do List for the day.

5. At the end of the day, put an “X” in front of the tasks you’ve completed. Congratulate yourself for doing a good—or pretty good—job! In fact, why don’t you give yourself a little reward? Why not? It reinforces this good behavior—and it adds to the “Yourself” category that’s probably not seeing much activity.

I have 2 Business Tips of the Week to give you. I know I’m going overboard.

Tip #1:

Working women use those computers! Is there a chance down the line that you’ll want to compile a list of completed tasks to show someone else? Or for your own use? In that case, save the file with the date and use the untackled tasks—don’t feel bad if there are some—to start the next day’s list. When you’re assigning the high, medium, or low priority to these reappearing tasks, add the letter to the front of the line. This way you can quickly see if you’re avoiding an item—there’ll be a double or a triple letter there. Ooow, sounds bad. You’re right; it’s not good. My advice is to uncover the problem. Is this something someone else should be handling? Is there an unpleasant side to this task that you need to commit to handling? What will happen if this task is never handled? Hmmm, maybe that’s an incentive.

Tip #2:

Here’s another customization decision you must make:  Do you think it will help you to put approximate times next to some of the items? For example:

• “I’ll do this before 11 am.” – or
• “At 2 pm I’ll drop everything else and I’ll do this task” – or
• “Before I go into the meeting I will do this. And I mean it!”

If so, put this in parentheses after the item. In fact, I list it in blue ink instead of black. Aesthetics, you know are important—almost as important as actions.

Now, go out there and act on your To-Do List. It’s a great stress reliever!

(on the podcast, I added a segment) If you’re one of those people who are really into self-improvement and want to compete with yourself—as I’m doing—here’s a bonus tip. At the end of each day, see how many tasks of each priority you’ve completed. For instance, if you finished 3 out 5 high priority items, write down 3/5 H, if you did all 4 of the medium priorities, put 4/4 M, and if you hit 2 out of 5 low items, put 2/5 L. Now put these fractions down on a chart and see how much you can improve!

Visit our website, www.WomensMedia.com, for Expert Advice for Working Women.

On our website, WomensMedia Expert Advice for Business Women you should read these excellent articles:

How to Succeed in Business by Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz

Self-Talk Your Way to a Stronger Self-Image by Dianne Schilling

Podcast (only about 5 minutes), Working in Heels, by Nancy Clark, A Female Brain Is A Good Brain —Can We Talk About A Female Brain Advantage? How About  “Equal.”
or read it here.

Blog, Women’s Lunch Talk, by Sharon Michaels, Do You Have the Traits of a Leader?
or listen to it here.

For quick updates for Business Women you should follow NancyFClark on twitter here.

An Organized Desk Will Save You Time Starting Today

by Nancy F. Clark (Follow her on Twitter)
Named one of Forbes: Thirty Women Entrepreneurs To Follow On Twitter

 

 Organize Your Desk for Time Management: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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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 this 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 recommend you handle every piece of paper as soon as it comes in. If it’s junk, make it invisible immediately—it goes into the trash. If it’s an item to deal with, make a note on your To Do List—and that list better be on the computer with its own desktop icon because it’s that important. Now, put the piece of paper into a file folder with associated items and into your file drawer in your office. If you don’t have an appropriate folder, now’s the time to label one. If you’re worried about memory lapses, put the name of the new folder next to the item on your To Do List. Now you can avoid that nagging But-I-May-Lose-It feeling. If the piece of paper could be dealt with by someone else, give it to them. If he or she is the type of person who may not take action soon enough, you can have an item on your To Do List, such as “Things I gave to Karen’s assistant” and put a date next to it. If she forgets to handle it, let her know you keep a list of things you give her with the date, and she may start doing your things first.

Wouldn’t you feel more efficient if you could file some of these papers in your computer? And wouldn’t it be even better if you threw away the now obsolete papers? Bask in that great feeling ‘cause that’s what you’re going to do. Scan that piece of paper and save it as a PDF file, or run it through an OCR program (optical character recognition) so it’s now a regular document. Save it on your computer in an easy to find file. Throw away the piece of paper. Pat yourself on the back!

I used to have a problem with Post-Its. I’d write a search phrase or the URL of a site I wanted to look up. These colorful bits of paper made my desk look archaic. Now, I stick the related bits onto one piece of typing paper. I should (and I will) put this into a file folder that stays near my computer. But there’s always something to work on. I haven’t done that yet.

My Business Tip of the Week covers another type of clutter that probably haunts your desk.

Also, be sure to visit our website, www.WomensMedia.com, for Expert Advice for Working Women.

Now here’s my Business Tip of the Week:

There’s one type of desk clutter I have that I haven’t mentioned, and it’s a biggie for me. There are a number of business books that publishers send to me to review, and there are a number of journals I receive that I like to read, and I should read. I can’t stuff them in a file drawer or pass them off to Karen’s assistant. I’ve decided they cannot reside on my clutter-free desk. I put a chair next to the desk, somewhat out of site, and that’s where the books wait for me. The journals go next to my purse, also out of site, where I can easily pick them up on my way out of the office. The ones that stay on the bottom too long are ready to be tossed.

On our website, WomensMedia Expert Advice for Business Women you should read these excellent articles:

Organize Your Filing Systems:  A Four-Step Formula That Really Works by Sally Allen

Five Cures for Busyness:  Are You Constantly On The Go? by Ali Hale

For quick updates for Business Women you should follow NancyFClark on twitter here.

Save Time And Boost Your Leadership Status

by Nancy F. Clark (Follow her on Twitter)
Named one of Forbes: Thirty Women Entrepreneurs To Follow On Twitter

 

 Delegation and Time Management [4:51m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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In a previous post, Time Management & Procrastination, I mentioned that delegating tasks to others can save you time. I urged you to stop procrastinating and start giving them away. Now I’m going to say, “Take a few extra minutes—this is not procrastinating—to decide exactly which tasks would be the ones to give away.”

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.

The fact that you’re concerned about time management lets me know that you have more than enough to do at work. That’s good, because it means there’s probably something you can delegate.

Why don’t some people want to delegate?

1. It could be that they want to appear indispensable—you know, “Just try to replace me!”
2. It could be they think it’ll be too much trouble to explain to someone else how to do the job.
3. Or, it could be they don’t want to accept the responsibility of making sure this other person is performing the new task well and on schedule.

To all three above, I say if you want to be considered Leadership Material, get over it! Now, are you ready to delegate? Good, here’s the Business Tip of the Week.

Tip:

There are certain tasks that lower your perceived status in the eyes of others. Your self-improvement lesson this week starts with jotting down the tasks you do in a month’s time. Put an up arrow in front of the status-enhancing ones and a down arrow in front of the down-dragging ones.

Concentrate on the down arrows. Add a #1 to those that you can see others doing fairly soon. Ah, who can you dump these on? No, let’s not get negative here. It may be possible to mentor an underling. What if you combined a couple of your menial tasks with one that’s a level up for this person? You could coach her (or him) while making sure those tasks are handled properly as well. Bundle these jobs together and visit your boss with your proposal for that up and coming person you have in mind, you know, your Time Saver.

Now go out there and improve your status while saving time! What could be better? Oh, I know, improving your status, saving time, and increasing your pay! We’ll get to that part soon.

Visit our website, www.WomensMedia.com, for Expert Advice for Working Women.

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

On our website, WomensMedia Expert Advice for Business Women you should read these excellent articles:

Women and Leadership: Delicate Balancing Act by Hilary Lips, Ph.D., Director of Center for Gender Studies at Radford University

The Y-E-S of Inspiration: Becoming An Inspiring Leader by Rebecca Hourston, MA, CPCC, Director of Programs at Aspire in London, Winner of “Leader in the Workplace 2010”

For quick updates for Business Women you should follow NancyFClark on twitter here,

This Time Management Tool Really Works!

by Nancy F. Clark (Follow her on Twitter)
Named one of Forbes: Thirty Women Entrepreneurs To Follow On Twitter

 

 Using Time Management to Stop Procrastination [5:52m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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First, declare that procrastination is not a good thing. Then, 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 the Tip of the Week.

Confess (to yourself) why this is happening. It may be a different reason for each item. Here are some of the possibilities:

1. I’m overly optimistic, as in “I could get that whole project done in 3 days, and there’s 2 weeks left, so what’s the hurry?” –
2. I see it as too overwhelming – “Great! Why did they give that to me? How could I possibly do it? It’s way too big of a project. I’m not good enough. Sob, sob.”
3. I’m too busy. Don’t ask me!.– (In this case take a look to see if you’re using precious time to complain to people here and there about how busy you are. This is time that could be better spent. Is complaining wasting your valuable time?)
4. This task is unpleasant. I dread doing it.  (It could merely be that you have to make a phone call to tell someone that they are not going to be happy with a new bit of information. Sound familiar?)

Time to confess to you. This blog was due to go out last week. What happened? It took me a while to see through my own procrastination habit. My idea is to select a blog topic that I think needs to be covered in the next week. I jot the idea down, and then finish the one I jotted down last week. What happens in my mind is that I succumb to #1 above: I think, “Oh, I didn’t write down next week’s topic. Well, that’s OK, I have plenty of time.”

Time management is a problem area for me, so I’m eager to delve into more ways to improve the situation. Stay tuned if you have this in common with me!

Break the procrastination cycle with one of these choices.

1. Delegate the task to someone else. Wouldn’t that be great?
2. Tell someone else that you’re going to do the task in question by X date and ask them to help hold you to it. (That’s why I confessed to you about next week’s blog.)
3. Picture the result of not doing the task—this is the negative incentive approach.
4. Or break the procrastination cycle by using my Tip of the Week.

Tip:

I’d like you to take a positive approach. Picture the result of doing the task in question. Fo r one thing, your To Do List will be shorter. And you’ll feel better about your productivity. Maybe you’ll gain gratification, if you’ve taken on a challenging task. For an extra positive approach, let’s add pleasure to the mix. Plan ahead to give yourself a little reward—a big reward if it’s a big task—when you’ve handled the item in question. Who said getting rid of procrastination couldn’t be fun? Fun is a great motivator!

Now, take a look at your list and decide if you want a little or a big reward!

Be sure to visit our website, WomensMedia.com, for Expert Advice for Working Women.

On our website, WomensMedia Expert Advice for Business Women you should read these excellent articles:

Making the Most of Criticism and Praise by Pat Heim, PhD with Susan Murphy, PhD

Money Worries: When Settling for Less Is Not the Answer by Eleanor Blayney, CFP

For quick updates for Business Women you should follow NancyFClark on twitter here,

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Little Miss Perfect Is Not Saving Time

by Nancy Clark (Read about her here.)

(Listen to it here.)

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I like to include the latest research whenever I can so you’ll feel confident when you buck conventional wisdom. However, perfection is tough to measure. If you want the truth, you only have to ask yourself, “Am I guilty of thinking my work is not good enough because it’s not perfect?” Whenever you answer “yes,” I want to you put time above perfection on your priority list and take another look.

Sometimes that 2-page report is sufficient for the task and that 76-page rendition you could deliver would set you back in three ways.

See my advice and my tip to help business women succeed.

Listen to today’s podcast here.

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

Or on our website, WomensMedia you should read:

Advice to Business Women by Carol Bartz, CEO Yahoo! or

How You Can Be An Effective Listener

For quick updates for Business Women you should follow NancyFClark on twitter here.

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Better Time Management Uses A “Do It Now” Technique

(Listen to it here.)

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

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

(Listen to it here.)

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

(Listen to it here.)

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