Those of you who attended my session on “How to have more time in the day” at the recent eFinancials National User Conference will remember we had an interactive session that shared our best time management tips.  Some of them were a little tongue in cheek, but a little smile in every day does go a long way.  Here is the list we generated, which should be of interest to those who couldn’t attend, too.

• Take Regular Breaks
• Don’t Shower As Often
• Set Realistic Expectations
• Work from Home
• Don’t Answer the Phone
• Make A List and Stick To It
• Quick Wins to get People off Your Back
• Plan for Tomorrow
• Bin It
• Prime Time
• Do Not Disturb
• One Word Email Replies Like Yes or No
• Say “thank you” (in person, or by e mail) As someone remarked on the day – “That is BEING POLITE” – and actually costs nothing to do
• Do Nasties First
• Make Appointments With Tasks

On top of this, I covered a lot of other tips and ideas during the presentation.  Here is a summary of those:

1. Using the technology available, rather than being a slave to it, is a really good behaviour to develop.  If you were there, you will remember we had a guinea pig time management volunteer (COA Solutions’ Michelle Wilding) who had managed to wean herself off viewing e mails as soon as they popped into her inbox with the simple expedient of turning off e mail alerts.  She now schedules in email review points in her day, and feels much more in control.
2. Taking breaks to re-charge your batteries (or ‘sharpen your saw’) is another great discipline to develop.  The investment pays.
3. Reduce ‘creative avoidance’ (or procrastination) to a minimum.  This is one of those areas where making an appointment with the task can really help.  It also seems to make most impact if you arrange it early in your day – so, linking to the idea of “doing nasty things you don’t want to do, first”.  Getting something out of the way does seem to rerelease your brain to do a lot more constructive work afterwards.
4. Make a daily plan.  This has most usefulness for me if I do it the night before.  It is a good end to the day, and means I can forget about the pressing tasks, because I know they will get done.  My sister, who works as a school secretary now does this by e mailing herself, so the plan is in her inbox for the next morning.  This has calmed many a previously sleep disturbed night!
5. Interruptions:  Have a ‘Do Not Disturb’ system.  This can be using your new Do Not Disturb hat, from COA Solutions, or something similar.  The rules are that you cannot be always on “do not disturb” and your colleagues will need support from you when they need to be not disturbed too.
6. Batch your tasks: although this works for many small and repetitive tasks, it works especially well with a list of phone calls.  Try it, and see how much you will get done.
7. Telephone calls you take:  If you have caller identification, you can screen and prioritise calls.  Voice mail is a very useful time saver.
8. De-clutter:  Throwing things away really does help to release your creativity and problem solving ability.
9. Handle things once – either refer it on, action it, file it or throw it away (or delete).  So cleansing!
10. Ask for help.  It does give you more time to do other things.
11. Meetings: – Three ideas: Set a stop time and stick to it. .Always have an agenda circulated beforehand.  Use a flip chart to capture the action points.

We hope you enjoyed the session, and even if you couldn’t attend, we hope you find these ideas useful.

Phil Hawthorn, One Step Ahead.

Phil Hawthorn has run One Step Ahead since 1996 – a training company specialising in team and enabling skills.