This post might only be interesting to some people, but I thought I’d write about “Time Management.” One of my strong points has always been my ability to organize and manage the precious little time we have each day and I thought I’d share how I do it without being obsessive compulsive about it! 
So, for today -so far, I have completed 15 out of 18 tasks that I set out to do today. Two of the tasks I will have to postpone until tomorrow and one task I will finish after I write this post. Throughout the years, I’ve noticed a pattern with most people I meet that they usually finish only a couple of basic tasks each day (other than the necessities). I think this is why many people fail to be truly successful in their careers and even -sometimes- in their personal lives.
I know that I have to constantly be careful not to fall into the trap of staying on the phone too long or with people with whom it is not absolutely necessary to be on the phone during business hours. What I mean by that is spending too much time on the phone can kill your productivity. When it comes to the phone, I screen all calls and try to handle as much as possible by email. It’s ok to chit-chat and shoot-the-breeze, but you have to know when to say when and politely end the conversation to continue working on tasks.
As for me, I spent about 4 hours on the phone today. I had to take a few calls from customers of Imagion (my web hosting company) who had customer support questions, my buddy, Frank, who wanted to discuss some opportunities for Neosys Consulting -my consulting practice, and a few phone calls from my girlfriend, Leah -who was helping me by running some errands.
I spent roughly 1-2 hours on email and the rest doing actual work. Coding, programming, and web design were all on today’s plate. Now, for most people that would leave about 2 hours per day and that’s ok. In an eight hour work-day, having two hours of real, actual work is not bad. This is especially true when the time spent on email is also accomplishing work and moving some piece of a project forward.
Now, when times are tough, I tend to focus and become a bit of a workaholic. I will typically work 10-22 hours (not counting frequent short breaks to stretch, eat, etc) per day every day, seven days a week. My average work-day is probably more like 12-14 hours and I try to take one or two days as personal days. That’s just me, and that’s mostly because I work for myself from home. Nowadays, this is also critical for me -since I cannot get a regular job (see my short bio). So, without a guaranteed income, I typically do this until I get my feet back on the ground. At the moment, I’m still sinking… and sinking fast. However, I can already see my hard work over the past year paying off. I am seeing some income come in, but it is still quite a bit shy of covering my bills. This is a tough spot when you have bad credit (as most people do). I had an 810 credit score at one time, but my credit was shot when I had to leave the country abruptly through no fault of my own -but that’s another story for another day. *wink*
Ok. I digressed a little there, but I tend to do that regularly. Haha. Anyway, there are several things I do to keep me organized and efficient. The tools I use are fairly low budget and easy to come by but they can be life savers. They are:
1. An email client – this is something like Mozilla’s Thunderbird or Microsoft’s Outlook. Web-based email just isn’t as efficient as being notified instantly of new email and being able to archive and search (as long as you organize old emails into folders!)
2. A palm pilot – or any kind of calendar, appointment book, and address book that is portable. This is critical -at least to me- for me to quickly retrieve information and take notes while I’m out and about. It doesn’t have to be fancy either. I use a PalmVx I got on ebay in 2006 for $40 (shipped) unused. That one was my third one bought to replace my last one that died. It lived for almost five(5) years!
3. A calendar software – I use Palm Desktop (free) because it will easily sync with my Palm Pilot. You could also use Outlook’s calendar but the sync doesn’t seem to work as seamlessly.
That’s basically it.
If you write down everything you do each day (task related) and keep track of things like talking on the phone, eating, walking the dog, emailing, and doing actual work; you will see just how much time you spend and where.
This will do two things for you:
1. It will show you where you might be using your time inefficiently
2. It will allow you (eventually) to judge how long things will take and how much you can squeeze into a day
Once you get good at these, you will be a master of “Time Management.” Don’t worry, because it does take time, but with diligence and practice, it will happen.
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