Do you have lots of spare time on your hands? Do you laze around all day looking for something to do?
Thought not. More than likely it's the complete opposite. You're searching for more time just to complete even the top half of the critical task list!
OK. So you already know you need to use some time management techniques to organize your time if you're ever going to reach the bottom of the task list; if you're ever going to consistently leave the office, lab, computer or whatever at a reasonable time; if you're ever going to arrange for that SPARE TIME you know you deserve.
Great. You're already a step ahead.
So this article won't talk about the need to manage your day. Rather, we'll discuss one topic on how to manage it. If you've been researching the time management literature, you'll know there are several approaches to organizing your day.
As with all situations like this, I like to play around with different ideas until I find what suits ME. Kind of like split-testing web pages. So, I'm going to share my experience with two time management approaches, called "sliced bread" and "whole bread."
When you first started organizing your daily activities by following what the experts say, you probably made a list of all your tasks and then put them into categories. Depending on your interests (and time of year) they might have be called:
- Very urgent.
- Deal with it very soon before it becomes urgent.
- Get started on this because you'll need it pretty soon.
- It can wait.
OK. I did that too.
Now you need to divide up your time accordingly, giving more emphasis on "putting out the fire" tasks, but also giving attention to the others. In this way, you'll be able to make progress with your whole task list. I called this the "Sliced Bread" approach.
I tried this way for quite some time. I set up Outlook Calendar to chime 15 minutes before the next task was about to start. It worked well and people me around got used to hearing the reminder chime every 45 minutes or so. But there was a problem. The SB method was fine for short-time tasks, but often with the longer and more involved activities, that reminder would go off before I'd made significant progress. Maybe I wasn't dividing up the day properly, but then again, maybe I was trying to do too much in one day?
So I turned to the "Whole Bread" approach. The WB idea says that "it's more efficient to dedicate significant time to your complex problems".
Obviously, if you have 3 really large, urgent pieces of work to finish today, then maybe the only answer is a big pot of coffee and a late night!
But ideally, if you can spend a significant portion of the day working on a large project, you'll have more time to concentrate on it and your subconscious mind won't be waiting for a reminder about the other tasks on the agenda. Likely, you'll do a much better job as a result.
So I tried WB and acheived ............. a much better result! Projects were completed faster and with better quality. I was able to concentrate on each one a couple of times a week.
There are variations to the WB formula as well. First, there are some short-term tasks that you can't put off each day like dealing with emails, or replying to the boss, wife or both. Second, you may find it just as productive to spend the whole morning on one project, but the whole afternoon on another.
So that's where I am right now on my own time management journey. I'll report back to you with updates,
To your success,
From Mike,
NimdX Admin
