tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5813499227145242995.post6861189734892669849..comments2023-03-30T07:32:54.558-04:00Comments on What would Judi do?: Time Management....or lack thereofUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5813499227145242995.post-20885202244655542532012-03-22T21:18:46.451-04:002012-03-22T21:18:46.451-04:00I suspect it's not just women who have more ti...I suspect it's not just women who have more time than they think. I think I'd be horrified by the amount of time I spend goofing off as well. I can't recommend anything that works for sure, but I can offer suggestions, and you can try them out to see if anything works for you.<br /><br />A coworker of mine swears by Fly Lady. I don't know what Fly Lady does or suggests, but it might be worth checking out.<br /><br />One thing I do is have rituals: you may have noticed that I always make coffee the same way. I also have a particular order in which I log in and out at work, feed the cat, and probably a bajillion others.<br /><br />The reason this helps is that I can do these things on autopilot, which means I can do other things with my brain, like read news or think about the conversation we're having. It also helps to make sure that I don't skip any steps: if I'm at the close-the-lid step, that means I've already put in coffee, but not water. So that means I don't spend as much time fixing mistakes. (Not that that doesn't happen: the other day, got distracted and didn't put in coffee, and wound up with a pot of hot water. But that doesn't happen very often.)<br /><br />Personally, I find lists and calendars to be very useful. I won't recommend that you use the outline/list/planning tool that I use, for a variety of reasons, but find something that works for you. I suspect you'd want something that runs on your phone. Ideally, I like to break projects all the way down into five-minute tasks, so that I can see what the next thing is, and make a little bit of progress in little increments.<br /><br />And don't underestimate the calendar: if something needs to get done, find a blank space on your calendar and have it nag you about it. Yes, real life will often interfere, or it may turn out that the stuff you were supposed to do on Tuesday took longer than expected, so you can't do the stuff you were supposed to do on Wednesday, but that's okay. It's easy to reschedule. It's just that if it's not on my calendar, I've found that it tends to go on the ever-growing to-do list and never be seen again.<br /><br />I'd like to find a good way of measuring how much time I spend on various activities (or non-activities), but I haven't found a method for getting honest information that doesn't get in the way when I'm actually being productive.<br /><br />You can try to multitask. Like maybe put away dishes while you're fretting or trying to decide what to do next.<br /><br />Finally, make sure that what you do works for you. The best system in the world won't help you if you don't use it. So if you've set aside three hours on Thursday to do billing, and then find yourself playing Words With Friends in the middle of that, consider that maybe you bit off more than you can chew; that this wasn't a schedule you can stick to. So break it up: half an hour of billing, followed by one turn of WWF, followed by another half hour of billing, followed by one level of Stupid Zombies, and so on.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com