How To Get More Done: Time Management For The Rest Of Us

Paul B. Brown, Contributor
3/22/2014 @ 5:29AM |419 views
How To Get More Done: Time Management For The Rest Of Us
It’s inevitable.
You work starts to pile up, your “to do” list gets longer, and you reach the point where you are putting in all the hours you possibly can. As a result, you start groping around for any and all ideas that could ease your workload.Eventually, you turn to the idea of time managment. Maybe the ideas, tips and suggestions there will help.
The advice about only handling a piece of paper once, only dealing with email and phone calls at the beginning and/or end of the day, and blocking yourself off from potential interruptions are fine, but they never seemed to free up a lot of time for me.
And so I when I was at the end of my proverbial work rope, I had concluded that time management is a waste of time.
Notice the past tense.
Let me tell you what changed.
Here’s a new thought
I keep looking at people who get a lot done and realized simply saying “time management doesn’t work” wasn’t very helpful. If I closed myself off from new ways of getting more done, I would be doomed to being stressed and feeling over-whelmed.
And so I started experimenting with various approaches to accomplishing more, and finally hit on one that works for me, one that builds on, expands and clarifies an idea we talked about before. but one I had not fully formed until recently.
I now rank everything that is important to me–both professionally and personally–on one piece of paper. They are the most important things I want to accomplish written done in list form.
And every day–weekends too–I work my way down the list.
If item #1 is accomplished, then #2 becomes #1, i.e. my (new) top priority.
If a new goal or objective comes along, it is slotted into the list. It may be the new #1, but odds are it will fall somewhere else. Just because a problem pops up, doesn’t mean it goes to the top of the list.
There are four extremely nice things about taking this approach.
1. It makes you stay focused on the things that are most important to you. (You created the list, after all.) If it is on the list, you tackle it. If it is not, it is not worth your time.
2. Not only does it keeps you focused, it keeps you focused on the right things. You know the third thing on your list is more important to accomplish than item #4.
3. The things you don’t get to are by definition less important to you. (That’s why you work your way down the list starting from the top.)
4. It allows to to mix in personal priorities with your professional ones.
It has proven to be very effective for me and I think it could work for you as well.
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Paul B. Brown is co-author of Just Start published by Harvard BusinessReview Press.