Organize Your Time With The Building Blocks of Productivity
By Denise Landers
What lessons you can learn from small children! One day I was watching two
youngsters, ages 3 and 5, playing with “bricks” constructed out of heavy cardboard.
The brick blocks came in three sizes: a 10” x 16” rectangle, a 10” square, and the
standard 3” x 10” brick size. Over time they spent hours creating structures.
At the beginning there was no understanding of larger pieces providing a stronger
foundation for the smaller pieces and so things would come tumbling down without
using all of the bricks. With lots of trial and error the children discovered that if they
started with the biggest size, they were more likely to be able to use all of the bricks.
An effective daily schedule can also be constructed with three types of blocks. How
much you can pile on (your productivity) each day depends on how well you
organize your time.
Large Blocks – Your Day’s Foundation
Make your day’s foundation an uninterrupted block of time when you can focus on
difficult, involved projects. The ideal length is an hour and a half, approximately
twenty percent of an eight-hour day. If you cannot possibly find that length of time,
try for an hour. Even with 45 minutes of uninterrupted time you can get a
significant amount of work completed because you are not requiring twenty
additional minutes after each interruption to get back into the “flow.” As you
develop this routine, aim for the hour and a half each day.
During this time, do not answer every phone call. Turn off your general email
alerts. If you want to ensure that a certain person or message gets through
immediately, set up your software rules to notify you of that specific message.
When you can block twenty percent of your time, you will accomplish about eighty
percent of your work for the day.
You recognize instinctively that having uninterrupted time is effective when you
arrive at work an hour early or stay for a couple of extra hours at the end of a day,
knowing you will get so much done in that quiet time. Why not become more
productive by including that quiet time within your day instead of adding extra
hours in order to get the same amount of work done?
Medium Blocks (Grouping Blocks) -- Multi-Tasking Isn’t Always The Best Option
Group as many like activities as possible since you are four times more productive
when you can focus on one type of task rather than switching back and forth among
assorted tasks. Constant multi-tasking slows you down. Activities that can be
grouped include returning non-urgent telephone calls, processing your email inbox,
filing, and reading.
The length of this session depends on the work. If you average about five phone
calls at a time, you may only need to block out ten to fifteen minutes. With email,
you might need to spend thirty minutes at a time. Any of these can be repeated
during the day. For instance, you might quickly check your email first thing in the
morning for ten minutes to handle urgent issues, then spend thirty minutes before
lunch and thirty minutes again later in the afternoon. Stick to the amount of time
that you have originally allotted rather than letting it trail on. That will keep you
focused on the task at hand and will increase your productivity. Move what you do
not complete to the next block of time.
Small Blocks – The New Items and Lower Priority Tasks To Be Handles
New items and lower priority tasks can be worked on between the other blocks.
These might include requests for help from a colleague, quick answers to questions,
filling out forms, and other project components that did not fit into your major
blocks, but that you still have time to work on.
Structuring each day starts with locating a space for that large block, followed by
several medium blocks of grouped activities. Small blocks are then added. If you
do the reverse, which means coming in to work and clearing out the small items
before you find a time for the most important work, you may wrap up the day
without handling your priorities.
Why spend extra hours in the evenings on work that you could have fit into the day
with the right construction of your schedule?
About the writer:
Denise Landers, productivity trainer, organizing specialist, author of
Destination: Organization and owner of Key Organization Systems, Inc. has spent
years speaking, training, consulting, and coaching on the topics of time management
and effective workflow. To find easy ways to prioritize, focus and improve your
team productivity, subscribe for free monthly articles on time management and
organizing topics at: www.keyorganization.com/articles.aspx
By Denise Landers
What lessons you can learn from small children! One day I was watching two
youngsters, ages 3 and 5, playing with “bricks” constructed out of heavy cardboard.
The brick blocks came in three sizes: a 10” x 16” rectangle, a 10” square, and the
standard 3” x 10” brick size. Over time they spent hours creating structures.
At the beginning there was no understanding of larger pieces providing a stronger
foundation for the smaller pieces and so things would come tumbling down without
using all of the bricks. With lots of trial and error the children discovered that if they
started with the biggest size, they were more likely to be able to use all of the bricks.
An effective daily schedule can also be constructed with three types of blocks. How
much you can pile on (your productivity) each day depends on how well you
organize your time.
Large Blocks – Your Day’s Foundation
Make your day’s foundation an uninterrupted block of time when you can focus on
difficult, involved projects. The ideal length is an hour and a half, approximately
twenty percent of an eight-hour day. If you cannot possibly find that length of time,
try for an hour. Even with 45 minutes of uninterrupted time you can get a
significant amount of work completed because you are not requiring twenty
additional minutes after each interruption to get back into the “flow.” As you
develop this routine, aim for the hour and a half each day.
During this time, do not answer every phone call. Turn off your general email
alerts. If you want to ensure that a certain person or message gets through
immediately, set up your software rules to notify you of that specific message.
When you can block twenty percent of your time, you will accomplish about eighty
percent of your work for the day.
You recognize instinctively that having uninterrupted time is effective when you
arrive at work an hour early or stay for a couple of extra hours at the end of a day,
knowing you will get so much done in that quiet time. Why not become more
productive by including that quiet time within your day instead of adding extra
hours in order to get the same amount of work done?
Medium Blocks (Grouping Blocks) -- Multi-Tasking Isn’t Always The Best Option
Group as many like activities as possible since you are four times more productive
when you can focus on one type of task rather than switching back and forth among
assorted tasks. Constant multi-tasking slows you down. Activities that can be
grouped include returning non-urgent telephone calls, processing your email inbox,
filing, and reading.
The length of this session depends on the work. If you average about five phone
calls at a time, you may only need to block out ten to fifteen minutes. With email,
you might need to spend thirty minutes at a time. Any of these can be repeated
during the day. For instance, you might quickly check your email first thing in the
morning for ten minutes to handle urgent issues, then spend thirty minutes before
lunch and thirty minutes again later in the afternoon. Stick to the amount of time
that you have originally allotted rather than letting it trail on. That will keep you
focused on the task at hand and will increase your productivity. Move what you do
not complete to the next block of time.
Small Blocks – The New Items and Lower Priority Tasks To Be Handles
New items and lower priority tasks can be worked on between the other blocks.
These might include requests for help from a colleague, quick answers to questions,
filling out forms, and other project components that did not fit into your major
blocks, but that you still have time to work on.
Structuring each day starts with locating a space for that large block, followed by
several medium blocks of grouped activities. Small blocks are then added. If you
do the reverse, which means coming in to work and clearing out the small items
before you find a time for the most important work, you may wrap up the day
without handling your priorities.
Why spend extra hours in the evenings on work that you could have fit into the day
with the right construction of your schedule?
About the writer:
Denise Landers, productivity trainer, organizing specialist, author of
Destination: Organization and owner of Key Organization Systems, Inc. has spent
years speaking, training, consulting, and coaching on the topics of time management
and effective workflow. To find easy ways to prioritize, focus and improve your
team productivity, subscribe for free monthly articles on time management and
organizing topics at: www.keyorganization.com/articles.aspx
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